Brockley Housing Graffiti

I am intrigued by this graffiti in Brockley. It's on a hoarding on a building site where the Maypole pub stood until recently in Mantle Road (Brockley Central reports that private flats are being built there).

The slogan 'I will never buy a house thanks to Gordon Brown' might be just as it appears - the anguished cry of somebody whose hopes of getting a mortgage have been dashed by the credit crunch. On the other hand the speed with which this slogan has been publicised by Conservative publications such as The Spectator makes me wonder if it was more directly politically inspired. Either way there is a Conservative assumption underlying the slogan, namely the myth of 'property owning' as the uinversal solution to housing need.

I guess everybody wants a home that is affordable, in good condition and big enough for their needs plus the security of knowing they can't be kicked out on the streets at the whim of a landlord. But this has never been delivered to everybody by the private housing market. Many people have never been eligible for a mortgage, and many of those who do have a mortgage soon find out that their property effectively belongs to the bank. Recently there was a repossession of a house in my road in New Cross and no doubt if recession kicks in there wil be more, just as under the previous Conservative government.

Meanwhile many people in Lewisham, as elsewhere, are struggling to have a decent home at all, let alone a mortgage (there are apparently more than 3000 families in overcrowded accommodation in the borough). Whatever anger they may legitimately feel for the government it doesn't take a genius to work out that Tory policies of reducing targets for affordable housing aren't going to be much help to them. Nor is the building of luxury flats on that Mantle Road site. Though if previous recessions are anything to go by flats like these, which are often bought to let by landlords, could end up being rented out to them after all.

Walking New Cross (8): Waller Road

Waller Road runs down hill from Kitto Road, opposite Telegraph Hill Park, to Queens Road. Most of the houses are in the familiar Telegraph Hill Victorian terrace style, and one in particular must be the best documented house in the area. Number 123 Waller Road was the home of Eileen Elias, who wrote about her childhood there in her book ‘On Sundays we wore white’ (London: WH Allen, 1978). Her time was there between 1910 to 1920, when in her view New Cross was a ‘desirable district’ whose affluent households were serviced by ‘daily girls’ and ‘an army of step-ladies’ cleaning the local door steps twice a week, not to mention ‘little street boys’ bringing round ‘buckets of horse manure’ to the tradesmen’s entrance (you can see that many of the houses have a main front door at the top of the stairs and another one at ground level) .

Interestingly, while she mentions Telegraph Hill Park she does not describe where she lives as ‘Telegraph Hill’ – it is simply New Cross. This confirms one of my pet theories – that the name Telegraph Hill for this area (as opposed to just the hill as geographical feature) has come to prominence as householders and estate agents have sought to distance these streets from the rest of more down at heel New Cross. A theory which was further confirmed during this year’s Telegraph Hill Arts Festival when an old woman who came to look round the Telegraph Hill Centre was overheard saying that she’d lived round here all her life but never knew she lived in Telegraph Hill. But I digress.

As elsewhere, gaps in the Victorian housing mark WW2 bomb damage – see the more modern houses at numbers 146 to 152 and the Lydney House council block. This is also a street on hidden houses – set back from the road at the top, just behind the church on Kitto Road, is a white house which I didn’t notice for years. I wonder whether it was originally built for the minister of what was then the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel? Further down next to the school is the entrance to Coach House Mews, presumably former stables/garages which were converted to flats a few years ago. Then there’s this interesting little house at the bottom (picutred), another converted outbuilding?

Edmund Waller Primary School, as it is now called, was originally built by the London School Board in 1887 and was simply Waller Road School. Today it is the primary school of choice for many local parents, but it was not always so. Elias refers to it in her book as 'the Council School' - posh kids like her went to Haberdasher's Askes instead, which in those days wasn't just a secondary school but catered for children from kindergarten age updwards.

The original railings outside have recently been painted - they are indentical to the railings outside Monson Primary School in New Cross, built in the same period by the London School Board.

Waller's most famous ex-pupil is glam rocker Steve Harley, who had hits in the 1970s including ‘Come Up and See Me, Make Me Smile’. He lived in Fairlawn Mansions in New Cross Road. Harry Price the ghosthunter also went to the school.

Tony Robbins has written about his memories of the school just before the Second World War including the arrival of refugees from Nazi Germany. Robbins was evacuated out of London, but Robert George Hatton moved to the schoil during the War, recalling that 'During these war days we as children, especially the boys were always looking for trophies, if that what you you would call them, pieces of shrapnel bullets, fins from incendiary bombs and sometimes the bomb itself, that had failed to explode. We were now going to Waller Road School which was nearer and we did not have to cross the dangerous New Cross Road. Waller Road was not to bad because on many occasions we had no Teachers so we played and also gave us boys time to rake around for any more relics from the Air Raids, us boys did not know what danger was until it directly involved us".

Several of the wheely bins in this street have been decorated by Artmongers. This is one of my favourites, with the flowers on the bin fitting in perfectly with the nicely planted front garden.

At the bottom of the road, on the corner of Queens Road, stands the fire station. It was built in 1894 and includes a look out tower from where fires could be spotted before other tall buildings obscured the view.

Deptford Beach Babes/Nouvelle Croix

A couple of gigs featuring local bands that have crossed my radar...

SE8 surfists The Deptford Beach Babes are playing The Gypsy Hotel Club at the Millers Bar near London Bridge (96 Snowsfields, SE1) on June 7th.

Still on a Gypsy theme, SE14 Gypsy swing enthusiasts Nouvelle Croix are playing at the Montague Arms in New Cross tomorrow night (Tuesday 27th May), with guests including violinist Bobby Valentino - once of pub rock band The Fabulous Poodles. Valentino famously wrote the fiddle hook on The Bluebells' hit Young at Heart, successfully winning a court case for a share of the royalties.

Brian Eno in Camberwell

Roxy Music were the greatest of early 1970s glam rock bands, and they were at their best with Brian Eno on keyboards. When Brian Eno moved to London in 1969 he and a group of friends lived as an artists commune at 100 Grove Park in Camberwell, next door to his friend, the artist Tom Phillips (who lived at 102). Eno played with the experimental Scratch Orchestra at Morley College in Westminster Bridge Road, SE1. A chance encounter with his old friend Andy MacKay on a Bakerloo line train at Elephant and Castle led to him being asked to join the embryonic Roxy Music, who were soon rehearsing in Grove Park on their way to Top of the Pops and beyond. They played South London gigs in 1972 at Croydon Greyhound and Crystal Palace Garden Party.

Tom Phillips, incidentally, did the cover art for Eno's Another Green World album as well as for King Crimson's Starless and Bible Black.

Source: On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno by David Sheppard.

All Hallows Church Gardens

I recently mentioned the former Blackwing studio in Southwark (used by Yazoo and many others), based in the converted All Hallows Church on the corner of Copperfield Street and Pepper Street, SE1.

I went to visit the site this week and was surprized to find a hidden gem of a little garden, open to the public, where people were relaxing in the sun.






















