Cenotaph South - South London's poetic landscape

'Cenotaph South: mapping the lost poets of Nunhead Cemetery' (Penned in the Margins, 2016) by Chris McCabe is a remarkable book. Partly it is what it says on the cover – an exploration of some of the largely forgotten poets buried there including Marian Richardson and Albert Craig. But he also wanders over the wider South London poetic landscape, extending from Robert Browning's cottage on Telegraph Hill, through the cemetery and onto William Blake's Peckham Rye and then to Dulwich woods and village where the Crown and Greyhound pub ('the Dog') hosted poetry gatherings upstairs from 1940s to 1980s. He also mentions contemporary Peckham poets like Caleb Femi, performing at the Review Bookshop in Bellenden Road.

He goes in search of a hawthorn tree suitable for Blake's vision of angels on Peckham Rye and find the most appropriate candidate is to be a tree on the Rye Hill estate:

'Quaint English Bauhaus. There is a map of Peck Hill and Rye Hill Park Estate laid out in the colours of a Butlins map: south London joyland. I check the Rocque map, completed almost to the date that Blake was here: this would have been open fields, the edge of an enclosure separating the Rye from what was most likely private fields. I weave through the outskirts of the estate. The land around Frome House is lined with what look to be ancient trees, bark knotted in folds. The trees grow within yards of the windows of the flats, past the patched light that breaks through the skeleton of a scaffold. The trees are trying to grow inwards, towards the sun. There is what looks like a hawthorn here - gnarled and ancient-looking, awesome in scale, towering over the flats. This is a hawthorn to take on the oaks. A hawthorn worthy of any angel'.

We don't have to take literally that this is the tree - the details of Blake's childhood visions are sketchy to say the least - but I like the idea that it might be found not in the park itself but in nearby council estate. 

In 'mapping out the woods, pubs, colleges and houses of South East London's dead poets' he finds the area to be 'the richest landscape of poetic activity in London'. Is it something about the hills, home to the muses in classical times according to Robert Graves so why not here too? 

'The word muse, we are told, comes from the root mont, meaning mountain. I think of the high points around Nunhead cemetery, Telegraph Hill (where Robert Browning lived) and the higher neighbouring peaks of Sydenham Hill and Forest Hill. There is a pull to poets in these high points, an irresistible urge for the heights: light, perspective, space'.

Camberwell Communists and the Nigerian Miners Massacre (1949)

 In Nigeria in November 2024, the National Commission for Mu­seum and Monuments 'marked the 75th anniversa­ry of the massacre of 21 coal miners at Iva Valley, Enugu, by the colonial masters. It could be recalled that 21 coal miners were shot dead in Enugu on Nov. 18, 1949, by the colonial mas­ters for agitating for better working conditions and improved welfare packages'.

A monument to the massacre in Nigeria

The massacre took place at a British owned mine under British colonial rule. It sparked protests throughout the country that strengthened the movement for independence. During these protests a young Nigerian who had lived in Camberwell was among those killed, having returned to Nigeria only a couple of weeks earlier.  Odilia Asaka was a young Nigerian law student who lived in De Crespigny Park. He had given demonstrations of African songs to Peckham Secondary Girls School and was a member of the Camberwell branch of the Communist Party, and his death was announced at a CP meeting at Peckham girls school by Tom Gibson (I believe the school was on the site of what is now Harris Academy Peckham).

The Secretary of the State for the Colonies at the time was Arthur Creech Jones, the former secretary of Dulwich Independent Labour Party. When he came to speak at a Labour Party meeting at Grafton Hall, Dulwich on 24 November 1949 he was shouted down by Nigerians in the audience with cries such as .‘Our people have been shot. You live on our sweat. When we ask for money you give us bullets'.

The Labour Party blamed the Communist Party for the disruption of the meeting. For their part the Camberwell CP were happy to stand by the Nigerian protestors and passed a resolution that denounced 'the acts of brutality being committed against Nigerian miners who are striking for a better standard of living. For the Labour Government to allow such atrocities to continue is a complete negation of the principles of the British Labour movement and the Colonial Secretary is urged to take action and arrest and charge with murder those who authorised the shooting, grant workers their wage demands, give pensions to dependents of murdered miners and convene immediately a democratically elected constituent assembly  and enable them to choose the form any government of Nigeria should take' (South London Observer, 9 December 1949). Nigeria became independent in 1960.

