Swedenborg Churches in South London (Deptford, Camberwell, Norwood)

 The visionary Christianity of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) had a big impact on the more mystically inclined believers in the 18th and 19th centuries, famously including William Blake (though never somebody to bow to another's doctrine he had his criticisms of the Swedish thinker). To this day the Swedenborg Society still maintain a centre in Covent Garden where they put on some interesting events.

In the late 19th century there were at least three 'New Jerusalem Church' congregations in South London:  in Flodden Road, Camberwell; in Warwick Street, Deptford; and off Anerley Hill in Upper Norwood.

According to Lewisham archives, The Deptford New Jerusalem Church on Warwick Street (now Warwickshire path) was built in 1871and closed in 1949 though it was later used by the Deptford Branch of British Legion.

The Camberwell church is pictured below in 1908 (it closed in 1970):

The Deptford and Camberwell buildings are long gone, but another New Church off Anerley Hill remained open until 1987 and has been converted to housing (New Church Court in Waldegrave Road, near to Crystal Palace station):

Crystal Palace Dragon and Griffin

Dragon and griffin in a Crystal Palace antique/vintage shop window (in Church Road). Fine 'lifesize' specimens - well who knows what size the real ones are? Apparently these were originally part of the Lightopia installation in Crystal Palace Park but were left behind when the company went bust in January 2023.

 

The Peanut Factory: squatting in South London in the 1970s

I really enjoyed reading 'The Peanut Factory' by Deborah Price (Guts Publishing, 2022), her memoir of life in South London squats in the 1970s and early 80s - and specifically the scene in the Crystal Palace/Norwood area. Must admit that despite myself being a Brixton squatter later in the 80s I had no idea how much squatting there was around that nearby part of London. But this was in a period when there were plentiful empty private and council homes for people to live in if they could cope with disrepair and no hot water.

She particularly mentions a triangle of streets lower down Gypsy Hill where many of the houses were squatted and a warehouse known as the Peanut Factory became an informal community centre: 'There was big rockabilly scene down at the squats, with King Kurt and other fledgling bands, and a lot of quiffs and hair-gel. Parties happened every weekend. It was amazing how many people could cram into a small Victorian terrace'.

People living round Upper Norwood will appreciate some of the hyperlocal detail, including memories of working in local pubs, the zoo and Crystal Palace Adventure Playground. But there is a lot here for anyone interested in alternative scenes in London and their cultural history. 

Price really evokes this time through her relationships with a shifting cast of friends, lovers and flat mates. There is freedom and affordable living, but also addiction and sexual abuse.

Price moves through the sub cultures of the time, leaving aside her former hippy clothes and records to enthusiastically embrace punk and then moving on to clubbing at places like the Fridge in Brixton, the WAG and Le Beat Route: 'Getting dressed up and partying was a living protest against cuts and poverty. It was fingers up to the Government'. Sometimes cultural/music historians treat these scenes as a succession of completely distinct moments, when the fact is it was sometimes the same people involved just changing their clothes.

The Fridge is probably best remembered now for its long term location at the bottom of Brixton Hill, now home of Electric Brixton. But for a couple of years in the early 1980s it was above the Iceland store on Brixton Road. Price remembers it at that time as being 'glittering white, decorated with lots of fake ice stalagmites and stalactites... lit up with silver and blue lights to get a cold icy backdrop' (I went there once to see Rubella Ballet). She also recalls regularly getting her cut at one of the famous gay squats on Railton Road. 

The author is giving a talk at the Bookseller Crown bookshop in Crystal Palace on 26th May 2022, details here. 

1970s football and factories - Charlton, Millwall and Palace

Found recently at Deptford market, three football programmes from three South London teams - Crystal Palace, Millwall, and Charlton (guess they must have been from a Chartlon fan, as the Palace and Millwall programmes are from matches against the Addicks). As well as a window on 1970s football adverts in programmes recall an age of mass employment in  London factories

Chartlon v Oxford United 1975 - this was a League Cup match that ended in a 3-3 draw.

Stone Manganese Marine Ltd - 'the world's largest marine propeller builders' based in Charlton advertising for staff in the CAFC programme. The propellor factory later moved to Birkenhead (it closed there in 1998), though the related Stone Foundries is still going.

Millwall v Charlon, September 1977 - a 1-1 draw in Division Two

Millwall sponsors 1977 - mostly small business by the look of it, wonder how many of these are still going. I can see the Duke of Albany, Monson Road in there - New Cross pub now flats. Parke Record Distributors, based in Bromley, went bust in 1981.



Palace v Charlton in Octobe 1977 - 1-1 in Divison Two

'Congratulations on reaching the second division from a first division company'. Philips advertises for staff at its Croydon factory, where it made TVs.  The company moved its electronic HQ from Croydon to Guildford in 2004.