According to Southwark Cathedral: 'The original All Hallows Church was built to a design by George Gilbert Scott junior in 1879-80. The building was gutted during the Second World War, and only the northern part (the Lady Chapel) was incorporated into a new church by T.F.Ford in 1957".

The disused 1950s church building - which housed the recording studio in the 1980s - is not particularly impressive, but there are some remains around the garden, which is actually where the nave of the old church stood. The site is owned by Southwark Cathedral who have had plans to sell off the site of the building to be replaced with new flats (while leaving the garden) - the latest plans were refused planning permission early last year.

The plan of the site shows that it includes a disused crypt, as well as the 1950s church, church hall and remains of the original church.

Racists in the area

A number of bloggers have discussed the far right's performance in the recent London elections. Studio living notes that the National Front 'got 8,509 Assembly votes in Greenwich and Lewisham, and 11,288 in Bexley and Bromley'. The larger British National Party didn't stand in these constituencies. As discussed here before, the NF are organisationally miniscule - failing to muster more than 25 people for a recent Eltham 'march' - but they clearly have some brand recognition for racists from the period when they, rather than the BNP, were the main far right party in Britain. As Tom Royal puts it: 'we’re left with the prospect that thousands of people in this city genuinely want a political party that actually wants to deport non-white people from the UK (or “repatriation of all coloured people currently resident here” as it puts it). And that - however it might be caused - is both a terrifying and depressing prospect'.

Still overall the vote for the far right was not as big as they had hoped and minute in some areas. Brockley Central has done a detailed analysis of Mayoral election votes in four local wards - Brockley, Ladywell, Telegraph Hill and Crofton Park. The numbers voting for the far right here were very small. In Telegraph Hill ward for instance, the BNP candidate for Mayor only received 47 first preference votes out of 3642 votes cast and it was a similar proportion in the others.

Let's not imagine that there is any chance of the BNP coming to power. The real risks as I see it are (1) that a bigger vote for the far right can increase the confidence of racist thugs and spill over into more racist attacks and (2) that their success shifts the wider political spectrum to the right, with other parties putting in place increasingly more hysterical anti-immigrant policies on the premise that they have to stop people drifting off to vote BNP (see for instance Labour plans to build new detention centre places, including at Yarl's Wood where children and families are locked up). People who want to seriously challenge racism (including its institutional forms) need to consider this this rather than imagine that all racism in London is embodied in the laughable figure of BNP London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook.

Anyway there's a National March Against Fascism and Racism starting in South London next month: 'On Saturday 21st June there will be a national demonstration and carnival parade against fascism and racism in London celebrating the diversity of our society and making it clear that racism and fascist organisations like the BNP will not be tolerated. There will be a march and carnival parade, with floats, marching bands, speakers and banners from every organisation opposed the BNP's racist hate... Saturday 21st June 2008, Assemble: 12 noon, Tooley Street, London SE1(behind Greater London Assembly building, near Tower Bridge, nearest underground station London Bridge).March to Trafalgar Square, W1... Called by Love Music Hate Racism and Unite Against Fascism, supported by trade unions and other organisations'.

Seven Songs

I have been tagged twice to take part in this (by Andrew and Richard):

'List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to'. A bit slow off the mark, but here we go:

1. M.I.A. – Paper Planes – ‘If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name’ – Clash sampling (Straight to Hell) classic from Kala album. There’s a remix featuring Woolwich’s Afrikan Boy on his myspace.

2. Jonathan Richman – Buzz Buzz Buzz (go the honey bees) – this is an old song that I’d forgotten about until I heard it earlier in the year at the memorial for Paul Hendrich. Despite this sad association this is a spring/summer twee classic.

3. Shortwave Set –No Social – from their new Replica Sun Machine album, they’ve upped the ante since the first album with strings on some tracks arranged by Van Dyke Parks and production by Dangermouse (of Gnarls Barkeley fame) – perhaps they reminisced about South East London with the latter, as they hail from Deptford and he used to live in New Cross. John Cale’s on some tracks too and he also went to Goldsmiths in New Cross. They are playing at Massive Attack’s Meltdown on the South Bank next month.

4. Kode9 and Spaceape– Konfusion – caught some of Kode9’s set at The Amersham Arms in New Cross last Friday. What I like about the stuff he does with Spaceape is the languid MCing, it puts me in mind of the first Massive Attack album, particularly the tracks with Tricky on. Of course both the early 1990s ‘Bristol sound’ and dubstep have in common that sonic collision between reggae sound system culture and other dance musics.

5. Portishead – The Rip – no longer sounding like early 1990s Bristol, this track of the new Portishead album starts off as folky but dark-sounding ditty about horses before driving minimalist synth riff kicks in.

6. Laura Gibson – All the Pretty Horses – more gee gee action, not nearly as creepy as Current93’s version of the same song – well she was growing up in a logging town in Oregon when the latter’s David Tibet was squatting in Vauxhall. Laura’s playing in London next month.

7. Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan – Seafarin’ Song – from their new Sunday at Devil Dirt album. I still miss Isobel from Belle and Sebastian, but her two albums with Mark Lanegan more than make up for her absence from Glasgow’s finest.

See also Baggage Reclaim and Bob's selections. Most people I know seem to already have been tagged for this one, but I will throw it open to the following in case they want to play (no obligation of course): Uncarved, Ruinist, Last Bus Home, Pecknam, Grievous Angel, Dub and Sonic Truth.

Data 70/West Norwood Library

I have been checking out Data 70's gorgeous electronica. So far I've only heard the tracks on their myspace site, but it makes me want to track down their Space Loops Volumes One and Two.

They record at their self-styled West Norwood Cassette Library studio, which they describe in a Gutterbreakz interview as being 'located in sunny SE27, London, where the streets have no lightbulbs and the pavements are lined with dog excrement and KFC aftermath. The ‘studio’ itself is a cosy basement with everything we need in one room - if you look carefully, you’ll find boxes of old cassettes waiting to be archived on to microfiche.... Inside it's like a big, orange, womb-like bubble with every creature comfort one could wish for. A home from home - if your home is Saturn'.

Reviewing this at Blissblog, Simon Reynolds mentions that 'West Norwood/West Dulwich was where I lived for about a year when I first moved to London from Oxford. And I recall that the local library's unusually good record section was one of the few redeeming things about the area (at least in 1986; maybe it's improved). That and the excellently serene cemetery'.

Strangely enough I actually worked in that library when I first moved down to London (to Brixton in January 1987) so presumably may have crossed paths with Simon Reynolds. The record collection was indeed excellent thanks largely to a librarian called Tad who was a leading authority on English psychedelia and made sure he ordered lots of obscurities in line with his taste. I remember it was well-stocked with all the Paisley Underground bands (like Green on Red and Rain Parade), Nick Drake etc. As for the original West Norwood cassette library - yes they still had cassettes in libraries in those far off days - I think I've still got a copy somewhere I copied from there of the excellent industrial compilation If you can't please yourself you can't please your soul. In the summer I used to spend my lunchbreaks in West Norwood Cemetery - there really wasn't much else to do. There was a bit of excitement that year when a multi-million pound cocaine dealing operation was found to be operating from there, storing the gear in the catacombs.