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South London Herbs - Nicholas Culpepper (1653)

The 17th century London herbalist, astrologer and radical republican Nicholas Culpepper was the author of The Complete Herbal (1653). As well as containing lots of information about herbs and their (presumed) medicinal properties, Culpepper also records places where some plants are to be found growing, including various South London locations:

Langue de Boeuf -  'It grows wild in many places of this land, and may be plentifully found near London, as between Rotherhithe and Deptford, by the ditch side.

Juniper Bush - 'They grow plentifully in divers woods in Kent, Warney Common near Brentwood in Essex, upon Finchley Common without Highgate; hard by the New-found Wells near Dulwich, upon a Common between Mitcham and Croydon, in the Highgate near Amersham in Buckinghamshire, and many other places'.

Loosestrife, 'with spiked heads of flowers':   'It is likewise called Grass-polly. It grows usually by rivers, and ditch-sides in wet ground, as about the ditches at and near Lambeth, and in many places of this land.'

Mithridate Mustard: 'They grow in sundry places in this land, as half a mile from Hatfield, by the river side, under a hedge as you go to Hatfield, and in the street of Peckham on Surrey side'.

Mallows and Marshmallows: 'The common Mallows grow in every county of this land. The common Marshmallows in most of the salt marshes, from Woolwich down to the sea, both on the Kentish and Essex shores, and in divers other places of this land...  They flower all the Summer months, even until the Winter do pull them down. Venus owns them both'.

Will we build again? - thoughts on radical housing

I went to some of the Radical Housing weekend in New Cross last month (26th April), one of a series of events across London from the Radical Housing Network. The day of talks at Cafe Crema in New Cross Road was packed, and I caught Owen Hatherley talking about the history of Council housing in the 20th century. Mr 'militant modernist' is of course a defender of the bold vision that created mass housing that was genuinely affordable, and if some of the big Council Estates with their tower blocks ended up as hellholes he would put that down in most cases to cutting corners in construction, poor maintenance and poverty rather than architecture. After all, as he pointed out, big tower blocks are now being built all over London to a broadly similar design, but now marketed at the wealthy. And ironically the size of some of these 'luxury' flats is less than the typical space in many 1960s and 70s Council flats.

I also caught the beginning of a talk by architect John Broome about self-build housing in Lewisham. This is an interesting topic which I will return to another time, but Owen was obviously taken by it because in his first column this month in Architects Journal he wrote about it:

'A spirit is haunting Lewisham. It is the spirit of self-build

...in the London Borough of Lewisham... Colin Ward, Nicholas Taylor and Walter Segal between them secured several council-owned sites for self-build colonies, given over to council tenants for shared ownership. The result was small developments of houses made outrageously cheaply from modular components, which managed, in their system of construction and ownership, to close the usual divide between designer, consumer, contractor and worker.

They all still stand, heavily altered by their residents - as was intended - although the Segal system means that they look a lot more ‘architectural’ in their ordered, elegant expression, than most self-build schemes tend to. As a social project they were only a partial success: like so many of the famous-architect-designed council flats, these houses have often been sold on at about 10 times their original value...

But where it gets interesting is that some of the self-builders are trying again - at a site in Ladywell, also in Lewisham, which they hope to secure for a ‘zero waste, energy plus, carbon negative social housing project’, with custom-designed houses, under the management of the local authority. If they get it, then maybe these ideas can return from the private to the public, where they began' (full article here).

One thing that Owen's talk made me ponder was how much expectations have been lowered in the past 30 years or so about what is possible in housing. Today even in avowedly radical housing circles the focus is often on what can be done at the margins - self-build, housing co-ops and squatting empty buildings. All valid but it takes for granted that the resources and power to actually build on a large scale remain with developers and landowners. The most that can be demanded it seems is a higher level of social housing alongside big private developments- or bigger reservations for the poor. It is considered unrealistic to propose that a major development could be undertaken that didn't start from the premise that 'affordable housing' is only possible as a planning gain from large scale private building. As for questioning whether classes and inequalities are inevitable in the first place, well forget it. Affordablity is seen as a technical measure related to square metreage, not a function of low incomes.