Crystal Palace Subway

As part of Open House London this weekend, the old Crystal Palace Subway is open this weekend and I went along today. The subway, which opened in 1865, once linked the High Level Station to Crystal Palace Park, passing under Crystal Palace Parade. After the Crystal Palace was burned down in 1936, the need for it declined. It was used as an air raid shelter in World War Two, but became obsolete when the High Level railway station was closed in 1954. In the 1970s it was bricked up, and although occasionally broken into for raves it has rarely been opened since.

nice touch - a list of staff known to have worked in the station refreshment rooms

The subway is open again tomorrow, Sunday 17 September 2016, 10 -  5, no need to book

Check out Friends of Crystal Palace Subway

The Chemical Brothers 'Setting Sun' video was filmed there in 1996

Zoe Konez - Bones

Zoe Konez, singer with Cat Bear Tree (featured here previously), has a new solo single out this week. The video for Bones was filmed by Gareth Gray at  Antenna Studios in Crystal Palace (where, among others, Florence and The Machine started out rehearsing).

Camberwell-based Zoe will be launching Bones this Wednesday 20th July at The Green Note, Camden, NW1 7AN with 'A Night Of Musical Collaboration With Guests' including Kimberly Anne, Antonio Lulic and Adrian Roye. 

An 1890s Indian Visitor to Crystal Palace - and New Cross?

The Reverand Thomas B. Pandian of Madras (sometimes known as T.B. Pandian or T.B. Pandiyan) was a Hindu convert to Christianity who came to England in 1893 to raise awareness of the plight of low caste 'Pariahs'. His travels in this country inspired his book 'England to an Indian Eye, Or, English Pictures from an Indian Camera' (1897), which is available to read for free at archive.org. It is  a work that includes lots of interesting observations such as his remark that 'the rage for cycling has taken full and fast hold of the people of England, as is evidenced by the fact that London is simply  over-run by "wheelers" of both sexes'. 

While describing London as 'the most remarkable city on the face of the globe' he did not overlook its miseries, such as the plight of the homeless: 'scores of such can, when darkness sets in, find no better resting-place than that afforded them by the doorsteps of public buildings, and obscure angles forming the junctures of adjoining structures  of one kind or another. Foodless, half-clothed, lying through the live-long night on the bare surface of these stony  bedsteads— so cold, so damp, so hard— life to the houseless poor of London must seem nothing more than an intolerable  condition of agonizing cursedness! What wonder, then, that so many of these wretched beings daily call in the angel  of death to relieve them before their appointed time, ending their earthly miseries by plunging themselves headlong into  the unclean waters of their Father Thames!'

Pandian describes a visit to the Crystal Palace:

'No sight-seer will think of leaving London without looking in at the world-famed 'Palace of Glass' in Upper 

Norwood, where John Bull and all his household disport themselves in a hundred different holidays. The Crystal Palace hall is capable of accommodating several thousands of people, and it is here that popular 

concerts and musical entertainments, organised on a large scale, are held, and it is here also that monster meetings of all sorts take place, when they are intended to present the character and significance of a national demonstration. So grandly beautiful is the appearance of this magnificent structure that I could well imagine a Christian villager from India regarding the edifice as a prototype of one of the 'many mansions' he has been taught to believe in as being  'prepared' for those who follow the teachings of the Heaven-sent Master he has learnt to serve. In a word, the  Crystal Palace of London is best described as being a splendid exhibition in itself, such as cannot be found in any  other part of the globe. It is, moreover, a complete and comprehensive index to England's commercial wealth and greatness'.

In a post earlier this week I featured a photo taken in that period at the New Cross studio of photographer R.F. Barnes. I am wondering whether this might actually be T.B. Pandian himself. There's some discussion at a family history site which suggests a link between Pandian and this photo- the key is the book he is holding. On highest resolution I could see that the last word on title is 'Peninsula' and others have spotted that the other visible word looks like 'Heroes'. Pandian was the author of a book entitled 'The Ancient Heroes of South Indian Peninsula', published in the year of that visit to London - 1893. Why else would he be holding that particular book in the photograph unless he had written it himself?

(Pandian's account is mentioned in Sukhdev Sandhu's excellent 'London Calling: how Black and Asian writers imagined a city', Harper, 2004)

Ian Wright remembers growing up on Honor Oak Estate

'Ian Wright: Nothing to Something' is a great documentary where the former Crystal Palace, Arsenal and England footballer talks about growing up in South East London. It's quite a moving film, with Wright just talking to camera about a rough and abusive childhood, rejection by football clubs as a youth player, before finally being signed by Crystal Palace as a 21 year old.

