Paul Simon in Catford, August 1965 (and other Catford folk tales)

Simon and Garfunkel released their first album,  'Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.', in 1964 but at the time this did not generate a lot of interest. While Art Garfunkel went off to college, Paul Simon came to the UK and honed his craft on the folk music scene, playing in folk clubs all over the country.

One of the places he played was at the folk club at the Catford Railway Tavern, on Friday 20 August 1965 (source: Melody Maker, 21/8/1965). I believe that at one time he also played at the Green Man on Blackheath Hill.

Melody Maker, 21 August 1965

By this time, Simon and Garfunkel were on the verge of bigger things. In the same month that Simon played in Catford, the duo performed on BBC TV on a Rolf Harris TV programme. Meanwhile a remix of their earlier song 'The Sound of Silence' was picking up radio play and sales in the USA, going on to reach the top of the US charts in January 1966. Paul Simon's days of playing in English pubs were over...

In this period Catford was quite a folk music centre. The club at the Railway Tavern at Catford Bridge (today the Catford Bridge Tavern) hosted many singers, including for instance American singer Julie Felix in November 1964 (Sydenham, Forest Hill & Penge Gazette, 13/11/1964).

A few year later the Rising Sun in Rushey Green hosted the regular 'Phoebus Awakes!' folk club, run I believe by one Dave Cooper (1939-2020). In 1967 for instance Scottish singer Nigel Denver was supported by Dave and Toni Arthur. The latter duo recorded the pagan-infused  cult classic 'Hearken to the Witches Rune' in 1970. Living in Lewisham (I believe at 18 Brandram Road SE13) the Arthurs hosted visiting US singer Jackson C Frank, who recorded his classic 'Blues run the game' while in London. Apparently he once closed off Lewisham high street by letting off a smoke bomb (as recalled in this Dave Arthur interview).

Melody Maker, 29 July 1967

The club was still going in 1976, when BBC Radio 2's Folkweave programme seems to have regularly featured recordings made at the Rising Sun. The pub at 88 Rushey Green closed in the noughties and has been demolished.

As mentioned here before, Pentangle singer Jacqui McShee was born in Catford.

(I am grateful for a regular anonymous commenter to an earlier post on South London Folk Clubs for digging out some of the information above)

The Gig Guide - 1995 South London music listings

I found this June 1995 issue of  The Gig Guide for London in Revolution Records in Penge. I don't remember it from the time and it certainly doesn't cover the breadth of music from that period. Its focus is very much on the pub music scene but it provides an interesting snapshot of South London venues, some no longer here. 

There are some recognisable names. Placebo are listed at playing at McMillans in Deptford which must have been an early gig for them. Brain of Morbius are at the Prince of Orange SE16, Pavement and Motorhead at Brixton Academy and Shane MacGowan and the Popes at the Clapham Grand - followed a week later by Whigfield.  

Most of the other artists aren't familiar - to me anyway - but The Station and The Roebuck in Lewisham, the Rutland in Catford, the White Swan SE10,  the Pie & Kilderkin in Forest Hill (now the Signal), the Paradise Bar in New Cross and the World Turned Upside Down on Old Kent Road are all busy with various rock, jazz and indie nights.  Clubbing was probably bigger than gigging in 1995, it certainly was for me, but that doesn't get too much of a look in here apart from The Fridge in Brixton with its gay nights Love Muscle and Gridlock. Drummonds in Beckenham High Street promises 'the best funk and soul bands' every Thursday.

 

Music Monday: Kae Tempest 'Sunshine on Catford

Loving the new Kae Tempest album, Self-Titled, from a transpontine perspective the track 'Sunshine on Catford' in particular, which features Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys.

Children of Hiroshima - peace meetings in 1950s Lewisham and Bromley

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was founded in 1958 and its first wave of activism peaked in the early 1960s at a time when fears of nuclear war were at their height. The movement against nuclear weapons started a few years earlier, with a key campaigner being the Methodist minister Donald Soper (1903-1998) - who incidentally went to Haberdashers school in New Cross.

In October 1955 'a ten day peace campaign by South London pacifists' included showings of the Japanese film 'Children on Hiroshima', documenting the impact of the first use of a nuclear weapon ten years previously. The film was shown 'in Bromley library and various church halls in Bellingham, Downham, Lewisham and Catford culminating in a  public meeting in Lewisham Town Hall.