Yet, as Owen showed in his talk, through much of the 20th century people who were hardly revolutionaries oversaw the compulsory purchase of land and buildings from the wealthy to build homes at low rent in huge numbers. This included the award winning Lillington Gardens Estate in Pimilico (now a Conservation area), built on land compulsory purchased by Westminster in the 1960s. A South London example would be the Kingswood Estate in Dulwich, built on land compulsory purchased from the Vestey family in 1956 by London County Council. Why this happened is open to debate - there was certainly a fear of social unrest, if not revolution, in the aftermath of the First World War and to a lesser extent the Second World War. Also industrial employers needed workers in cheap housing to keep wages down, leading to massive housing developments such as in Dagenham to serve the Ford factory.

Beresford House on the Kingswood Estate in Dulwich
(photo by Will Faichner at Flickr)

Not everything Councils did was great - in some cases good (or at least salvageable) housing was declared derelict and needlessly demolished. But if mass low cost housing was possible then, why not now? It is not as if large amounts of public money are not already being poured into subsidising private housing development - Hatherley noted that the state is underwriting many luxury developments by investing hugely in infrastructure (roads etc.) in areas like the area around the Olympic village or Greenwich peninsula. If we want to get really radical with housing perhaps we need to raise our sights. Why not, for instance, come up with alternative housing plans for vacant sites like Convoys Wharf and fight for them with the same energy some people have put into plans for building boats there?* It is politics not some inevitable 'economic reality' that says that the initiative must remain with private developers.

(*not a criticism of the Lenox campaigners, they have been good at fighting their corner, but there are lots of other people around who could be focusing on the housing side of Convoys Wharf)

South London Warlords

OK war games aren't really my thing, but I was naturally intrigued by the fact that there exists the excellently named South London Warlords. They say:

'The South London Warlords is a Wargames Club. This means that we meet as a group and play games with - usually - a military, historical or conflict orientated theme. These games are sometimes based on historical events or on fantasy situations. We play them in various different ways... The Warlords cater for all sorts: both traditional wargaming and also the broader horizons of today's hobby.  As with any Club, tastes and fashions change from year to year, depending on what figures are available, what films have recently been released and what books and TV shows are currently in vogue...The Club meets every Monday evening at St. Barnabas Parish Hall in Gilkes Place, Dulwich Village, London between 7:30pm and 11:00pm, with extended Saturday sessions around eight times a year'.

Yes down in Dulwich they are re-enacting/imagining conflicts as diverse as the Vietnam war, war of the Daleks and the invitingly titled 'Star Wars Death Trench Attack'.

Dulwich Hamlet FC - Transpontine Team

I have enough troubles of my own supporting a non-league club (one time old First Division) who are not from South London, without taking up the cause of Dulwich Hamlet FC. Still I notice with interest some of the banners that have been adorning their ground in recent times.

There's a Pride of South London banner...

...a banner that combines the emblems of Dulwich Hamlet with Altona 93- the Hamburg  team which some DHFC fans have linked up with (kind of non-league St Pauli):

(this photo and one above from Urban 75)

 ... and a Transpontine banner! Somebody asked if I had a hand in this, but I didn't. I suspect the artist sometimes known as Wolfgang Moneypenny/@vornstyle may have had a role. A source close to the Moneypenny camp told us: '"There are few performances as lurid and melodramatic as those found at a non-league football match". Anyway I know that he is somebody else who has embraced the use of the word Transpontine. So while I can't claim the credit, I like to think this site has helped to reintroduce the word into the local parlance as a synonym for South Londonish.

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.