In the programme Wright says he grew up in 'Brockley and Crofton Park', specifically for much of his childhood on Honor Oak Estate. He recalls going on the Honor Oak Estate annual summer trip to the seaside, and going shopping for clothes in Peckham (looking enviously in Grants' shop window at shoes he couldn't afford). On the Estate he used to play football with David Rocastle, later his colleague at Arsenal (Wright gets very emotional over Rocastle's sad early death)

Ian Wright meets his old Primary School teacher Syd Pigden

He credits one of his primary school teachers, Mr Pigden, as having a major influence on his life as a positive male figure and a football mentor. In this programme the school isn't named, but Syd Pigden was at Turnham Primary School where Wright moved after starting out at Gordonbrock Primary. Many years later at Arsenal, Mr Pigden and Wright were reunited in another TV programme - with Wright surprized and overwhelmed at finding he was still alive

Later Wright went to Samuel Pepys Secondary School in Sprules/Wallbutton Road SE4 - now Christ the King VI Form. After leaving school, he worked at Tunnel Refineries in Greenwich before being discovered by Palace.

According to 'The Wright Stuff' by Rick Glanvill, (1995) Ian Wright was born in 1963 in the British Hospital, Samuel Street, Woolwich. His cousin Patrick Robinson was born a few days later: 'It probably never crossed the minds of the two proud mothers that the fruits of their wombs would, between them, eventually have Saturday night television stitched up: Ian Wright gracing the pastures of Match of the Day and Patrick Robinson providing the amiable beside manner as Martin 'Ash; Ashford in the popular BBC soap, Casualty'. They lived together for a while in Manor Avenue, Forest Hill

You can watch the programme for another few weeks at ITV. I saw Wright a couple of years ago in Stillness Road, think he still has some family in the area. His sons Shaun and Bradley Wright-Phillips - both also footballers - went to Haberdashers Askes school in New Cross.

Shadows from Norwood

Author David Hambling has transplanted HP Lovecraft's horror mythos from New England to SE19 in his collection  'Shadows from Norwood'. The seven stories features local landmarks including the Crystal Palace ('The Monsters in the Park') and the underground River Effra ('Two Fingers'). Inevitably there's a story called the Dulwich Horror of 1927 ('The Dunwich Horror' is one of Lovecraft's most famous stories)

You can download the e-book for free this weekend (normal price £2.49) from Amazon. A paperback version will be out soon. Shadows from Norwood also has a Facebook page with has a Google map of the locations mentioned in the stories and a few bonus extra features.

The origins of the May Day bank holiday

Enjoying the May Day bank holiday?  A resolution calling for two new public holidays a year, on May Day and New Year's Day, was passed by the Trades Union Congress in 1970 and in 1975 the Labour Government declared that from 1978, May Day (or the Monday after it) would be a bank holiday. So this is the 35th May Day bank holiday. But the significance of May Day for the workers movement goes back to the 1880s. Here's another extract fom my pamphlet 'May Day in South London: a history', which you can now download for free here:

'For the early workers movement internationally a key demand was for a reduction in the length of the working day. The 1884 Chicago congress of the Federation of Organized and Labor Unions (which later become the American Federation of Labor) declared that from May 1st 1886, it would impose an eight-hour working day in the United States by industrial action... the events of Saturday 1 May 1886 and the succeeding days are well documented. The eight hour day strike went ahead in parts of the USA, and by May 3 1886 perhaps 750,000 workers had struck or demonstrated. In Chicago police killed two people when they opened fire on Monday 3 May during clashes outside the McCormack Reaper Works, where workers had been on strike since February. The following day a policeman was killed by a bomb thrown at a protest meeting in Haymarket square in the city.

Eight anarchists who had been in the forefront of the 8-hour-day agitation in Chicago were convicted of murder, of whom seven were sentenced to death. There was an international outcry against the trial and the sentences. In London those who spoke out included William Morris, Annie Besant (who had lived in Colby Road, Upper Norwood), George Bernard Shaw, Peter Kropotkin (then living at 6 Crescent Road, Bromley), Oscar Wilde, Edward Carpenter, Ford Madox Brown, Walter Crane, E. Nesbit (then living in Lewisham), Eleanor Marx and Edward Aveling (who later lived in Sydenham). A meeting on the case was held at the Peckham Reform Club (Freedom, November 1897). Nevertheless, four of the accused were hanged. The deaths in Chicago had a powerful impact across the world, not least on Jim Connell who was inspired to write 'The Red Flag' anthem in 1889 on a train to New Cross - he was living at 408 New Cross Road at the time (he later lived at 22a Stondon Park SE23).

The movement for a shorter working day did not die with those who became known as the Chicago Martyrs. In December 1888 the American Federation of Labour called for a national day of demonstrations and strikes on 1 May 1890, and this call was echoed in July 1889 by the international socialist conference in Paris. So it was that from 1890 May Day became an annual international festival of working class solidarity.