I had a couple of weird nights out in West Norwood though - in August 1993 I went to a rave in a gym across the road from the library. Then in 1994/95 I was listening to a South London pirate radio station and they put a call out for a party in West Norwood. I phoned up and got the address (and of course 'a big shout out to Neil and the Brixton massive') and ended up with my girlfriend in the basement of a restaurant on Norwood High Street dancing to garage. Still that Norwood/Croydon scene has kept ticking over the years like a musical micro-climate occasionally erupting into wider London nightlife - with dubstep being the most obvious example.

My Bloody Valentine and Blackwing Studio

There's an article in today's Observer by Sean O'Hagan about My Bloody Valentine which mentions a couple of South London links to their story - including recording in a studio in Southwark and MBV main man Kevin Shields living in Streatham.

Following up on these it seems that MBV began work on their second Loveless album in early 1989 at Blackwing recording studios. This was one of many studios used during the famously lengthy and expensive recording of this album, which was finally released in 1991. All of this contributed to the financial crisis of Alan McGee's Creation Records and O'Hagan mentions that "It was during this time that Alan McGee claims he went to visit Shields in his house-cum-studio in Streatham, and found a reclusive-to-the-point-of-paranoid figure whose abode was ringed with barbed wire and overrun with chinchillas. Shields has subsequently claimed that the barbed wire was there only to deter intruders from stealing his equipment, but admitted that for a while he 'totally lost it'."

Not sure where the Streatham house was, but Blackwing was in the deconsecrated All Hallows Church, 1 Pepper Street London SE1 0EW (off Copperfield Street in Southwark). Mute Records founder Daniel Miller used the studio for his Silicon Teens project, and it was also used by Depeche Mode (for their first single, Dreaming of Me), Fad Gadget, Erasure and Yazoo. The latter's first album, Upstairs at Eric's, refers in its title to Blackwing owner and album co-producer Eric Radcliffe.

Maybe these recordings don't count as South London Songs proper, but there's certainly a connection. Anyway here's Kevin Shields talking about Loveless:

The Star of Brockley

Long before Broca, Moonbow Jakes and Toadsmouth Too, non-alcoholic drinks were to be had in Brockley courtesy of the Victorian temperance movement. According to the South London Observer, 24 August 1889:

'a new lodge of the Grand Order of the Sons of the Phoenix to be known as the Star of Brockley will meet at the Temperance Refreshment Rooms, 312 Brockley Road, opposite the cemetery'. The Sons of the Phoenix were apparently a friendly society promoting abstinence from alcohol.

Kelly: South London is the Place to Be

Last Tuesday's South London Press mentioned that Kelly Rowland (Destiny's Child) had cut the ribbon at the opening of St Aubyn's Holistic Centre in Cleaver Street, Kennington. What's more she said "I'm told South London is the place to be and I am considering Battersea" (how about considering New Cross? There's a house for sale on my road that would suit a global r'n'b superstar).

I remember reading that Destiny's Child once rehearsed at the Husky studios in Amelia Street (up by the Elephant) - think they were getting ready for a TV appearance. In years of wandering up and down the Walworth Road though I have never bumped in Beyonce, Michelle or Kelly.

Close Encounters of the Brockley Kind

The Ministry of Defence this week released formerly classified documents on UFO sightings in the UK. The files are available free of charge on the National Archives website for the next few weeks, after which you have to pay. As David Clarke notes in a very helpful overview of the material, the military have been recording unusual air activity since the early 20th century, but things really hotted up after the 1947 'flying saucer' excitement in the USA. The majority of 'Unidentified Flying Objects' actually do get idenitified 'as bright stars and planets, meteors, artificial satellites, balloons, aircraft seen from unusual angles and space junk burning up in the atmosphere. However, there are some cases on record where no common explanation can be found' sometimes known as 'unidentified aerial phenomena'. Of course the fact that they are unexplained is not evidence that they are spacecraft from other planets – that is only one of numerous conjectures.

Having trawled through some of the files (some of them are 300 page pdfs) I have found a somewhat sketchy report of a Brockley sighting: at 9:30 pm on 3 May 1986 a secretary walking outdoors in misty conditions saw a green light in the sky above the 'railway line at Brockley' described as 'In a vehicle – of sorts. A ring, brilliant’ which moved 'In an arc. Very fast'.

Other South London reports include:

- an 'orange sphere' moving rapidly above Stockwell on 10th July 1986;
- a 'shimmering silver' object 'bright and reflective' seen by an Air Traffic Controller from Waterloo Bridge on 19th July 1985, with at least 12 other witnesses (also reported by somebody on the South Bank outside the Chrysanthemum floating pub who noted its 'high speed movement in several directions');
- A 'large flashing light' spotted by a Home Office civil servant on 19th May 1985 from Hungerford Bridge apparently moving from 'over the Festival Hall at considerable height' to 'over the National Theatre gradually appearing to get smaller';
- 'One large dart shaped object, silver in colour' spotted from Streatham on 3rd May 1985 moving over Wimbledon (Heathrow airport reported that 'they had a silver aircraft on approach to land at that time').

Of course we also had the Peckham Rye 'was it a plane? was it a balloon thing?' thing last year.

Brockley and Stockwell reports are in file DEFE 24/1924, the others in DEFE 24/1923. There's really not much more detail than I've included here, but let me know if you find anything else in the other files.

Update (17th May 2008): the South London Press also covers this story. They mention a sighting in October 1984 when a “circular, saucer shaped” craft with a “dark band pulsating light” was spotted at 10.30pm over Waterloo Bridge before flying down towards St Paul’s Cathedral.

The Chords - Maybe Tomorrow

Following yesterday's Woolwich mods photo, I was thinking about the late 70s/early 80s mod revival. One of the key bands was Deptford's The Chords. Their first gig, in 1979, was at The King's Head in Deptford (they rehearsed at Silver Sound Studios in Sydenham). This is them on Top of the Pops in 1980 with their big hit Maybe Tomorrow:

Woolwich Photos

The Guardian website today highlights the photography of George Plemper, a great collection of pictures of life in Thamesmead and Woolwich in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There's even more of them on his excellent flickr collection.

A lot of the pictures were taken when he was working as a teacher at Riverside School, Thamesmead (now Bexley Business Academy) and there are also various images from Woolwich Tramshed and other places in the area.

My favourite is this picture of a couple on Woolwich Dockyard Estate in 1981. Where are they now?

Plough Sessions 3

The third of the East Dulwich Jug Band's monthly Plough Sessions last Wednesday ended up with 28 people performing a song written on the night to celebrate children's writer Enid Blyton (1897-1968) who was born near to the pub at 354 Lordship Lane. Noddy, Big Ears and the Magic Faraway Tree all get a mention.


(see here for last month's session)

A Scandal in A Brixton Market

Well I was wondering what Laurel Aitken's A Scandal in A Brixton Market sounds like, and now thanks to John L (who sent me the mp3) I know. You can hear it too, bad man! murder! police! and all - it really does sound like people having a row in the market.