For Lovers Everywhere

Happy Valentine's Day all you lovers and want-to-be lovers. On this day in 1661, Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary that he celebrated Valentine's Day and visited Deptford and Woolwich:

'Up early and to Sir W. Batten’s, but would not go in till I asked whether they that opened the door was a man or a woman, and Mingo, who was there, answered a woman, which, with his tone, made me laugh; so up I went and took Mrs. Martha for my Valentine (which I do only for complacency), and Sir W. Batten he go in the same manner to my wife, and so we were very merry. About 10 o’clock we, with a great deal of company, went down by our barge to Deptford, and there only went to see how forward Mr. Pett’s yacht is; and so all into the barge again, and so to Woolwich, on board the Rose-bush, Captain Brown’s ship, that is brother-in-law to Sir W. Batten, where we had a very fine dinner, dressed on shore, and great mirth and all things successfull; the first time I ever carried my wife a-ship-board, as also my boy Wayneman, who hath all this day been called young Pepys, as Sir W. Pen’s boy young Pen. So home by barge again; good weather, but pretty cold'.

Not sure exactly what he was getting up to with Mrs Martha - who I believe was Sir Batten's wife. But seemingly at that time the custom was to choose a friend of the opposite sex to be a Valentine for the day and give them gifts - there wasn't necessarily a romantic/sexual element.

Anyway here's a Valentine's Day treat for 21st century lovers, a 'South London Bass Valentines Disco Special with DJ Controlled Weirdness' , a selection of 'sensual disco, throbbing funk and sexual grooving' first broadcast live on ILL FM on 12th February 2010. A couple of classic 'cockney love songs' alongside the sexy New York grooves.

'Lovers Rock'
 - the legendary reggae label started out in Upper Brockley Road

Save Lewisham Hospital say: 'Send your message of love to Lewisham Hospital! If you were born or have been treated there, or just want to save our hospital, tie a balloon outside the railings of the hospital between Valentines Day and Sat 16th. Take a picture and post on our page and send it into your local paper or South London press. We want to show our hospital is HERE TO STAY. Lets make a spectacular visual no one can ignore!!'. There's also a Save Lewisham Hospital campaign Lunchtime Rally at the war memorial opposite Lewisham Hospital tomorrow (Friday 15th February) at 1PM! For more information go to www.savelewishamhospital.com or phone Lewisham Pensioners Forum on 020 85907869

In Brixton this evening, 'as part of the global One Billion Rising campaign, a range of events will be taking place all over the world in a call to end violence against women and girls. At 4.30pm Brixton’s Ritzy cinema will screen a short film about the issues surrounding domestic violence, Lambeth Rising, made by local film makers, community groups and students. The film screening will be followed by a flash mob dance takeover of Windrush Square at 5.30pm, led by around 25 children from the Wippersnappers After School Club' (more on Brixton Blog)

There are other One Billion Rising events happening locally today at Greenwich Study Centre (1 pm) and at Goose Green Roundabout in East Dulwich where also at 1 pm there will be a ten minute zumba dance flash mob (get there at 12:30 to learn the moves!)

Folk Roots, New Routes and new nights

Local singer Joe Wilkes and others have been putting on a regular 'Folk Roots New Routes' night at the Amersham Arms in New Cross for the past year. They've decided to put it on hold for the foreseeable future, with their last planned event taking place tomorrow night - Sunday December 30th. They say: 'We've been running this night monthly for exactly 12 months, we're stopping it for a while, so this is the last one. The night before New Years Eve. We've got loads of past regulars already promised to play, early start: late finish. Great real ale, huge PA and intimate candelit surroundings'. £3 entry.

Kit and Cutter, who have put on some great folk nights at the late Deptford Arms, Old Nun's Head and elsewhere,  have also gone quiet of late. So looks like there's a gap for someone to put on a good, regular folk/acoustic night in the New Cross/Deptford area.