The 1890s

In London, May Day 1890 was marked by a huge demonstration in Hyde Park, a venue that was to become the focus for May Day protests for many years to come. May 1st 1890 actually fell on a Thursday, and saw London anarchists holding a meeting at Clerkenwell Green. The main demonstration took place on the following Sunday - May 4th - and saw contingents heading towards Hyde Park from all over London. A description from the South London Press of the attendance of the North Camberwell Radical Club and Institute' provides an insight into how local groups organised themselves for the march:

‘A goodly contingent went from this club to take part in the monster eight-hours demonstration. The procession was headed by the club's excellent band, which discoursed some well-chosen music on the way. A large banner followed, bearing the device in front, 'The Proletariat Unite', and on the reverse side the legend, 'Eight hours' work, eight hours' pay; Eight hours' rest, eight bob a day'. Mr Oodshorn devised and executed the banner, which was very effective. Mr J. Harrison (chairman of the club) headed those who marched in front, and Mr. H.J. Begg accompanied the contingent until it took its place in the general ranks. Two breaks followed the pedestrians - one full of ladies, and one containing those of the sterner sex who were not equal to a four-hours march on a warm day. Messrs. Benstroke and J.Sage (chairman of the Political Council) acted as marshalls. The breaks, which added greatly to the effectiveness of the procession, were under the charge of Mr A. Boreham (chairman of the Entertainment Sub-Committee). The contingent arrived in the park in time to hear some good speaking from No.7 Platform, and afterwards Mrs Besant's stirring speech from the Socialists' platform. The whole affair was excellently managed, and good humour and good order prevailed throughout’ (South London Press, 10 May 1890).

The next few years saw this route being repeated. In 1891, the North Camberwell Radical Club was again said to have been busy in preparing for the 8 hours demonstration in Hyde Park (SLP 25 April1891). The Club was based in Albany Road.

In 1892 a crowd estimated between 300 and 500,000 marched from Westminster Bridge to Hyde Park, with 350 banners and 110 bands. An observer reported that 'The great staple industries of London, the dockers, the stevedores, the coal-porters, the gas-workers... railway workers, and so on, came first: and then a whole host of miscellaneous trades, led by little Jew cigar and cigarette-makers from the East End... The Workgirls… were in great force. The chocolate-makers had a smart little wagonettte all to themselves, from which they dispensed 'Union Chocolate' in penny packets' matchgirls’. Those present included Bernard Shaw, Tom Mann and Louise Michel (all of whom spoke), Eleanor Marx and the elderly Frederick Engels.
The crowd was so large that 'the South London contingent, led by John Burns, never got in at all, and it turned sadly back without a chance of attending the meeting. In a word, London has never seen such a gigantic turn-out of the forces which create her wealth' (Penny Illustrated Paper, 7 May 1892)

Crystal Palace and Walter Crane

The turn of the new century saw the main May Day event moving to South London at the Crystal Palace. The Palace had been hosting May Day celebrations for many years. In the 1850s, William Husk of the Sacred Harmonic Society had helped recreate a Tudor-style May game there. On May Day 1866 'a great concert of five thousand voices was given by children and others connected with the metropolitan schools... Ethardo [a circus performer] also reappeared, his lofty pole being converted into a gigantic maypole. On the following day Mr Charles Dickens kindly undertook to give a reading of Little Dombey' (PIP 5 May 1866). In 1898 a 'Crystal Palace May Day Festival' had included 'May-Day Sports and Maypole dance' with a programme featuring 'the Clan Johnson, Scottish Dancers and Champion Pipers and an Old English Maypole Dance' as well as a 'Grand May-Day Concert' featuring 'madrigals by the Crystal Palace Choir' (advert in the Times, 1 May 1899).

May Day 1900 was different in tone. The Times reported that 12,000 took part, including 'about 150 associations connected with the Social Democratic Federation and London Trades Council'. Six platforms were set up and the resolutions carried included one asserting 'their determination to overthrow wagedom and capitalism, and to establish by united efforts that international co-operative commonwealth in which all the instruments of industry will be owned and controlled by the organized communities and equal opportunity be given to all to lead healthy, happy human lives' (Times, 2 May 1900).

The event did though include more traditional May Day elements alongside the socialist speeches: ‘There was a procession at half past two, and meetings at 3 o'clock. There were also cycling and athletic sports, a Maypole dance and other attractions. The programme concluded with a display of fireworks by C.T. Brock & Co., including a special set Labour piece by Walter Crane' (South London Press, 5 May 1900). Other attractions of the 'International Labour Festival' included a variety show and a performance of Bernard Shaw's 'Widowers' Houses' (advert in Times, 1 May 1900).