Peace News 7 October 1955

Lewisham Borough News, 11 October 1955. Venues for film shows including St Dunstan's Church Hall, Bellingham; Public Library, Bromley High Street; Wesley Church Hall, Downham; St Mark's Church Hall, Lewisham; St Laurence Church Hall, Catford; St Luke's Church Hall, Downham

400 people attended the event in Lewisham Town Hall on 25 October 1955 with an extra hall being needed to accommodate demand.  As well as the film showing, Dr Soper gave a socialist and pacifist speech quoting from Joseph Rotblat (a physicist who had walked away from the Manhattan Project that developed the first nuclear bomb) 'Two of every three people don't have enough to eat. Economically we can have guns or butter but not both. The world must dedicate itself to producing necessities for the life of its increasing population or it will squander its resources in killing suddenly those who do not starve slowly'.  Also speaking was Sybil Morrison (1893-1984). Born in Sunderland Road, Forest Hill she was active in the women's suffrage movement then a lifelong peace activist.

Peace News 4 November 1955 

Stills from film:

Last days of Catford Homebase

The Homebase store in Catford is closing down after the company went into administration. Bad news for the staff working there and also a pain for those who will have to travel further afield in search of DIY and gardening materials. I also the think the building on corner of Bromley Road and Beckenham Hill Road SE6 is quite iconic, not sure what the plans are for its future use. I think it would be suitable for a botanic garden!

The shop sits aside a pond fed by the River Ravensbourne that once served a nearby mill. Known as Southend Pond it was also known for a period as Peter Pan's Pool, a popular post World War 2 boating lake and amusement park for children. Today its island is home to a resident heron and a statue of two lovers.

 

Skinheads at the Savoy Rooms in Catford

The original skinheads in Britain were quite distinct from the neo-nazi affiliated boneheads that became dominant in the 1980s. The style emerged as a shorter haired and tougher looking development from the mod scene, and was characterised by a love of reggae and soul. It would be oversimplifying things to pretend that there was no racism in this scene, but there were black as well as white skins.

One of the early skinheads was Paul Thompson who for a while in 1969-70 helped put together a regular skinhead column for the underground paper The International Times, more usually associated with those of a long hair persuasion.  Paul was attending Goldsmtihs College at the time, and one of his haunts was The Savoy Rooms in Catford, as he discussed in a fascinating interview ' Swimming in the right pond' with Maciej Zurowski in the Weekly Worker back in  2016. Here's a couple of extracts:

'Music and clothes were the two most important things to me. I was over the moon when I found a West Indian record shop in Deptford 10 minutes walk from my college. The reggae vinyl they had on sale had literally come off the boat that afternoon. When I came to London, rocksteady was still going, but shortly after, reggae arrived - that’s what I was mainly picking up at the record store in Deptford. Otherwise, it depended on the DJs. At the Savoy Rooms, they played the latest Tamla Motown singles, but they also kept playing older crowd-pleasers. ‘Same old song’ by the Four Tops was a favourite, as was ‘The clapping song’ by Shirley Ellis, to which we would chant our own rude lyrics.

My most important gig was Desmond Dekker live at the Daylight Inn in Petts Wood on the day that ‘Israelites’ got to number one in the charts. But generally, skinhead culture was more record-oriented. Sometimes, they had live bands playing at the Savoy Rooms, but people quickly got bored watching them. We found it much more fun to have DJs, who could change the music and respond to our moods.

... At the height of the skinhead time, there was always a bunch of West Indian lads at the Savoy Rooms in Catford, which for us was the south-east London place to go....  In terms of fashion, the West Indian skinheads largely imitated the British skinhead style, not the other way round. The other West Indian guys who hung out at the Savoy Rooms - the so-called rudeboys - had their own fashions, which were somewhat different to ours'.