The gap will be partially filled though by The Goose is Out who are moving their bases around. The events they have previously been hosting at the Mag in East Dulwich are moving in January to the Old Nun's Head. Their concerts are moving from Dulwich Hamlet Football Club to upstairs at the Crown and Greyhound in Dulwich village. Further details at their website. They've got some great events coming up in 2013:

• Thomas McCarthy - 11 January - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• FREE Singaround - 13 January - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• Jackie Oates, Suntrap, Stuart Forester - 25 January 2013 - Upstairs at The Crown and Greyhound
• The No Frills Band - 8 February - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• FREE Singaround - 10 February - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• Tom McConville - 8 March - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• FREE Singaround - 10 March - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• Lizzie Nunnery - 12 April - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• FREE Singaround - 14 April - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• Jim Moray, support tbc - 26 April - Upstairs at The Crown and Greyhound
• James Hickman & Dan Cassidy - 10 May - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• FREE Singaround - 12 May - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• Alasdair Roberts, support tbc - 31 May - Upstairs at The Crown and Greyhound
• FREE Singaround - 9 June - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• Mary Humphreys & Anahata - 14 June - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• FREE Singaround - 14 July - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• FREE Singaround - 11 August - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• FREE Singaround - 8 September - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• Stuart Forester - 13 September - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick, support tbc - 27 September - Upstairs at The Crown and Greyhound
• Joseph Topping - 11 October - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• FREE Singaround - 13 October - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• Ewan McLennan, support tbc - 25 October - Upstairs at The Crown and Greyhound
• Tattie Jam - 8 November - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• FREE Singaround - 10 November - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head
• Steve Tilston, support tbc - 22 November - Upstairs at The Crown and Greyhound
• FREE Seasonal Singaround - 8 December - Upstairs at The Old Nun's Head

Music Monday: Mercury Prize 2012

Last year's Mercury music prize included several South East London connections, with Peckham's Katy B and James Blake both out of Goldsmiths in New Cross, Plumstead's finest Tinie Tempah, sometime New Cross pub denizen Anna Calvi, not to mention ex-West Norwood resident Adele.

The 2012 shortlist has a few local links, though less South East than South West London. Folk singer Sam Lee is a visiting tutor at Goldsmiths:



Jessie Ware is from Brixton (born in Clapham):



Lianne La Havas grew up in Tooting and Streatham - she went to Norbury Manor sixth form:



Guess we could claim the Maccabees too even though they are from way out South West. They formed at the famous Elliott School, Putney where The XX, Hot Chip, Four Tet and Burial all went. Guitarist Felix White went to posh Dulwich private school Alleyn's, as did Jessie Ware incidentally.

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).

Ticket Offices face Closure

Ticket offices at rail stations across South London face closure if the Government implements the recommendations of the McNulty Report which it commissioned. The report, "Realising the Potential of GB Rail: Report on the Rail Value for Money Study" proposes that all Category 'E' Stations should have their staffing removed. These are stations which typically only have one member of staff present - in future they would have no staff on the premises.

Together for Transport have the full list of 675 stations at risk nationally, including the following from South London:

Anerley
Beckenham Hill
Bellingham
Brixton
Carshalton Beeches
Crofton Park
Deptford
Elephant & Castle
Gipsy Hill
Ladywell
Loughborough Junction
Lower Sydenham
Mitcham Eastfields
Mitcham Junction
North Dulwich
Nunhead
Queens Road, Peckham
Ravensbourne
St Johns
Sydenham Hill
Tooting
West Dulwich
Woolwich Dockyard

As Together for Transport argue:

'This will cause a great deal of inconvenience to passengers who will then:

•lose the opportunity to seek advice about planning rail travel

•lose the ability to get advice about a range of ticket products including cheaper options

•lose the option to pay by cash if ticket machines - like those proposed to be installed by London Midland - only accept debit or credit cards

•lose the assurance of assistance in the event of an accident or assault'.

I have benefited from the help and advice from staff at many of the stations on that list, and have also felt reassured at their presence in some threatening situations. Some of these stations are already scary enough - they need the staffing hours increased, not decreased.

(thanks to Deptford Dame for alerting me to this on twitter)

Bubbles in Dulwich Wood

Nice film by Sam Craven, mainly shot in Dulwich Wood. Sam has entered it to the Stones Throw Video competition. Music is Flowers by Dudley Perkins (from California rather than SE London).

Dudley Perkins - Flowers from Sam Craven on Vimeo.