The artist Walter Crane recalled: ‘Labour's May Day, which has become an international festival in the Socialist movement, was this year celebrated at the Crystal Palace, which certainly afforded plenty of space for the gathering, as well as entertainment and refreshment in the intervals of the functions. A vast meeting was held under the dome, and this was addressed by many of the leaders, such as Mr. H. M. Hyndman, Mr. G. N. Barnes, Secretary of the Amalgamated Engineers (and now in Parliament), Mr. Pete Curran, Mr. Ben Tillet, and many others. I made a design for a set piece for the firework display which was carried out on a gigantic scale and with remarkable success by Messrs. Brock. It was a group of four figures, typifying the workers of the world, joining hands, a winged central figure with the cap of Liberty, encircled by the globe, uniting them, and a scroll with the words ‘The Unity of Labour is the Hope of the World’. It was the first time a design of mine had been associated with pyrotechnics. I was rewarded by the hearty cheers of a vast multitude'.



'Labour's May Day' by Walter Crane

The eight hour day was achieved for many workers through strikes in that period, such as the 1889 gas workers strike. So as you enjoy your Monday off work spare a thought for the people who through their efforts brought us shorter working days, weekends and many bank holidays.

Matt Bannister - Crystal Palace Dinosaurs in the Snow

Illustrator Matt Bannister takes much of his inspiration from the streets and open spaces of London, and one of his pieces features in the current Londonist Underground exhibition at the Bishopsgate Institute. Prompted by recent weather conditions it shows two of the Crystal Palace dinosaurs emerging from the railway tunnel in the snow.

Other South London works in his gallery include 'Lost Girl' (2012) - seemingly lost in SE1!

Music Monday: Blyth Power

More good music coming up at Cafe Crema (306 New Cross Road). This Friday 8th March there's a return of their periodic 'New Orleans, New Cross' acoustic jam session, 'musicians and listeners of good taste and discernment' will be welcome to gather 'around the soulful piano'.

Blyth Power
Then on Friday 15th March they've got Blyth Power Duo playing: 'Joseph and Annie play songs old and new in a long overdue visit to Cafe Crema, run by Chris Boddington, from Blind Mole Rat and The Ice Cream Men, and also one time Blyth guitarist. Chris' current band Reverend Casy (edgy rock'n'roll flavoured with country and blues) will be providing support' (see facebook event details)

Blyth Power go way back to early 1980s anarcho-punk - band founder Josef Porter had previously drummed for two of the best bands in that scene, Zoundz and The Mob. I first saw them in 1985 in a squatted pub in Brixton (I believe it was the Crown and Anchor), where they played along with Flowers in the Dustbin, The Astronauts and Karma Sutra (my friends' Luton punk band whose van I came down in). They stood out in those days for their melodies but also for their subject matter - songs referencing cricket, obscure episodes in English history and trains. The band's name came from a locomotive and their early song title Bricklayer's Arms alluded to the famous railway depot on the Old Kent Road, the area now covered by Mandela Way, though the song is actually about the playwright Ben Jonson.

In various line ups Blyth Power have continued ever since - Jamie Hince of The Kills (Mr Kate Moss) is among the many musicians who have passed through its ranks.

Deptford '77

Can't claim Blyth Power as a South London band, Porter is from the West Country and was living in Hackney when they started out. In his memoirs though, Porter recalls that when he first moved to London in 1979 he lived off Camberwell New Road and then in a council flat on Tanners Hill in Deptford. He also described earlier visits to Deptford to see his brother:

'I paid my first visit to Colin, at the Rachel MacMillan hall of residence, Creek Road, Deptford, in October 1977... I was charmed by his quarters, charmed by his friends.. charmed by the student union bar, in which I became cheaply and horribly drunk, but most of all charmed by Deptford itself, which featured prominently in the mythology of the punk scene, and was a concrete manifestation of all my record collection had led me to aspire to. I took to Deptford like a duck to water. Just being there simply blew me away. It was everything that Castle Cary was not: dark, evil, mysterious, but to my eyes fantastically beautiful.

...Colin moved out of the halls of residence and into Speedwell House, a condemned block of flats just off Deptford High St. Technically they were squatting, as the council had given up on trying to collect rent there. The whole place was a magic maze of brickwork, stairways and balconies, covered in graffiti and full of lost souls in which Colin and Sam kept the flat in a constant state of devastation that I found irresistible. Coming back one day after a hard day posing in the West End, I found a minor music festival happening in the courtyards below. The Realists, This Heat, and a host of Deptford's alternative heroes played and jammed until late at night, the whole scene illuminated by the beams of a car's headlights. This was Deptford Fun City at its finest' (Joseph Porter, Genesis to Revolutions).

Oh and Blyth Power's first album, 'Wicked Women, Wicked Men and Wicket Keepers' (1987) was recorded at RMS Studios in Crystal Palace.

Antenna Studios Cafe

I popped into the newish cafe at Antenna Studios in Crystal Palace a couple of weeks ago. The Studios have been going since 2002, primarily for music recording and rehearsal spaces, but also hosting all kinds of creative activity. The cafe is tucked away in Bowyers Yard in Haynes Lane  SE19 (walk past the indoor market and turn left), and as well as serving food and drink is being used to host exhibitions and fairly intimate gigs.