Laurel Aitken (1927-2005) was a Cuban-born and Jamaican-raised singer, who started out in calypso and then became a well-known ska artist. He moved to England in 1960, settling in Brixton and later in Leicester. A Scandal in A Brixton Market (1969) is one of the numerous singles he recorded for Nu-Beat, Bluebeat and other labels.

South London Villages?

A new Ladywell Village Improvement Group has been set up, with of course its own embryonic blog (thanks to Green Ladywell and Andrew for the link). Well good luck to them but I have to ask is Ladywell really a village? Is anywhere in London?

Obviously it's true that London is made up of many former villages, sucked into the metropolis as it expanded. And within the greater London area there are certainly some genuine villages - for instance in the rural parts of The London Borough of Bromley that aren't really London at all. It may also be true that even within London proper there are some small areas that retain a village feel - though they are not really small, discrete communities geographically distinct from surrounding areas.

I must admit I am a little suspicious of attempts to rebrand urban areas as villages. London is a city above all else, and sometimes the use of the term village is an attempt, usually by more affluent residents, to deny the fact and declare some implicit 'Passport to Pimlilco'-style independence from urban realities.

There are some cases where the use is semi-fraudulent - for instance rebranding part of Peckham as 'Bellenden Village' when there never was such a village in the pre-urban period. That's just a transparent attempt to deny the stigma of an SE15 postcode. Others, such as Blackheath and Dulwich, perhaps have more of a case, though it can certainly be overstated. Once I was in a shop in Dulwich 'Village' and somebody said to the owner 'there's a lot of outsiders in the village today'! I wanted to remind them that they lived on the South Circular five minutes from both Brixton and Peckham but I refrained.

What about Ladywell? Once upon a time there was a Ladywell village proper but it's long gone - I see it as an area round the corner from Lewisham High Street, not exactly ducks on the village green territory (though Ladywell Fields is a very pleasant park). A quick google search does show that most references to Ladywell Village are on estate agents' websites, usually an indicator of wishful thinking rather than geographical accuracy. Still there was apparently a Ladywell Village Society in the 1980s which does at least suggest that some people have been calling it that for more than 20 years. Over to you Ladywellers.

Brixton Songs

Songs about South London is a Transpontine perennial, and one area that has more than most is Brixton. Urban 75 has a good list of 26 Brixton songs, and there are a few that aren't on their list in the Wikipedia Brixton article. Some of these are well known (Guns of Brixton by The Clash, Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant), others I haven't heard but would like to (e.g. Scandal In A Brixton Market by ska artist Laurel Aitken), and then there are some that you just know are going to be terrible and probably racist - such as 'comedian' Jim Davidson's 'The Devil Went Down to Brixton'. Alabama 3 (of course), Renegade Soundwave, Angelic Upstarts and Rancid have all had a go.

Neither list specifically mentions Linton Kwesi Johnson's Sonny Lettah, with its opening line 'Brixton Prison, Jebb Avenue, London South West Two, Inglan'. Here it is:

Excentral Tempest

Excentral Tempest is a William Blake-quoting, New Cross-based hip hop MC who sounds like she is going somewhere. Read an interview with Excentral Tempest (Kate) at UK Hip Hop, but more importantly listen at her myspace site. She also contributed to the Peace Not War London Mix album (2006): 'Peace is More than the Absence of War' by Excentral Tempest and the New Cross Philharmonic Orchestra. She's playing at the Big Chill, Bestival and other festivals over the summer.

Green spaces

The sun shines and everyone's thoughts turn to the wide open spaces of South East London. Luckily there's a few events coming up to help you enjoy them.

Next Saturday, May 17th, is the annual Nunhead Cemetery open day, with lots of stalls, guided walks and refreshments courtesy of the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery.

Then on June 8th there's an open day at the Devonshire Road Nature Reserve (on the railway cutting between Forest Hill and New Cross Gate). There will be guided walks around the wildlife garden, meadows and woodlands and the East Dulwich Jug Band will be there too - bring along your instruments and help compose and perform a song on the day.

On June 28th, there's a fesitval at Blythe Hill Fields, while on July 19th Hillaballoo will be happening in Telegraph Hill Park in New Cross.

Nathan Persad

I heard about Nathan Persad through the great Modculture - they like him, not surprizing as his sound is very much 1960s beat group (The Hollies, Merseybeats etc.) with a South East London twist. Lyrics on his website include 'I love Deptford' and 'Ivydale' - the latter presumably a hymn to Ivydale Road in Nunhead with the line 'If you're not really sure, Just catch the 484.'

Shakespeare's Sister

Tlon is a fantastic second hand bookshop in the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre where I have discovered many treasures. I noticed today that there is a bust of Virginia Woolf in the shop, which I thought was highly appropriate given the author's imagining of a fictional Shakespeare's sister who 'killed herself one winter's night and lies buried at some crossroads where the omnibuses now stop outside the Elephant and Castle' . The context, in her book A Room of One's Own, was a reflection on the difficulties a woman writer would have faced at that time and were still facing in her time.

Virginia Woolf would have known the area as she used to teach English literature and history at Morley College, just up from the Elephant and Castle, before the First World War. Towards the end of her novel Orlando, the heroine, having undergone multiple transformations over several hundred years, drives through the area: 'The Old Kent Road was very crowded on Thursday, the eleventh of October1928. People spilt off the pavement. There were women with shopping bags. Children ran out. There were sales at drapers' shops'.

Whatever the future holds for the Elephant & Castle will it include a cool bookshop with a Virginia Woolf statue?

Deptford Properly

Finally made it down to Deptford Properly cafe in Tanners Hill on Saturday. They immediately scored top points as they were playing Belle and Sebastian's 'The Boy with the Arab Strap' when I went in. Then I sat outside in the sun with a pot of tea - real tea leaves and only £1.30 - and a very nice chocolate cake.

They also had lots of quirky and interesting books to read - I had time to read some short pieces by Jorge Louis Borges before going on my way. Yes indeed something for your mind, your body and your soul. I believe it's open Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, 10 am - 7 pm and Sunday 11 am - 7 pm. I will be returning.

Dissident Distribution

There's been lots of interest in newish techno/house/electro label Dissident Distribution and its limited issue 12" singles. Walking past Rubbish and Nasty in New Cross Road today I noticed they had one of their records in the window (Colombia) with a note extolling Dissident Distribution and saying 'and it's all based in New Cross'. Just been listening to Zombie Raffle by Ali Renault, kind of early 80s Italo-disco film soundrack style.

Notes from The Island

After a long period of semi-dormancy, a flurry of posts at Notes from The Island, documenting life on a traffic island in New Cross Road.

Suffragists and Post Boxes

Between 1912 and 1914 campaigners for votes for women sabotaged post boxes in Deptford, Greenwich, Brockley and elsewhere, as well as starting fires at Dulwich College and, in January 1914, at a cricket pavilion in Burnt Ash Road. They were also suspected of starting a fire at St Catherine's Church in Pepys Road - although this was never proved.

