Reweirding: Lost Landscape and Found Lore

A packed Amersham Arms in New Cross last month for the first of a series of 'Reweirding' events there. The theme for March was for 'Reweirding London: Authors on the Secret City', with interesting talks from Caitlin Davies on female crime,  Lara Maiklem on mudlarking on the Thames shore and Tom Chivers on  'London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City' (pictured below left holding his underground London map with host Scott Wood).

The next event,  'Reweirding: Lost Landscape and Found Lore', takes place on Thursday 28 April 2022, 7 pm:

'Discover what remains of south London’s Great North Wood and revel in the revival of the Deptford Jack in the Green mayday celebration. Complementary verdant short films from Video Strolls.

C.J. Schüler, author of The Wood That Built London, charts the fortunes of the North Wood from its earliest times: its ecology, ownership, management, and the gradual encroachment of the metropolis.

The Fowlers Troop Jack in the Green was revived by members of Blackheath Morris Men and friends in the early 1980s. It is a revival of a Jack in the Green from the late 19th/early 20th century which was taken out around Deptford, South East London on May Day by the original Fowlers Troop.

Sarah Crofts tells the tale of the Deptford Jack-in-the-Green and presents David Aylward’s film of the 2006 procession. Artist Sarah Sparkes demonstrates, with some help, with shadow puppets'.

(further details and tickets here).

David Aylward with the Deptford Jack in the Green

Flowers for Teon Campbell-Pitter in Fordham Park

Flowers in Fordham Park, New Cross, where 16 year old Teon Campbell-Pitter was killed on 13 April 2022

Another child killed, more children charged with his killing. Difficult to say anything meaningful, but Peckham-based Power the Fight are doing some good community based work around youth violence.

 

South London Swans

Redcross Way SE1

The sadly closed White Swan pub in Deptford High Street

Hamilton Street, Deptford

 

Anti-Refugee Bill opposed at Brockley Cross

Billboard poster at Brockley Cross denounces the Government's plain evil plans to deport refugees to offshore detention camps. Press reports today suggest refugees arriving in the UK could be flown to Rwanda.

 

Nunhead Museum 2022

It's been a while since the 'Nunhead & District Municipal Museum and Art Gallery' opened its doors to the public, but for one weekend only this idiosyncratic collection can be viewed at 80 Gellatly Road SE14 - part of the Telegraph Hill Festival Open Studios.

Previous openings of the Museum in 2010 and 2011

 

Gormless Rishi and other famous faces on the New Cross Road

Dark clouds gather over the Sainsburys petrol station on New Cross Road - an omen for the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak as inflation rises and people struggle with the cost of living? For it was here that he recently staged that ill dated photo opportunity to demonstrate that he was a man of the people filling up his car, only to be widely mocked after it was broadcast (by Sky News on 23 March) as it was revealed that he had borrowed a Sainsburys worker's car for the shoot and appeared not to know how to pay in the petrol station.

This particular stretch of the New Cross Road has had its fair share of famous visitors, and the experience has not always been a good one. American actor Shia LaBeouf hit the tabloids not once but twice in 2012 and 2014 after getting into fights just across the road in The Rose pub (known at the time as the Hobgoblin). He was dating local actor Mia Goth, press reports this week say they have just had a baby together in Los Angeles, though he is also facing allegations of violence and abuse by ex-partner FKA Twigs.

On a lighter note there was that time in 2016 when Elton John parked his Bentley outside The Rose and popped in to use the loo.

I guess as a main road many notables good, bad and ugly have paused to sample its delights, some of them even able to work out how to pay for things. I remember that the long gone Sirius fish and chip shop near the Walpole, further along New Cross Road, used to boast that Paul McCartney had once stopped there for chips and a pickled onion. Am I imagining that they had a signed photo of him in the shop?