For the International Times column, Paul recalled, 'We also got Steve Maxted involved, who, although not a skin himself, was the skins’ favourite DJ in south London and reviewed the latest reggae vinyl for us'

Maxted was resident DJ at the Savoy Rooms at this time, a larger than life character, who entertained with acrobatics and stunts. He also DJ'd for a while on SE London pirate Radio Sheila. The Savoy Rooms at 75 Rushey Green, SE6 had also been known as The Witchdoctor. The excellent Garage Hangover site has put together a list of bands who played there including in 1969 The Pyramids who under the name Symarip put out the classic Skinhead Moonstomp single that year

Steve Maxted in action - photo by Jozef Maxted from SMART

Pyramids at Savoy Rooms, 1969 (from Garage Hangover)

One of Steve Maxted's reggae review columns from International Times, no, 69, 5 December 1969

See also:

Skinheads at the Union Tavern, Camberwell 1970

Dig that crazy beat - The Savoy in 1960

Mods in South London

The Who in South London
The Mistrale Club in Beckenham - 1960s/1970s
The Green Man in Blackheath - 1960s jazz, r'n'b and Manfred Mann
The Fellowship Inn in Bellingham
Soul City record shop in Deptford

A young Irish woman in Lewisham, 1959

Leaving aside the dubious framing of this story ('workaday beauties' ffs), some nice local detail of a young Irish women's life in Lewisham 1959 - Mary O'Donoghue from Cork working in the Robertson Jam Factory in Catford, living in Davenport Road with her sister (a nurse at Hither Green Hospital) and socialising at the Harp Club in New Cross.

The temporary architecture of Covid-19

Mobile Testing Unit, Canada Water

 Is anybody documenting the temporary architecture of COVID-19?

All those pop-up testing, vaccine and booster centres. White marquees in lockdown-emptied carparks. Public buildings grand and shabby transformed into collection points for saliva and mucus. Neighbourhood chemists with queues round the block administering life-saving vaccines.

Testing Centre by Devonport House, Greenwich

In a nation obsessed with memories of a war that hardly any living person now remembers, analogies are often drawn between the Blitz and the pandemic. Absurd in many ways – viruses are not waging war on us, just reproducing in the conditions of the world we have created. But maybe there are parallels with the vanished bomb shelters that sprang up in World War Two- places of huge significance that largely disappeared when no longer needed, evidenced only by fading signs painted on nearby walls. Nobody is cowering in a test centre fearing sudden death from above but there is a quieter diffuse fear. For some people taking that test was the first step onto a journey that ended in hospital and death. For many that injection was what saved their life.

Booster vaccine queue at New Cross Pharmacy/Waldron Centre

Waldron Health Centre, Amersham Vale SE14. Mural reads (in English and Spanish) 'I feel it is my duty to protect myself and my community'

'

And what of that instant workforce, thousands of people in the front line of the pandemic, a global precariat performing vital tasks on casual contracts employed not by the NHS but by companies like Sodexo. Who is documenting the stories of the ‘Test Operatives’?

We can only hope that one day we will be able to look back and wonder that this was ever how we lived our lives. But for now it sometimes feels that it’s been going on for so long that we risk ceasing to notice how extraordinary this all is.

Walk Through Testing Site, Vanguard Street, Deptford

Lewisham Civic Suite, Catford (and below)

Deer in Brockley (2019) and Catford (1928)

I was delighted by reports over the summer of a muntjac deer being spotted in the Telegraph Hill/Brockley area. Specifically in August there were apparent sightings in Dalrymple Road, Endwell Road and in a garden on Telegraph Hill close to New Cross railway cutting from where Jack Cornish posted an image on twitter. One hypothesis is that the railway line acts as a wildlife corridor along which deer could move into the city from the countryside.

Friend spotted this muntjac deer in her Telegraph Hill garden today - right near New Cross Gate Cutting wildlife reserve.
Anyone else spotted one in Lewisham before?#NationalParkCity #wild #Lewisham #TelegraphHill pic.twitter.com/BJLFsXRV3I

— Jack Cornish (@cornish_jack) August 11, 2019

It would be great if deer could run wild and free in this part of the world Any deer at loose in London today would probably find it quite a frightening experience. Nothing really new in that – we mentioned here before about a deer jumping through a front room window in Hither Green way back in 1915. Here's another sad tale this time from 1928:

'Deer hunt through streets: London flower seller’s capture (Irish times, 26 March 1928)

A young deer, torn and bleeding, suddenly appeared in the streets between Catford Bridge and Rushey Green, London, last Saturday. Chased by dogs, it jumped over walls and railings, and ran through gardens in front of houses. It was eventually captured by a flower seller named Haylor who, carrying it under his arm, got on a bus and took it to Lewisham police station.