In January 1913, a 24 year-old Suffragist was jailed for 8 months at the Old Bailey for damaging a post box in Tanners Hill, Deptford. Louisa Gay, a teacher from Broadway, South Croydon, was said to have posted a white package of a 'deleterious fluid [black dye], and thereby injuring the said letter-box and its contents'.

May Billinghurst, aged 30, of 7 Oakcroft Road, Blackheath and Grace Mitchell of St Stephens Road, Lewisham were charged with a similar offence in Aberdeen Terrace, Blackheath, as part of the campaign for votes for women. Lewisham-born Billinghurst (1875- 1953) was disabled, but being in a wheelchair did not stop her campaigning. In 1910 she founded the Greenwich branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Jailed for 8 months for damaging post boxes she went on hunger strike and was force-fed - being released two weeks later on grounds of ill-health.

The Lewisham branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union was very active in this area. In the space of a couple of weeks in May 1908 they ‘spoke to a crowd of 4,000 – 5,000 working men and women in Deptford Broadway’, held a similar size meeting on Blackheath, and had a meeting on ‘the Enfranchisement of Women’ in the New Cross Hall on Lewisham High Road. The latter, held on May 6th was advertised as chaired by ‘Mrs Bouvier, speakers, Miss Christabel Pankhurst, Mrs Baldock, Miss Naylor. All the above have undergone imprisonment for the cause’ (South London Observer, 2 May 1908).

Sources: Proceedings of the Old Bailey; Times 27 December 1913, Irs Dove, Yours in the cause: suffragettes in Lewisham, Greenwich and Woolwich (London: Lewisham & Greenwich Libraries, 1988)

More Tales From the Crypt

St Paul's Church in Deptford has recently had a major restoration project, including the crypt. Twenty years ago though the latter 'was a damp , mildewy, run down place with dirty walls and dirty floor and a dodgy loo without doors' (from here). It was also a major subcultural centre.

Pyschedelic Club

In the mid-1980s there was a regular Friday night Psychedelic club. The flyer, left, is from 1985 - note the enticement to 'Be early - people are dying to get in'. Run by Andy More, the club was more like an indoor festival featuring regular appearances from free festival favourites like The Ozric Tentacles and The Magic Mushroom Band. It became known as a place where people could drink and smoke dope all night without having to worry about the police - I am sure this had nothing to do with the promoter being an ex-policeman.

Born2Rant has posted her memories of club there on her interesting hippiecounterculture blog: 'with the dope smoke , the fantastic lightshows, the colourlful drugged up crowd dancing like maniacs, and of course the amazing music , it became a magical place. There were very few public places in London you could smoke dope safely... The Ozrics were playing and the vibe was amazing. All these girls were on stage and dancing with them... the place was packed solid and everyone was doing mad psychedelic dancing and bumping into each other under the strobes' (she also mentions there being a separate gay night in the Crypt).

Bands who played there included The Ozric Tentacles, The Magic Mushroom Band, Treatment, The TV Personalities, The Invisible Band , The Cardiacs, Space Pirates, Wooden Baby, Nukli, Mighty Lemondrops, 1000 Violins, The Trogs, The Pink Faeries, The Shamen and The Stone Roses (I was surprised by the latter but its confirmed here).

Reggae Sound Systems

In his Short History of Music in South London, John Heathcote mentions reggae sound systems playing in the Crypt. This is confirmed in William (Lez) Henry's excellent What the Deejay Said, which includes a detailed account of an early 1980s soundclash there featuring his own Ghettotone sound system, Revolutionary Hi Power and Frontline International (the latter apparently victorious after turning up with a truck load of speakers to literally blow away the opposition). He says: 'a popular venue at the time was the 'Crypt' in Deptford... where the spirits of the dead were regularly replaced by the spirits of the living-black, tomb-ravers'.

Other clubs

The Band of Holy Joy played some of their first gigs at at an early 1980s club called The Stomach Pump in the crypt. Johny Brown from the band recalls that 'the club was run by two extremely groovy guys called Slug and Chin and some of the best times of my life were had in there'. Charles Hayward's Camberwell Now also played at The Stomach Pump in November 1983, so I am guessing it was a fairly leftfield kind of place.

There were also punk gigs - anarcho-punks Virus played there in 1986. Then in 1998 there was an early acid house club Boomshanka on Saturday nights. The picture - of a Psycho's Mum gig in 1988 - gives a sense of the space.

Tell us more if you have any memories/flyers etc. Also, I believe scenes from Interview with a Vampire were filmed at St Pauls.

May Day Green and Red

Over a hundred years ago, the photographer Thankful Sturdee took this photograph in Deptford of the Fowlers Troop with their May Day Jack in the Green. Their present day descendants will be taking the Deptford Jack in the Green out for his annual walk on Thursday 1st May, with a focus this year on the South Bank area. The meeting place and route for this Thursday are shown below (all times are subject to change, depending on beer and climate).

10.30 - 11.30: Borough Market – Market Porter, (Free House) Stoney Street, London SE1 9AA,

Deptford Jack prepares, and leaves at 11.30 sharp.
Stoney St, Clink St, Bankside, Jubilee Walkway
11.40 - 11.50: Globe Theatre
11.55 - 12.35: Founders Arms, (Youngs) Hopton Street, SE1 9JH
12.35 -12.45: Tate Modern, Bankside
Hopton St, Upper Ground
12.55 - 1.35: Gabriels Wharf (various refreshments) & National Theatre
Upper Ground, Waterloo Road
1.45 - 2.40: Hole in the wall, (Free House)5 Mepham Street, SE1 8SQ
Exton St, Roupell St, Meynott St, Blackfiars Rd, Union Street
2.55 - 3.45: Charles Dickens, (Free House) 160 Union Street, SE1 0LH
Union St, Pepper St, Doyce St, Clenham Street
4.00 - 4.40: Lord Clyde, (Free House) 27 Clenham St, SE1 1ER
Marshalsea Rd, Great Dover Rd, Silvester St
4.45 – 5.45: Royal Oak, (Harveys) 44 Tabard Street, SE1 4JU
Borough High St, Stoney Street
6.00 – 11.30? Market Porter (again) – Thank you and Good night

Basically its a procession with English folk music and a frame decorated with spring foliage - a dancing bear might also be in attendance, or at least a grown man dressed as one. If you've never made it to this, you really should.

Also on Thursday, The Strawberry Thieves Socialist Choir are hosting their annual May Day event at Brockley Social Club, 240 Brockley Road, SE4, with a collection of socialist songs for international workers day. All welcome from 7:30 pm.