The next event is the RPM Club, a bring your own vinyl open decks night on Friday 1st March, 7.30-11 pm.

The cafe is currently being managed by Georgina Cook, the photographer best known for documenting the dubstep scene and for her Drumz of the South blog and events. She's written about the cafe as part of her great Valentine's Day love letter to South London.

Georgina has also started Mapping the Palace, where people are invited to share their thoughts, memories, ideas, inspiration, music and more related to the Crystal Palace area. The project includes an interactive Google Map where among other things you can see where Georgina took some of her iconic photographs for Burial.

Crystal Palace Car Race 1962

The Crystal Palace car racing circuit was in use from the 1920s until the early 1970s.  This programme from June 1962 (found inevitably on Deptford market) was for a day of races including the Formula One Crystal Palace Trophy and the Formula 2 Anerely Trophy. The event was organised by the British Automobile Racing Club, with the support of London County Council Parks Department. 

From the programme, a map of the mark with the racing circuit shown going around the 'National Recreation Centre under construction'.

Here's some film of the track in use in 1964:

Blavatsky and Blondie

Coming up next month at South East London Folklore Society:

'Gary Lachman will be giving a talk on the celebrated occultist, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky’s time as a resident of London. Author of “Isis Unveiled“ & co-founder of the Theosophical Society, Madame Blavatsky is a hugely influential figure in modern esoteric history. Gary Lachman is an author of books on the meeting ground between consciousness, culture, & the western inner tradition. His new book “Madame Blavatsky: The Mother of Modern Spirituality” is published by Tarcher/Penguin'.

The talk takes place on Thursday, October 11, 2012, 8:00pm at The Old King's Head, Kings Head Yard, 45-49, Borough High St., London SE1 1NA, all for less than the price of a pint ( £2.50/£1.50 concs).

The Norwood Connection

There should be some good South London content in this. When Blavatsky moved to London in 1885 she lived at Maycot cottage in Upper Norwood (Crown Hill), where she spent her final six years writing The Secret Doctrine. WB Yeats describes a visit there: "I found Madame Blavatsky in a little house at Norwood, with, but, as she said, three followers left" (having been exposed for some fraudulent practices). Yeats was surprised that a cuckoo hooted him from a clock that had apparently stopped: "I wondered if there was some hidden mechanism and I should have been put out, I suppose, had I found any, though Henley had said to me, 'Of course she gets up fraudulent miracles, but a person of genus has to do something' (Yeats, The Trembling of the Veil, 1922).

Another visitor recalled: 'I first met dear old “H. P. B.,” as she made all her friends call her, in the spring of 1887. Some of her disciples had taken a pretty house in Norwood, where the huge glass nave and twin towers of the Crystal Palace glint above a labyrinth of streets and terraces. London was at its grimy best. The squares and gardens were scented with grape-clusters of lilac, and yellow rain of laburnums under soft green leaves. The eternal smoke-pall was thinned to a gray veil shining in the afternoon sun, with the great Westminster Towers and a thousand spires and chimneys piercing through. Every house had its smoke-wreath, trailing away to the east' (Charles Johnston, Theosophical Forum. 1900)

One of Blavatsky's best-known followers was Annie Besant, the well known feminist, birth-control advocate, and political radical. Annie Besant had also lived also lived not far away in the 1870s, at 39 Colby Road SE19. Another leading Theosophist was the American Colonel Olcott. On September. 29 1889 he gave a lecture at the Hatcham Liberal Club, New Cross described as his 'largest audience of the season'.

Touched by your presence dear

Oh so what's the Blondie connection? Well the first time I heard the word 'theosophy' was in their 1977 hit 'I am always touched by your presence, dear' which includes the line 'Coming into contact with outer entities, We could entertain each one with our theosophies'. The song was written by early Blondie bassist Gary Valentine, who also wrote another Blondie favourite, X-Offender, and played on their debut album. Valentine left the band in 1977 when they were on the verge of internaional fame, and went on to be a writer under the name Gary Lachman... the very same, all the way from CBGBs to the Old Kings Head in Borough High Street.

Blondie in 1977, Gary Valentine Lachman on the right.

London Weekend Radio - mid-1980s pirate

London Weekend Radio, later known as plain LWR, was a London pirate radio station in the mid-1980s broadcasting from Sydenham, Catford and Peckham (among other places). I came across this article which has the main story:

'London Weekend Radio started life broadcasting from Lawrie Park Road in Sydenham over bank holiday weekends in 1981 and was controlled by Jonny Haywood (Station Manager) and Keith Green (Engineering) prior to going full time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week in a basement in Brownhill Road, Catford London SE6 where they were joined on the engineering team by Pat Sinclair and the station amended the station id name tag to simply LWR and broadcasting on 92.5MHz. Unlike many of its counterparts LWR decided to play new pop music between 06.00 and 18.00 weekdays with the evenings and weekends centring on specialist shows.