Sydenham Hill Station

On a sunny day outside of the morning and evening rush hours is there a more pleasant way to get around London than on the overground train system? Some of the stations are oases of calm and beauty, probably none more so than Sydenham Hill Station, with its long platform surrounded by trees on both sides.



The station straddles the social divide at that the far south end of Dulwich, with one platform approached from College Road, home to the public school, and the other approached from the back of the Kingswood Estate, managed by Southwark Council (click map to enlarge).


The station opened in 1863, and its location is a testament to the local politics of land ownership - Dulwich Estate fought to keep railway lines only at the edge of its estate.

Pissarro painted a scene nearby in 1871. The vantage point is evidently just north of the station (looking in the direction of West Norwood cemetery) and although the station itself is not shown the smoke from a train as it makes it way along the cutting can be seen on the right of the picture. The picture is known as 'Near Sydenham Hill'.

See also: Camille Pissarro's Lordship Lane Station.

Poly Styrene RIP

Sad to hear of the death today of Marianne Elliott-Said better known as Poly Styrene of great first generation punk band X-Ray Spex. Born in Bromley, I remember that she lived in Dulwich in the 1990s.

This film of the band playing their song Identity in 1978 appears to have been filmed in Andrew Logan's warehouse space aat Butlers Wharf by the south end of Tower Bridge - you can see one of Logan's trademark mirror pieces on the stage. In the 1970s this was a semi-derelict area where Logan held his famous Alternative Miss World parties and his neighbour Derek Jarman made films. Today the refurbished Butler's Wharf is full of expensive eateries, luxury flats and offices. Sadly, punks no longer clamber over its rooftops. But the spirit of Poly (and indeed of the late Derek Jarman) will never be erased.

Undercover in East Dulwich

The latest undercover police officer exposed for infiltrating activist movements was seemingly prepared to go to the lengths of living in East Dulwich as part of his deep entry into Reclaim the Streets. Oh and eventually marrying and having kids with one of the people he met during his time organising streets parties and carnivals against capital.

According to the Guardian tonight, 'By February 2000, Laura says, the pair moved into a flat in East Dulwich, which they adorned with Celtic and African patterned throws'. Her suspicions were only briefly aroused by the meticulous way he cleaned his walking boots!

I recognise Jim Sutton (or to give him his real name Jim Boyling) from my time in those circles, perhaps thanks to him there's a record somewhere in the secret files of my meticulous planning of the children's play area on the 1998 Brixton Reclaim the Streets party. No doubt that's why he was commended for 'outstanding devotion' to combating 'serious crime'. Wonder whether he spotted that the (now closed) cafe in Grace & Favour in North Cross Road (SE22) donated a batch of pastries to the party, as a result of which anybody who has bought a scented candle in there since is on a database of the dangerous? Maybe he was deployed to East Dulwich as a result, to keep a close eye on subversive currents among the emerging movement of mumsnetters and coffee enthusiasts.

People involved in activist scenes shouldn't get too paranoid about this. Of course they should always assume they're under surveillance but in the mean time those infiltrating have to work very hard to maintain their cover - looks like half the people driving vans and transporting radicals round the country were spooks, a service kindly funded by the secret state. Thanks guys!

Jim Sutton/Boyling - see Guardian article

In his 1926 study of police agent provocateurs in the Russia, Victor Serge noted that thousands of police agents didn't stop the overthrow of the Tsar. His advice to 'revolutionaries' would equally apply to 'activists' today: 'Be on your guard against conspiracy mania, against posing, adopting airs of mystery, dramatising simple events, or “conspiratorial” attitudes. The greatest virtue in a revolutionary is simplicity, and scorn for all poses ... including “revolutionary” and especially conspiratorial poses'.

Gustav Holst

The composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934) is today best known for his Planets suite, but he also wrote numerous other pieces inspired by, among other things, English folk songs, Indian mythology and the poetry of Walt Whitman. Holst lived in west London for most of his adult life, including Barnes, Richmond and Hammersmith - for a period he conducted the Hammersmith Socialist Choir at William Morris's house.