Because of the deer’s severe injuries, thought to have been caused by jumping through barbed wire, it was handed over to a butcher to be slaughtered'.

Poster Workshop 1968-71: North Peckham strike and Catford reggae festival

The Poster Workshop was a radical screenprinting project 'set up in a basement at 61 Camden Road, Camden Town, London N1, in the summer of 1968. It was carried along on the wave of rebellion sweeping the world at that time, and was inspired in part by the Atelier Populaire which had resulted from the occupation of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, in May ‘68'. It continued until 1971 by which time more than 200 posters had been produced for and with groups including: 'GLC (Greater London Council) tenants’ associations, protesting against steep rent rises; striking workers at the Dagenham Ford plant; Anti-Apartheid groups; Civil Rights, freedom and liberation movements from all over the world; anti Vietnam War groups; Black Power movements; California Farm Workers Union; the GLC fire brigade; CND (the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament); International Socialists (now Socialist Worker); Young Communists; radical film and theatre companies; Situationists, King Mob, and many different student organisations' (see history here).

A selection of the posters are featured in the current London 1968 exhibition at Tate Britain, and all can be browsed online. For the purposes of this website I was interested to see if there was any South London content in the overall archive - not too much as you might expect for a Camden-based project, but a few windows into the past.

There are two posters that seem to relate to a strike at a Bovis construction site in Peckham - I believe this must have been during the building of the North Peckham Estate for which Bovis were the building contractor (see Municipal Dreams),

It appears that the basis of the dispute was a demand for some kind of productivity bonus payment scheme which the strikers obviously believed Bovis could well afford to pay!

On a different tack there was a poster for a reggae festival at Catford Coop Hall (22 Brownhill Road SE6). Think this must have been on Easter Monday 1969, as that's the only time during period Print Workshop was open that April 7th fell on a non-working day - and it was all day festival. Artists included Steve and the Succession and 'Count Neville Musical Enchanter'. I believe Count Neville ran a Bristol-based sound system in this era.

South London Pub Animal Street Art?

So here's a few street/public art animals to be found in South London pubs.

First up, never mind the famous cat model in Catford town centre, not far away on the south circular is 'The Pride of Catford' puss reaching down for a pint in the garden of the Blythe Hill Tavern (the mosaic mural is the work of Tamara Froud @mosaicallsorts, apparently inspired by the design for the Catford Beer Festival)

From the outside it's looks like a small traditional pub (which it is), but it also has a big space out of the back that is a great place to be on a sunny day/evening. The pub is a Campaign for Real Ale favourite on account of its beer selection (not to mention elderflower cider on tap) and on Thursday and Friday nights you can get a Van Dough pizza and eat it in the pub or garden.

 Thursday nights in the Blythe Hill Tavern also features an Irish music session. The pub has managed to retain its soul as an old school Irish bar while also catering for a broad cross section of the Catford population, old and new.

The car repair shop Mech-Weld next door the pub also has some interesting statues...

Incidentally Catford Beer Festival 2018 is on from 8 - 10 June at Catford Bridge Tavern

Another great pub in terms of outdoor space is The Fox on the Hill (formerly Fox under Hill) on Denmark Hill SE5, currently a Wetherspoon pub. It has big gardens at the front and the back, with lots of mature trees that make it feel quite rural even though you're just up the road from Camberwell. 

And yes the fox in question is extensively represented, including on a statue in front garden...

... and a stained glass window inside:

photo from Trip Advisor

Finally here's a magnificent stag on the side of the White Hart in Crystal Palace Road (Church Road SE19)

Music Monday: Ray BLK - Catford soul

There were lots of South London shout outs at Reading Festival last week including East Dulwich's Tom Misch, Croydon's Loyle Carner and in the Lewisham corner Ray BLK.

Nigerian-born and Catford-raised, Ray BLK (real name Rita Ekwere) was the winner of the BBC's Sound of 2017 award (for emerging talent) as well as Best Newcomer at the 2016 MOBO awards. She has been making music for a while, starting out with the Great Expectations inspired Havisham in 2015, but it was last year's Durt EP that really put her in the spotlight, in particular the track My Hood which features Stormzy.