Humphrey Lyttelton & Camberwell Jazz

When I was putting together my recent Camberwell mix, I did think about including Humphrey Lyttelton, who died this week. For he did go to Camberwell Art College on being discharged from the army in 1946. The obituary in The Independent covers the crucial South East London phase of his career:

'“When I got out of the army I was 25 and didn’t feel like going back to anything very academic, so I went to Camberwell School of Art for a couple of years and round about the same time started playing jazz in various low dives,” he recalled. “I’m sure there was a buzz in the family going round about me, but I was oblivious, sloping off to places like the Nuthouse on Regent Street with my trumpet and a dirty mac over my uniform.” He soon found the required subjects at the School of Art tiresome and concentrated on the comic drawings that came so naturally to him. But his devotion to the trumpet grew ever stronger. Wearing his army battledress, now dyed navy-blue, and sporting a beard and sandals, he played at jam sessions with professional dance-band musicians and began to travel to the Red Barn, a pub in Bexley in Kent, where the pianist George Webb’s band played every Monday night'.

In March 1947 he joined the George Webb Dixielanders and his professional career as a jazz musician was underway. Also in the Dixielanders was another ex-Camberwell student, Wally Fawkes, with whom Lyttelton formed the first Humphrey Lyttelton Band in 1948. Incidentally another important figure in the post-war trad jazz scene, clarinetist Monty Sunshine, went to Camberwell School of Art too.

(picture shows Lyttelton, right, at the Hammersmith Palais in 1951)

Stop the BNP

Just got back from the Love Music, Hate Racism festival in a rainy Victoria Park. In a week's time it is possible that the British National Party will have a member of the Greater London Assembly.

The paradox is that the far right remain organisationally very weak in London. The BNP couldn't even put forward a candiate for the Lewisham consituency. Its candidates are a laughing stock - Richard Barnbrook shagging immigrants in a flat in Blackheath, and its second choice on its London list being dropped for his comments on rape (more South London shame here - Nick Eriksen used to be a Conservative councillor in Southwark). As for the National Front, when they 'marched' in Eltham last week - an area they might have thought of as a far right heartland - a mere 22 people turned up, a number of whom were later 'acquainted with the pavement' by Antifa when they went on to another fascist gathering in Victoria later the same day.

Nevertheless it is possible that the BNP will secure 5% of the London-wide vote and secure an official foothold in London politics - for information check out the Hope not Hate London website.

Latin Americans targeted at Elephant and Castle

We have received this call from the Ecuadorian Movement in the UK for a protest against a Borders Agency raid at the Elephant in which 15 people were arrested:

ALERTA! ALERTA!

ECUADORIANS ARE BEING TREATED LIKE TERRORISTS BY THE HOME OFFICE.

On Thursday, April 24th, in Elephant and Castle – the heart of the Latin American community – the HOME OFFICE and BRITISH POLICE entered Ecuadorian business in an unprecedented operation.

The police forced their way in hunting for undocumented workers. This is happening in the country where human rights are supposedly respected. Children looked on as armed police pushed their parents against the wall, broke through doors and intimidated all those they found in spots known to be frequented by Latin Americans, the majority of whom are Ecuadorians. This unusual scene is something that has only been observed to date in cases of “terrorism.”

This must be rejected by the Ecuadorian community. We need to use all the possible channels open to us within the law to denounce this act of abuse of authority against immigrant communities such as the Ecuadorian community.

We are placing the entire community on alert. We must join in solidarity with our brothers and sisters, and unite also with the campaigns that are unfolding [in various migrant communities now under attack.]

We will express our protest this Sunday at Fusion, in front of Elephant and Castle, starting at 15h00, where the candidates are scheduled to debate proposals for the Mayor of London. We will take banners and flyers condemning this stance by the British government.

WE ARE NOT CRIMINALS! WE ARE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO WORK!

WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS AND WANT TO BE RESPECTED!

Transpontine TV 3: Camberwell

The latest broadcast is themed around Camberwell... (if any of the tracks don't show in your viewer, click on here to watch the lot)

1. House of Love – Shine On – Camberwell indie darlings from 1990

2. KLF - 3am Eternal –KLF HQ was Jimmy Cauty’s house in Camberwell.

3. Pink Floyd – See Emily Play – early Floyd with Syd Barrett, some time Camberwell Art College student

4. Basement Jaxx - Red Alert – they once recorded a track called ‘I live in Camberwell’, sure at least one of them did too.

5. Withnal and I – the famous Camberwell Carrot scene.

6. Joe Jackson – It’s different for girls – apparently lived at 69 Camberwell Grove in the early 80s and sometimes drank in the Grove Tavern.

7. Roxy Music - Virgina Plain – started out rehearsing in a Camberwell bedsit

8. Kode9 & Spaceape – 9 Samurai –Kode9, hippest thing in Camberwell 2008

9. Mystery Jets - Young Love – two of them went to Camberwell Art College, this is their latest single ‘Young Love’, featuring Laura Marling.

10. Mixmaster Morris – Mr Nubient, SE5. This is a Japanese animated video of his remix of Julia by Nuno Felipe (2005).

Denny Wright - Brockley guitar hero

Denny (Denys Justin) Wright (1924-1992) was an influential jazz and skiffle guitarist, born in Deptford and growing up in Brockley - at some point he apparently lived at 36 Brockhill Crescent.

Denny Wright played at various times with Stephane Grappelli and Lonnie Donegan (including on the latter's record, Cumberland Gap), and in 1945 opened London's first bebop jazz club, the Fullado in Old Compton Street. Check out Denny's fantastic guitar solo on Cumberland Gap (you can hear Lonnie Donegan shout 'Denny' just before it):

Deptford Soul City

In autumn 1966 the first specialist soul records shop in Europe opened at no. 21 Deptford High Street, with a speech about freedom by novelist Brigid Brophy. The shop, Soul City, was the brainchild of 'an Esperanto-speaking vegan-anarchist from Bexleyheath, Dave Godin' (see here) and his friends David Nathan and Robert Blackmore.

The shop attracted enthusiasts from all over the country in search of soul obscurities, and later in 1967 (apparently after a burglary in the Deptford shop) it moved to Monmouth Street in Covent Garden).

Dave Godin (1936 -2005) was a key figure in promoting soul music in the UK through his shop, record labels and writing in Blues and Soul magazine. Born in Peckham and raised in Lambeth and Bexleyheath, he has been credited with introducing soul music to Mick Jagger at Dartford Grammar School and with coining the term 'northern soul'. As well as the record shop, Soul City was also a record label for a while.


The image above of the Deptford shop is reproduced from 'The In Crowd: The Story of the Northern and Rare Soul Scene' by Mike Ritson and Stuart Russell. The bottome picture shows Trevor Churchill, later of Chiswick and Ace Records (left) and Dave Godin (centre) outside the Deptford shop.
As with all our history material on this site, we'd love to hear more - anybody out there remember the Deptford shop?

Dennis Bovell and Studio 80, SE1

Thanks to Music Like Dirt's musical map of London , I have come across another South London musical landmark: Dennis Bovell's Studio 80 at 6/8 Emerson Street, London SE1. Bovell is renowned as a musician, producer and sound engineer who started out with UK reggae outfit Matumbi.