Many famous names got a good grounding at LWR with Radio Luxemborg's Peter Anthony working under the guise of Oscar J Jennings (who was pioneering REM in 1984), Radio 1 presenter's Pete Tong and Tim Westwood in the lineup that included the late Robbie May (BFBS) on breakfast duty, a daily afternoon show from Paul Stafford (Invicta/Coast AM) now in Australia, alongside Martin James, Ton Tom, Steve Edwards, Ricky King, John Dawson, Perry Daniels, Dave Shirt and Jonny Haywood himself with guest hosts including World Snooker Champion Sir Steve Davis OBE, Legendary Jazzman Roy Ayers, Imagination singer Leee Johns and Brit Funk band Total Contrast.

The station closed temporarily in August 1984 when changes were made to the law giving greater powers of seizure/confiscation to the DTI. A new frontman, Zac re-activated the station which ran till the early ninties when it finally closed down'.

Comments at that article state that original studio was in basement of 25 Lawrie Park Road SE26  with transmitters variously located in New Addington, Pepys Estate (Deptford), Balfron Tower in Poplar, Shooters Hill, and Church road in Crystal Palace. In its later days it had a studio in 42 Gautrey Road, Nunhead SE15 upstairs from Mad Professor's studio (mentioned here before). Intrigued that Roy Ayers might have made it from California to Catford!

Here's the young Tim Westwood broadcasting on LWR in 1984



... and some more LWR extracts:

I Ludicrous at New Cross Inn

Coming up this Friday 20th July at the New Cross Inn, the first London gig this year by I Ludicrous. The Crystal Palace-supporting indie outfit started out in the  mid-1980s with a sardonic comic style similar to Half Man Half Biscuit or The Fall. 

Their biggest 'hit' was John Peel favourite 'Preposterous tales' ('I once saw the Palace score four goals away from home'). They also did what The Great Wen has suggested may be the greatest football song of all time, We Stand Around (you can watch a whole documentary about them too)

Also on the bill on Friday are Now, Matt Finucane  and Marshall Milk.

The Summer of '84: Reggae & Hip Hop

Back in July 1984 there was actual sunshine in South London, and some fine music too.

Reggae Sunsplash

On 7 July Capital Radio sponsored a Reggae Sunsplash festival at Crystal Palace football ground.

'Crystal Palace had its biggest crowd for years at the weekend - but not for football! Instead, 28,000 music lovers enjoyed a six-hour feast of reggae, featuring both Jamaican acts and homegrown talent at Selhurst Park. Reggae Sunsplash came to town - and brought some of the hottest weather this summer with it. There were rastas in shorts, toddlers with dreadlocks, bare-chested punks and skimpily-clad females providing a vivid splash of colour. The park itself was jammed with bodies - sitting, reclining or dancing to the sounds coming from the massive stage'.

'Police deliberately kept a low profile, turning a blind eye to the widespread use of "sensimilia" (marijuana) which is part of the Rastafarian faith. But the high quality of the performances needed no stimulants' (Jaswinder Bancil, South London Press, 13 July 1984).

The line-up included the Skatalites, Aswad, Black Uhuru, Sly & Robbie, Musical Youth, Dennis Brown, Leroy Sibbles and King Sunny Ade, plus DJs David Rodigan and Barry G.



Breakdown Spectacular
 
1984 also saw the spreading influence of hip and electro culture in the UK, with the release of the film 'Beat Street' and the popularity of Morgan Khan's Street Sounds compilations. Amidst all this the South London Press put on a two day 'Breakdown Spectacular' at the end of July at the Albany Empire in Deptford. It was enthusiastically promoted by Jaswinder Bancil  who announced 'Attention, all B-Boys and Girls! You have been invited to the most comprehensive celebration of hip-hop seen on this side of the river... For two nights at the Albany, rappers, scratchers, mixers, breakers and poppers will rub shoulders and gain the chance to win super prizes - including Phillips beat boxes, Nike trainers, records and much more. Any crew will be allowed to get up and challenge the skills of the Broken Glass posse from Manchester'.
 
He later reported that 'Hundreds of youngsters from all over London' joined the 'hip hop celebration nights at the Albany Empire' on 27 and 28 July. There was New York DJ Whiz Kid, graffiti art from Dean and Dolby D and  'crews, individual performers and B-girl posses - all popping, locking, cracking and breaking to great effect' (SLP, 3 August 1984).

History Corner: Lord Haw Haw

I've mentioned before that William Joyce, who as 'Lord Haw Haw' was the voice of the Nazis' English language radio broadcasts during the Second World War, had once been involved in the Conservative Party in Dulwich. I've been reading more about him in 'The Meaning of Treason' by Rebecca West (1965), who attended Joyce's treason trial at the Old Bailey.