She's followed it up this year with tracks including the latest single, Doing Me, and guest vocals on the Gorillaz album.

My Hood reflects her love/hate relationship with Lewisham- she wrote it after having her laptop nicked, and told BBC 'I was robbed around the time I wrote it and I honestly just wanted to leave. I was like, "I'm getting robbed. My neighbours sell drugs out of their house. It's not where I need to be." The lyrics reference Morleys chicken, the Blue Borough and Deptford's Pepys Estate:

Socks and sliders everywhere and every day
Full English breakfast at a caff, not a café
No, no, baby, we don't let strangers come our way
But you should come to my hood, my hood, my hood
Meet me at Morley's, best fried chicken is in South
I'll show you gangsters, don't you go running your mouth
Mopeds are racing, two AM outside my house, oh yeah, it's loud
But come to my hood, my hood, my hood...


Barely anyone at school after fifteen
We're chasing paper then Blue Borough should be green
I won't lie, finding a way out is our dream
But you should come to my hood, my hood, my hood
Top floor of Pepys estate, we'll show you our world
That building turns you to a woman from a girl

Transpontine Pantomime, today and past

The Pantomime season is upon us. At Greenwich Theatre, Peter Pan: A New Adventure by Andrew Pollard opened last week, and Peter Pan is also to be found at the Broadway Theatre in Catford this Christmas with The Lost Boy Peter Pan (not technically a pantomime): 'The Broadway’s Resident Theatre Company, the award-winning ACTION TO THE WORD bring their brand new twist on J M Barrie’s classic novel to stage this Christmas. With live music, singing and interactive theatre for children of all ages, this alternative to traditional Pantomime is the perfect treat'.

This year's Telegraph Hill Centre community panto is Mother Goose: 'Mother Goose rents her Brockley hovel from money-grabbing Squire Hatcham. Poor Mother Goose. She’s not young, good looking or well off. But Mother Goose is kind, loyal and a dedicated community activist. Oh yes, she is!' Most shows next weekend are sold out, but still a few tickets left for the Friday.

Transpontine Pantomime

Pantomime has a long association with South London, the phrase 'Transpontine pantomime' being used in the 19th century to refer to the shows on the Surrey side (i.e South side) of the Thames, in venues such as the Surrey Theatre in Blackfriars Road and the Vic at Waterloo. 

An 1867 article entitled 'THE TRANSPONTINE PANTOMIMES' noted that these theatres had become the main venues for Christmas panto: 'In the internecine war raging between pantomime and burlesque, the latter has decidedly the best of it this Christmas in the centre of London. Out of the dozen theatres in the heart of the metropolis, only two, Covent Garden and Drury Lane, have produced pantomimes. In the outlying districts, this time-honoured species of winter amusement is in full force, and notably in the three theatres on the Surrey side of the Thames—Astley's, the Surrey, and the Victoria' (Cheltenham Chronicle, 15 January 1867).  

A review of a pantomime at the Surrey in 1866 describes the ingredients: 

 'A sufficient stringing together of nursery rhymes, a little touch of fairy machinery, a lover and a princess, with a rival possessor of magic powers, while a benevolent fairy or an old woman and her cat agree to befriend true love, and in the end are successful, or, if not, bring all the parties into Fairyland, and there change them into harlequin, columbine, and clown, and you have a transpontine pantomime of the present day' (London Daily News, 27 December 1866) 

So familiar was the formula that the phrase 'transpontine pantomime' passed into the language as a metaphor for absurd and knockabout events. So a parade of Chinese soldiers in 1894 was described as thus: 'their drill and demeanour, were suggestive of a show of a transpontine pantomime. (Western Times, 31 October 1894). Similarly the humiliation of the Ashanti king during the British occupation of what is now Ghana was decribed as  'A scene more fit for a transpontine pantomime than one de-signed to impress a conquered foe with the idea of European dignity or British magnanimity' (Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 24 January 1896).