In 1979 he produced Janet Kay’s lovers’ rock hit Silly Games, and maybe it was the proceeds that helped him open the studio the following year (I am guessing from the name it opened in 1980). According to Roots Archives, reggae albums produced there by Dennis Bovell included his own Brain Damage (1981), Janet Kay’s Capricorn Woman (1982), I Roy’s Outer Limit (1983) and Linton Kwesi Johnson’s LKJ in Dub Vol.2 (1983) and Making History (1984). But Bovell has also worked with lots of non-reggae musicians, just about everyone in fact - The Slits, The Thompson Twins, Bananarama, Fela Kuti, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Edwin Collins and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Of these I have so far only confirmed that the latter’s B-2 Unit was recorded there in 1980, which of the others graced the streets of SE1 remains to be seen.

There’s also Dennis Bovell’s Brockley connections with Lovers Rock, but that will have to wait for another post.

Black Music Hall Performers

The black presence in music hall entertainment is often overlooked, so I was interested to come across a report of a show at the South London Palace, a Victorian music hall in London Road (north of Elephant and Castle). One night in September 1889 the bill included 'J.H. Maxwell, negro comedian and one-armed juggler' and 'Bennett and Harley, negro comedians' (South London Observer, 29.9.1889). Anybody know anymore about them?

Happy-Go-Lucky

I enjoyed the new Mike Leigh film Happy-Go-Lucky. It's really a north London movie - driving round the mean streets of Finsbury Park, dancing in Koko (Camden Palace) etc. But the opening scene sees main character Poppy cycling across the river to Lower Marsh, behind Waterloo station, where she visits a bookshop. This scene was filmed in the fine Crockat and Powell bookshop there. I can report though the people who work there are a lot more friendly and forthcoming than the fictional bookshop worker in the film who steadfastly ignores Poppy's ceaseless attempts at jolly communication.

Oh yes, the film also features New Cross-based actress Sylvestra Le Touzel as the flamenco-dancing headteacher in the school where Poppy works.

Adelle Stripe/Entertaining Mr Sloane

Here's Brutalist poet Adelle Stripe reading her poem Veronica - which is all about a grave in Camberwell Old Cemetery in Forest Hill Road/Honor Oak. She mentions Joe Orton in this - the 1970 film version of his play Entertaining Mr Sloane was filmed in the area, including in the gatehouse to the cemetery.

Kath (played by Beryl Reid) comes across Sloane (Peter McEnery) lounging in the cemetery.

She invites him to come and stay with her, pointing out the cemetery gatehouse where she lives and saying 'lovely piece of building that'.

(Post updated November 2012. While the Keepers Gatehouse in the film is definitely in Camberwell Old Cemetery, someone who visited earlier this year said he couldn't find the graves shown and wondered whether those scenes were actually shot somewhere else. See also discussion at Reel Streets, where it is suggested that the graves are in Camberwell Old Cemetery and that the now demolished chapel there can be seen in that scene, behind Reid in the first of the stills above. What do others think?)

Last tram in London: New Cross 1952

Some lovely footage of the last tram journey in London coming to an end at New Cross depot on Saturday 5th July 1952. But wait was it really the last tram? Apparently the one featured in the film was a "ceremonial tram" bringing Lord Latham, Chairman of London Transport and other VIPs from Charlton to New Cross depot. Thousands turned out on the streets to cheer.

But, according to the Kentish Mercury, the last tram from New Cross to Abbey Wood (the 72 route) actually left later at 11:33, driven by 'William Crosk (28 years service) of 140 Dursley Road, Blackheath' with 'His conductor... Mr John Whitehead (33 years service) of 131 Alabama Street, Plumstead'.

The last tram was burnt on a "funeral pyre" at Penhall Hall Depot at Charlton on Wednesday 15th July (sources: from Kentish Mercury, 4th July 1952; 18th July 1952).

This is how the US Time Magazine reported in July 1952:

'One day last week, as a fierce hot wind swept the city, London's last regularly scheduled tram made its way along the Old Kent Road to New Cross Depot. Old passengers, some in nostalgic fancy dress, lined the route to bid the old red double-decker farewell with chalked signs, "We Want Trams." Pennies were placed in the tracks to be flattened as souvenirs. Others crowded aboard for a last ride. "They are all mad," screamed the conductress at Motorman William Fitzpatrick. "They have taken the light bulbs; they are ripping up the seats. Why don't you stop when I ring the bell?" But the bell had been stolen as a keepsake. On ran the tram, heady and glorious. It was clanking along at 40 m.p.h. when a motorcycle cop threatened a summons. "We were driving 50 easy," boasted the driver.

When at last the tram reached New Cross, every one of its windows was shattered, every loose object was gone. It didn't matter. The whole thing was soon to be burned, its metal sold for scrap. A transport inspector pocketed the driver's rear-view mirror. Motorman Fitzpatrick sighed. "I'll have to be getting home," he said. "Tomorrow at 9 I'm driving a bus."'.

South Eats London May 2nd

Friday 2nd May, South Eats London are at the Deptford Arms (52 Deptford High Street) for a night of 'Post-election fun... featuring the hotbrass exuberance of Danny Fontaine and the Horns of Fury, grimy London ballads from Joseph and the Jellied Eels and cracked lilting poetry from Gabi Garbutt and the Breadstealers. Plus Live Karauke (yes,that's karaoke AND ukuleles) and the burning of the Wicker Mayor,whoever that may be".

Since I started playing the uke all of of two months ago and strumming along with the Brockley Ukulele Group (B.U.G), the Karauke naturally intrigues me - presumably it entails a uke player banging out the backing track for somebody to warble over. Come to think of it that is pretty much what we do with B.U.G. as we murder versions of New Order, Radiohead and Bright Eyes songs.

Walking New Cross (7): the Surrey Canal Wasteland

I think it was Jean Genet who said that the sewers of heaven still stink. Every area of human habitation needs a place where all the waste gets taken care of. For New Cross, and indeed the wider borough of Lewisham, that place is Surrey Canal Road.

As the name suggests, the road replaces the old Grand Surrey Canal; it still has a feel of a sunken canal with the road surface several feet below the level of the footpath (the former canal tow path). In fact there were two canals, the Croydon canal joining the Surrey canal where Mercury Way joins Surrey Canal Road. Nowadays it is dustcarts rather than canal boats that pass up and down.

Many of the names round here aspire heavenward, even if their business is very much earthbound. There is Juno Way, Mercury Way, the Orion Business Centre and the Gemini Project industrial estate. The nearest anything gets to the stars is the 100m chimney of the Landmann Way incinerator or, to give it its full title, South East London Combined Heat and Power Ltd. waste to energy plant, opened in 1994.

Rubbish gets burnt here in vast quantities to generate electricity. There have been protests by environmentalists about emissions from SELCHP, including a Greenpeace occupation which closed it for several days in February 2002. It would obviously be preferable if less rubbish was produced and more recycled, but given that the rubbish exists there is also an environmental argument that it is better to dispose of some of it this way than to drive it outside of London to dump in landfill sites. NHS studies of the health impact of SELCHP have not found any evidence of an increase in illness in the local area, but equally they acknowledge that if there was an impact it would be difficult to identify and not become apparent in the short term.