Holst worked as a jobbing musician (playing trombone on Brighton pier) and then as a music teacher, including a long connection with two South East London institutions. His first teaching job was at James Allen's Girls School, the independent school in Dulwich. Holst taught there one day a week from 1904 to 1920, and according to the school's website: 'In 1905 the school performed Tableaux from Tennyson's Princess, for which Holst composed settings of the poems. The songs were sung from manuscript (some of which are in the school archives) and were published in 1907 as Songs from The Princess, Opus 20A, with the dedication 'to the girls of the James Allen's Girls' School. His Golden Goose, a ballet with chorus, also received its first performance in the gardens here'. There is now a Holst House at JAGS and a Holst Hall.

Holst was also Director of Music at Morley College in Waterloo from 1907 to 1924. The Morley Memorial College for Working Men and Women was established in 1889 to make adult education accessible to the less-well off of South London, and was based in the Old Vic until it got its own site in the 1920s. Holst involved the Morleyites (as he termed his students) in his wider musical endeavours, including a series of Whitsuntide festivals of music and dance in Thaxted in Essex from 1916 to 1918. These came about as a result of his friendship with Conrad Noel, the famed 'Red Vicar' of Thaxted.

In teaching his students, Holst 'made them believe in their right to make music as much as any professional. He spent nearly every evening at Morley College now, and much of his social life revolved round its weekend events, which included excursions into the countryside and long rambles, dances and tea parties. He also encouraged his music students to mix with the James Allen pupils and girls of St Paul's [in Hammersmith], often bringing them to perform at the schools and join in school events' (Holst: his life and times by Paul Holmes, 1997).

Holst's friend Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote to him in 1916 that: 'I sometimes feel that the future of musical England rests with you - because every Paulina who goes out, and for the matter of that every Morleyite, will infect 10 others and they in turn will infect 10 others - I will leave you to make the necessary calculation'.

Here's one of the Songs from the Princess (O Swallow, Swallow), which since it was written to be performed by young women at a school in East Dulwich Grove could at a stretch qualify for inclusion in the list of South London Songs:



(performed here by a choir from George Mason University in Virginia)

East Dulwich Reindeer

Following yesterday's spotting of Santa on a motorbike in Deptford, Rose has sent a picture of a reindeer in East Dulwich yesterday afternoon, by the indoor market. Presumably Santa was on his way to pick up the reindeer with a view to continuing his journey by sleigh.

If anybody gets a photo of the Three Wise Men walking over Hilly Fields, please do send it in.

Local school student injured in demonstration

Today's South London Press (3 December 2010) reports that a 15-year-old school girl from East Dulwich was injured as a result of police action on the students demonstration in Whitehall on November 24th. According to her mother: 'She was kettled with her schoolmates in Whitehall. She tried to climb a fence to get out and was pushed to the ground and hit across the foot with a police baton. She was kept there for two hours after being injured until her friends managed to persuade police to let her out of the area because she was so distressed and obviously in pain... My daughter was wearing her [Sydenham] school uniform so it would have been clear to officers she was a young child'. At Kings College Hosptial she was diagnosed with a broken foot and will remain in plaster for six weeks.

Update: this case is now being taken up by Liberty, who are supporting legal action against the Police in relation to the the kettling of children. If you have any information that would assist with this, please contact Liberty.

Nothing is Forever

A couple more weeks left to see Nothing is Forever, the first exhibition in the newly expanded South London Gallery (65 Peckham Road, SE5). The exhibition includes works which have been made directly on the walls, and which will be painted over at the end of the show and thus embedded in the fabric of the building. Mark Titchner's 'Another world is possible' (above) is in the main gallery.

Ernset Caramelle has decorated the walls above the new cafe space (below) - where incidentally I had an excellent coffee.

Sam Dargan has drawn a cartoon 'Brief and Idealistic Account of the Paris Commune of 1871' on a bathroom wall. Nice to think that the spirit of Louise Michel will be secreted in that room for years to come - in exile she lived for a while in East Dulwich.

The exhibition closes on September 19th (not 5th September as I erroneously stated in an earlier version of this post)