A plaque for Catford's Antarctic Explorer

'On Saturday 10th September, a Lewisham Council plaque will be unveiled to mark the Catford residence of Captain William Colbeck (1871–1930).  Captain Colbeck moved to 51 Inchmery Road in 1913, following an adventurous career at sea, which included:

• being a member of the first expedition to spend a whole year on the Antarctic continent (The Southern Cross expedition, 1898–1900)

• travelling further south than anyone previously (to 78° 50’, on 17 February 1900), with the Norwegian leader of the expedition, Carsten Borchgrevink

• bringing food and fuel supplies to Captain Scott and his men on the ice-bound Discovery in 1903, and again in 1904

• helping to release the Discovery from the ice, by blasting open an 18-mile passage to the open sea.

The plaque has been funded by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT) and the Culverley Green Residents’ Association.  It will be unveiled by Dr Kevin Fewster, Director of the National Maritime Museum.  Also present will be Camilla Nichol, Chief Executive of the UKAHT, and Heidi Alexander, MP, along with descendants of Captain Colbeck and other figures from the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration'. 

This will be the third plaque in Lewisham to an Antarctic explorer, joining Sir James Clark Ross in Blackheath and Sir Ernest Shackleton in Sydenham. The borough can thus boast a record three of the six Antarctic plaques in London.

Official unveiling:

51 Inchmery Road, Catford, SE6 2N, Saturday 10 September 2016, 11.30am-12noon

 

 

 

So many (free) films, so little time

The free film festival scene continues to grow, easy to take them for granted but seeing lots of great movies for free at interesting venues on your doorstep - how cool is that?

Peckham and Nunhead  is on right now until 11 September - full programme here. It will soon be followed locally by Forest Hill from 9 September (as well as Charlton and Woolwich starting on same day), then Catford free film festival from 16 September - opening event is The Great Gatsby at Broadway Theatre, with live music beforehand from Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir.

'Dig that Crazy Beat' - Friday night at The Savoy in Catford, 1960

From the Daily Mirror, 1 October 1960:

'The Mirror drops in for a night out at The Savoy in Catford SE6'

'from Dixon Scott, Catford, Friday Night'

'Lots of hugging - but no kissing! Tell her you love her - but no kissing! Ask her to marry you as you whirl around the dance hall - but no kissing! I dropped in tonight on Britain's unique youth club - the Savoy Social Club, Catford, London SE6. And that name, borrowed unashamedly from the famous hotel in the Strand, sets the tone of this club. 

Apart from the no kissing rule (which surely applies to the Savoy Hotel) the boys must wear a jacket and tie (which they would have to do in the Savoy Hotel, anyway)...tonight is night of the Annual dance. In the main ballroom, where Bobby Johnson and his Orchestra are playing, most of the 600 couples are dancing... dancing... dancing. Downstairs in a smaller, intimate Number Two ballroom, the rest of the Annual Dance's guests "get with it"

The club was originally an ordinary money-making commercial dance hall. Below it was a billiard hall. Five years ago the dance hall owner, Mr Christopher Reynolds thought "What a good youth club this would make". He put his thought into action. The billiards hall was taken over... Listen to Councillor Alfred Hawkins, a former mayor of the borough of Lewisham, which includes Catford:

"We as a council are pleased with this place. So are the police. And any mother knows she can send her daughters her - safely". What a testimonial'.

'Dig that crazy beat! Some of the hop-happy folk swing right into a good time at the club's dance'

Emile Ford, who moved to London from Saint Lucia in the 1950s, had a massive hit with his band (Emile Ford and the Checkmates) in 1959, with their version of  "What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?" staying at the top of the UK singles chart for six weeks.

The upstairs at the Savoy later became known as The Witchdoctor (from October 1965) with bands who played there including The Who (April 1966), The Creation (April 1967) The Skatalites (three times in 1967), Jimmy Cliff (May 1968) and Marmalade (in 1967 and 68) - the excellent Garage Hangover has a long list.

The downstairs was also known for a period as  Mr Smiths, scene of an infamous fight between members of the rival Kray and Richardson gangs in 1966 which left Kray associate Richard Hart shot dead at the back of the club.

(photo of the Savoy ballroom from Alamy)

The site of the former Savoy today, 75 Rushey Green

See earlier post on Mods in South London which has lots of great discussion about this and other venues from that time.