Rubbish & Nasty, New Cross Road - noughties ''nu-rave squat-chic"

Was chatting today about noughties New Cross and was reminded of Rubbish and Nasty, a music/retro clothes shop that was at 308 New Cross Road from around 2006-8. It was part of a row of interesting places including Prangsta (304), Cafe Crema (306), and a little earlier the squatted coffee shop at 310. All in a row living under the curse of threatened redevelopment by the landlord, Goldsmiths College (at time of writing mostly empty).

I believe it was run by Ian McQuaid, who used to work at Morps record shop, downstairs in Moonbow Jake's cafe (I think he also put on the Fear of Music nights at the Montague Arms).  Also running the shop was Sophi Soni who created a great Rubbish Fairy shrine behind the shop.

Found a couple of photos of the shrine, including this one from Darryl SE7

...and this one from the Rubbish Fairy herself, on insta now as house_of_doll

The place was mentioned in an article by Joe Muggs, 'Is New Cross the New Camden' in the Standard (9 Nov 2007) which proclaimed it as the haunt of 'nu-rave squat-chic types'

They put on some gigs/parties there, remember seeing Lost Penguin there in 2006.

David Lynch/Elephant Man in Shad Thames SE1

Shad Thames/Butlers Wharf has been used in so many films, evoking as it does to this day the lost world of dockside London with its warehouses and narrow streets.

It was memorably used in 'The Elephant Man' (1980),  starring John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins and directed by David Lynch, who was hired for the job by producer Mel Brooks.

David Lynch on set with John Hurt

As Mel Brooks recalled in his book 'All About Me': “The first day of shooting with David Lynch was in October 1979 on Butler’s Wharf on the South Bank of the Thames River just east of London’s Tower Bridge. It was a chilly day, and David Lynch had arrived earlier on the set without a coat. I sent somebody to Harrods department store with David’s measurements and bought him a warm, dark blue, brushed woolen English overcoat. He wore it every day — I’m not kidding. Every day! Whether he was indoors or outdoors, every time he directed a scene for The Elephant Man he was wearing that blue coat. I think he might have believed it was some kind of good luck charm.

Many years later in 2013, when I was awarded the American Film Institute’s prestigious Life Achievement Award, among the celebrated filmmakers that honored me that night was David Lynch. When he told the story of how we had met on The Elephant Man he actually brought out onto the stage with him the blue coat that I had bought for him at Harrods, which he had carefully tucked away in his cedar closet all these years. I can’t tell you how touched I was at the sight of that coat.” 

Anthony Hopkins

Update 22 Jan 2024 - I originally thought that the Anthony Hopkins picture above was in Shad Thames but it has been pointed out that it is probably Wapping High Street across the river. It seems that both streets were used in the film. According to  'Making the Elephant Man: a producer's memoir' by Jonathan Sanger (2016): 'Wapping High Street was a long cobblestoned road filled with wharves that dated to around the time of our story. It was right next to the famous Tower Bridge. The wharves were soon to be gutted and refurbished into high end condominiums but we still had enough time to capture them in their 19th century squalor. Shad Thames was also close to the river but on the opposite side from Wapping and also consisted of a series of cobblestoned alleys and dead ends that had not yet been prettified. We decided to center our opening sequences around these streets'

  Reelstreets has also identified some scenes being filmed in Clink Street SE1, round the back of Southwark Cathedral. And Vanessa Woolf has said that she believes the production used the Jacob Street film studios SE1, a little further along the river from Butlers Wharf.

A scene in Clink Street, according to Reelstreets

Wonder if Lynch crossed paths with film maker Derek Jarman at this time? The latter was living in Butlers Wharf in 1979.

Hollydale Tavern reopens

The Hollydale Tavern - on the corner of Hollydale and Brayards Roads SE15 - has been spruced up and reopened, having been closed since 2019. We popped in for an early evening drink last week, very child friendly at that time of night with craft activities for kids going on and families ordering in pizza from Yard Sale.

The pub has an exhibition of delightful bird prints by locally based artist Fran Giffard. Fran says 'I  live and work in Peckham Rye, London. When I am not drawing birds in my studio, I am studying them at the Natural History Museum or the Horniman Museum' (interview with her at Little Observationist).

photo by Fran Giffard 

Goldfinch 

HMS Belfast: Housing Protest (1981), Spandau Ballet and some seagulls

HMS Belfast is a 1930s built Royal Navy warship that has been permanently moored on the south bank of the Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge since 1971. It is managed as a tourist attraction by the Imperial War Museum. I am not a big fan of military hardware and remember a not so exciting trip there when I was at school, but no doubt there are interesting stories to be told about it not least its manufacture in the Harland and Wolff shipyward in Belfast -a notoriously sectarian workplace where Catholics had been violently expelled from their jobs - and its wanderings through the last days of Empire.

Not to mention that time it unwittingly hosted an early gig by Spandau Ballet in July 1980. The story is that they booked it as a private graduation party for some Oxford students. As remembered by their manager Steve Dagger: 

'Our host began to suspect he had been misled as the band’s equipment started to arrive and became agitated. His mood blackened as he saw the nature of the crowd that was arriving. This was the combined forces of hip London Blitz/club culture at its finest. There were Elizabethan inspired crossdressers, there were Soul boys, Rockabillies, there were Fritz Lang futurists, there was Boy George, Marilyn, Phillip Salon in their prime and one man in a wedding dress with fairy lights who asked Graham if there was a plug socket he could use to illuminate. Rusty Egan, the DJ from the Blitz and our great friend began his set of electronic sounds. It got worse still as the party got started and as the crowd became boisterous with drink, drugs (there was a lot of acid and speed ), and a degree of sex... Legendary club promoter Dave Mahoney, Polecat band member Phil Bloomberg, and others, although on the guest list, stole a rowing boat, and boarded the Belfast from the river. As the fire eaters that Chris had booked arrived and combined with his discovery of 2 men having sex in the engine room, it would be fair to say that our host went mental' (Source:  Spandauballet.com). The ship also featured in 1980s videos for Kelly Marie’s It Feels Like I’m in Love  and Depeche Mode's People are People.

Spandau Ballet on board ship

Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode) below deck

In  April 1981, HMS Belfast's eyecatching properties were put to use in a short protest demanding that the nearby Hays Wharf site be converted for housing not offices. Peter Tatchell, who took part, later recalled 'We bought a group concession in the name of the East Dulwich Tennis Club and then strung huge banners from the bridge.’  Tatchell can be seen between two banners in photo below, seemingly with the slogans 'Homes not offices' and 'houses on Hays Wharf'. At the time Tatchell was secretary of Bermondsey Labour Party and was soon (1983) to face  a virulently homophobic campaign when standing in the notorious Bermondsey byelection of 1983. The Hays Wharf campaign was not successful, though as highlighted in the excellent SE1 Stories exhibition and pamphlet, community action in that period did achieve some victories which is why social housing was built close to the riverfront from Waterloo to Rotherhithe.

photo by George Nicholson

Anyway today you can meet some interesting gulls chilling out by the boat and note how the Royal Navy appropriated their colouring for camouflage.

Black headed gull - in winter plumage with a whte head

Herring Gull

 Post prompted by a couple of pleasant encounters with seagulls in January 2025 and seeing the SE1 Stories exhibition at the Castle lesiure centre in Elephant and Castle.

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