Joyce  was born in New York in 1906 to a pro-British Irish family, and moved to London in 1921 after spending most of his childhood in Galway.  West's book combines details of Joyce's life with the most incredible condescension to South London. Indeed she even implies that Joyce's South London period partly shaped his destiny as a place breeding frustrated ambition in those to whom traditional routes to power are blocked:

'He came to London before his family; and his destiny sent him down to South London, and there was significance in that. South London is not the London where England can be conquered. It is not London at all, even calling itself by a vague and elided location. 'Where do you live?' 'South the river'. The people on the other bank never speak of their landscape as "north of the river". They may go down east, or up west, but they move within London, where the Houses of Parliament are, and the Abbey, and Buckingham Palace'.

Joyce's first London home was in Longbeach Road SW11, 'in one of those streets which cover the hills round Clapham Common like a shabby striped grey counterpane'. While here Joyce began studies at Battersea Polytechnic. When his parents came to London afterwards he moved into the family home at 7 Allison Grove SE21, 'a house as delightfully situated as any in London. Allison Grove is a short road of small houses which has been hacked out from the corner of the gardens of a white Regency villa in the greenest part of Dulwich'. Ironically the house was destroyed by a German bomb early in the war: 'Nothing remained of it except a hole in the ground beside the remains of a neighbour's basement'.

Joyce was active in the Conservative Party's youth wing, the Imperial Youth League and later the Tory Party proper. He was also involved with the British Fascists from 1923 to 1925, who provided security for Conservative Party public events - Joyce prided himself on being a street-fighter and claimed to have helped the notoriously brutal Black and Tans in Ireland in their efforts to suppress Irish nationalists. It was in this physical capacity that Joyce sustained his striking scarred face during a fight while defending the platform at a 1924 Tory election meeting at Lambeth Baths in Battersea. In 1927 he married and  moved to Chelsea where he remained a Conservative Party activist until 1932 when he joined Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. He subsequently became its Deputy Leader and Director of Propaganda.

Crystal Palace

In 1933 he was back in South London, living in in Crystal Palace in 'a home which, though cheap and unfashionable, possessed its picturesque distinction. He was staying in a flat in a road clinging to the top of an escarpment in the strangest spot in the strangeness of South London. It was far south of the river, where the tameness of town overspreads hills which, though insignificant in height, are wild in contour; and if it covers them with the tame shapes of houses it has to stack them in wild steepness. But above this suburban precipice the buildings themselves were wild with the wildness sometimes found in Victorian architecture. Outside the windows of his flat in Farquhar Road, two towers ran up into the sky and between them the torso of the Crystal Palace was at one and the same time a greenhouse and a Broad Church cathedral... A little way up the road was the Crystal Palace railway station, the most fantastic in London, so allusive, particularly in its cast-iron ornamental  work, to uplifting Victorian festivity that it wold not be surprising to find its platforms thronged by a choir singing an oratorio by Parry or Stainer.. It was from this flat, on 4 July 1933, that William Joyce addressed the application for a passport which cost him his life'. It was as a holder of a British passport that Joyce was later convicted of treason. His lawyer argued in his trial that he was technically a US citizen and therefore could not be guilty of treason to the British state, but Joyce had spent years arguing that he was British with the passport application the clinching evidence.

Joyce in Germany with his wife Margaret

Joyce split with Mosley in 1937 and founded the British National Socialist League, even more rabidly anti-semitic than the BUF. He moved to Germany just before the outbreak of war in 1939, and worked for the Nazi propaganda effort all the way through to their defeat in 1945. After being captured and brought back to England, Joyce was detained in Brixton prison, Wormwood Scrubs and finally Wandsworth, 'a shabby old prison, black as a coal tip, set among the trodden commons and the discoloured villas, the railway viaducts and the long streets of little houses, which lie "south of the river". The last days of his life in London were to be spent only a mile or two from the house in Longbeach Road where it had begun'. He was hanged for treason in January 1946.

Incidentally Joyce's daughter Heather Piercey ended up teaching in Deptford, trying to atone for his anti-semitism by promoting links between Christians and Jews (see this 2005 interview).

(See also Nickel in the Machine - The Execution of Lord Haw Haw at Wandsworth Prison in 1946, from where I sourced the photos).

Bookshop News

A couple of bits of news from two of the best shops in South London - obviously the fact that they're both bookshops gives them a formidable headstart in my view.

The Bookseller Crow in Crystal Palace (50 Westow Street, SE19) has a night with Mark Steel on Friday, 25 November 2011 at 7:30 pm, celebrating the publication of his new book 'Mark Steel's in Town'. It's free, but booking is recommended here.

Kirkdale Bookshop  in Sydenham (272 Kirkdale, SE26) has its Winter art exhibition starting tomorrow. They've also just taken stock of a new book 'A Time and a Place: Near Sydenham Hill by Camille Pissarro' by Kathleen Adler (Yale University press, £12), a short book about the impressionist artist's time in London and in particular his painting 'Near Sydenham Hill'.