On the corner of the same road is the Lewisham dump or again to use official titles, Household Waste Reuse and Recycling Centre. Outside it is this tasteful colour coded assemblage of rubbish. There are other private sections of the rubbish industry. On Landmann Way there is also the Deptford Waste and Recycling Centre. On Mercury Way there is Wellings scrap metal, a car yard and Economic Skips, the latter a three sided warehouse into which skips are emptied into a huge pile.

Not everything round here is rubbish. On Juno Way there's the Elizabeth Industrial Estate, 'on the site of the Mazawattee Tea Company, which here produced chocolate and cocoa from 1901 to c.1955' (Darrell Spurgeon, Discover Deptford and Lewisham, 1997). No drinking chocolate today, but organic chocolate brownies are made here in the bakery of Flour Power City. The tower below is a leftover from the tea company.

North of Surrey Canal Road a track leads under rail bridges towards Surrey Quays station, passing the New Den, home of Millwal on one side and a bleak car pound on the other.

At the moment there are road closures in the area because of work on the East London Line. For at least 150 years this zone has been shaped by transport routes, by railways, canals, roads and the spaces they generate between and beside them.

Wiley in New Cross

NO PAIN IN POP have another top night coming up at the Amersham Arms in New Cross on Friday with none other than "Wiley, the godfather of grime, rolling deep live. Expect all the grimey hits, new single Wearing My Rolex". 9:30 start, £6 in. The following month (May 16th) looks good too, with Kode9 and Benga.

Walking New Cross (6): Cold Blow Lane

Cold Blow Lane is one of the older roads in this part of London. Stanford’s map of London (1862-1871) shows that even after the birth of the railway most of the area north of New Cross Road was still fields and market gardens, but Cold Blow Lane is there heading to Cold Blow Farm, which was more or less on the site of Sanford Housing Co-op.

The brick tunnel under the railway lines still has a feel of the past – it was built in around 1854 as part of the Croydon Railway and until about five years ago the road was still cobbled.


The brick walls feature a veritable museum of graffiti – football (the inevitable ‘Millwall’), politics (the old anarchist ‘Never Work’) and music (‘T.Rex’ – the latter must be over thirty years old). There used to be a nice piece of an angel on a swing by contemporary graffiti artist Arofish, but most of this has been pointlessly painted over. I don’t hold with the idea that graffiti pieces should be indefinitely preserved – ephemerality is part of the nature of graffiti - but in this context of a deserted tunnel it seems plain spiteful to eradicate it.

The Sanford Housing Co-op on Sanford Mews features a 1980s anti-war mural. 'Riders of the Apocalypse' by Brian Barnes (1983) includes images of Margaret Thatcher, Michael Heseltine and Ronald Reagan on cruise missiles.

Off Cold Blow Lane on the other side of the railway tracks, the newish Joseph Hardcastle Close is named after the slavery abolitionist who once lived nearby in Hatcham House. On the other side of the road, the modern flats of John Williams Close, Myers Lane, Bridge Meadows and Samuel Close were built in the 1990s on the site of the old Millwall Football Ground. Millwall played here from 1910 until they moved in 1993 to the New Den nearby.

John Williams Close includes the Manley Court Nursing Home, where Magda Pniewska worked and near to which she was shot dead on her way home last year. There is still a candle and a picture of her on the stairs which lead up to Bridge House Meadows, a green open space where once stood another sports venue – the New Cross Stadium (1913-1969), famous for speedway and, for a short while, stock car racing. The graffiti below is on a Transport for London box on the Meadows - next to it you can see my walking companion.

Charles Parnell, the Irish National League and South London

The Irish National League was established by Charles Stewart Parnell (pictured) in 1882 and became a major movement for Irish home rule, with branches not only across Ireland but in England - including in South London.

In Deptford, support for Irish Home Rule pre-dated the formation of the League. On 2 October 1876 a public meeting in Deptford was attached by anti-Home Rulers, recalled in the memoirs of T.D. Sullivan : 'They invaded a hall where a Home Rule meeting was being-held; they "stormed" the platform, and made a determined endeavour to capture the Home Rule banner which was there displayed. But the flag was bravely defended, and after some fierce fighting, the attacking party were ejected from the building'.

In the 1880s, the Irish National League rallied at Sayes Court in Deptford and the Post Office Directory lists a United Irish National League and Club at 35 Albury Street, Deptford in 1911 (secretary Jas. Heirhly).

The Peckham club seems to have its own grounds judging by this report from the South London Observer (Camberwell and Peckham Times), 14 September 1889:

Garden Party of the Peckham Irish National League

On Monday last glorious weather favoured the promoters of the garden party held in the grounds of the League in Downs-street, Peckham Park-road. Too much praise cannot be accorded to the worthy president, the stewards and others for the energy displayed to make the occasion worthy of success and judging from the large numbers present, nearly 300, their efforts to meet the comfort and pleasure of the company were themes of conversation… The grounds were beautifully illuminated with Chinese lanterns, and around the walls were arranged coloured oil lamps, and at the extreme end of the garden a platform was erected, bunting giving the scene a pleasant aspect. An excellent band, under the conductorship of Mr. T. Rayman, efficiently discoursed sweet music, to which a large number of the guests , who were fond of the ‘light fantastic’, indulged to their hearts’ content to a late hour. During the course of the evening, Mr Neale gave some excellent impersonations of ventriloquism and was much applauded. Mr Mildinhall, of the North Camberwell Progressive Club, seemed to be quite at home with his audience, and at the conclusion of his song was greeted with well-merited applause.

Refreshments were provided for the visitors in the grounds, and at the conclusion of the evening’s amusement, Mr Harris, the president, proposed a vote of thanks to the stewards and officials who had worked hard to administer to the wants of those present, and who had contributed to the pleasure of the evening. Mr Blake briefly seconded the proposition, and the vote having been put to the meeting, was unanimously carried with acclamation.

A novel feature of the party was a ‘Strikers’ Fund’ box [this was at the time of the 1889 Dock Strike] , displayed to the majority of the visitors, and judging form the jingling of the money, must have been well-patronised. The following is the programme fo the music – Waltx, ‘Sweetest and Dearest’; quadrilles, ‘Paddy’s Wedding’; schottische, ‘Enchantment’; lancers, ‘Pelican’; polka. ‘Love Light’; waltz, ‘Song of Ireland’; Irish jig, ‘National’; Caledonians., ‘Marie Stuart’; waltz, ‘Rescue’. The following gentlemen were the stewards – Messrs. Corby, Bryant, McAuliffe, Jeffery, Grannell, and Beare, Mr R. Cavilla efficiently acting as MC’.

There is another South London connection to Parnell. In 1890, Parnell was cited in a divorce case having been in a relationship with Katherine O’Shea since 1880, and indeed having children with her. She had been separated from her husband - another MP - all along, but the scandal was enough to split the movement, and Parnell died in 1891 shortly after marrying Katherine in the wake of the divorce.

At some point during the relationship, they lived at 112 Tressillian Road, Brockley, he under the name Clement Preston in an attempt to conceal his identity. They also lived in Eltham in a house called Wonersh Lodge.