Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Electric Sweat at Venue MOT
Monday, April 01, 2024
Women in Revolt at Tate Britain
'Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990' at Tate Britain features a huge amount of archive material from different 1970s/80s feminist currents alongside the art works which taken together give a strong sense of the visual culture and politics of the period.
'In Print' - newsletter of Peckham Black Women's Group, at one point ran Peckham Black Women's Centre, 69 Bellenden Road SE15
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Chain Reaction at the Market Tavern in Vauxhall, 1980s women only SM/fetish club Quite a few visitors delighted in spotting images of themselves or friends, or things they had been involved with and by the end I was doing the same with pictures from the Clause 28 demonstrations and copies of Shocking Pink zine which my friend Katy Watson was involved with and which was based for a while at the 121 Centre in Brixton. The exhibition closes on 7 April 2024. |
Monday, March 25, 2024
Music Monday: Hope 4 Justice with Eska and John Stainer School Choir
In 2022 over 1,000 young people, including students from 27 South London schools took part in Hope 4 Justice, an urgent call to action on the climate emergency highlighting issues such as air quality, ‘throw-away’ culture and housing inequality through performances of music, dance and spoken word. Created and produced by Trinity Laban as part of the Lewisham London Borough of Culture, it culminated in a performance in Mountsfield Park on Saturday 18 June 2022.
Now, to commemorate the project, five songs composed by Mercury Prize nominated artist Eska (with lyrics from Young People's Poet Laureate for London Cecilia Knapp) have been recorded at Trinity Laban with Brockley's John Stainer Community Primary School Choir and students from the TL Jazz Department. The first track. Air, was released on 15 Feb 2024, the eleventh anniversary of the death of Lewisham resident Ella Roberta Adoo Kissi Debrah who died aged nine after a fatal asthma attack. Ella was the first person in the world to have air pollution listed as a cause of death on their death certificate.
Saturday, March 23, 2024
Nunhead and District Municipal Museum 2024
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Acoustic Anarchy
Martin Howard's Acoustic Anarchy has been running since 2017 at waterintobeer in Brockley (209 Mantle Road SE4), an acoustic live music night focusing on folk, punk and indie. There's a couple of events coming up in next few weeks.
As part of the Telegraph Hill Festival this weekend, on Saturday 23rd March 2024 there's a special featuring artists including:
- Joe Bitter is an acoustic punk rocker with songs celebrating cider, football and punk rock.
- Shouting into the Dark are a prog-folk duo with heartfelt songs of love, life and grief. Their latest song features a middle English section, which will be a first for the night.
- Drew Margot is a queer singer songwriter from LA whose work tends to revolve around gender, mental health, and often, dogs.
Then on Saturday 6th April 2024, headliners are The Water Chorus 'a young folk trio with an array of instruments tackling a mix of Irish and Scottish folk with plenty of tunes from further afield. They are exciting musicians with wit and zest and quite a dry sense of humour. Support comes from Neil Gordon-Orr, who will be playing some specifically South London folk songs. Regular host Martin Howard is joined by Max for some interpretations and originals'. More details here.
Monday, March 18, 2024
Music Monday: Sahra
Brockley-based singer Sahra is another graduate of the great South London jazz finishing school that is Trinity Laban. She's been getting increasing attention for her new material, including an excellent live session on Gilles Peterson's show on Worldwide FM last week.
As she told Gilles, her soulful new single 'Alone Again' was recorded at Theo Erskine's studio in Forest Hill.
Saturday, March 16, 2024
Goldsmiths: Redundancies protests/Palestine occupation
Monday, March 11, 2024
Crystal Palace Dragon and Griffin
Monday, March 04, 2024
Music Monday: Goat Girl - Ride Around on Dawson's Heights (and Nunhead)
Saturday, February 24, 2024
Peckham Peace Centre 1939
Peace News, 2 June 1939 |
The Peckham group of the PPU began meeting at the Dick Sheppard Centre in June 1939. Six members were living on the premises and 'pacifists needing contact or COs [conscientious objectors] advice' were invite to call there any evening.
Peace News, 23 June 1939 |
Friday, February 23, 2024
Tales from a Disappearing City - Uncle G on Woolwich B-Boys and Acid House
'Tales from a Disappearing City' is a great podcast with Controlled Weirdness interviewing people about their untold subcultural stories from his SE16 batcave. The latest one is a SE London cracker featuring Uncle G, also known as Urban Intelligence. Godfrey arrived in London with his family as political refugees from Chile in the 1970s and grew up on the Morris Walk Estate in Woolwich. He has lots of great stories of body popping and breakdancing crews in that area in the 1980s at places like Woolwich YMCA and taking part in 'freestyle boogie' dancing competition to hip hop at the Albany in Deptford (apparently there was guy called Chris Sykes who arranged these events across Lewisham and SE London).
Moving on to the acid house period, Godfrey recalls the legendary Clink Street parties and an ecstasy epiphany with the luvdup crowd that led to a 'rude boys see you later, we want this shit' turning point. He went to Asylum acid house parties at Thames Poly and lots of other raves and parties including 'Rave in the Cave' at Elephant and Castle, a Biology event in a Charlton warehouse, the Tasco warehouse in Plumstead, the Comedy Club in Greenwich and the Tunnel Club (at the Mitre pub by the Blackwall Tunnel) where he remembers a police raid with 'a big pile of money and pills' in the middle of the dancefloor as dealers frantically disposed of evidence. He also recalls, as I do, nights at the Venue in New Cross where people would be dancing to house music in one room while indie/alternative bands were playing downstairs: 'we used to see all the goths going to Woolwich train station, loads of punks and all that, and they'd disappear on to the train and go the Venue'.
He was soon putting on his own parties, including setting up decks in the fields in Middle Park estate in Eltham, and getting involved in pirate radio - leading to 20 years of radio DJing on Woolwich based stations Shockin FM then Wax FM. Today he livestreams every Friday from Planet Wax record shop/bar in New Cross.
Along the way Neil CW mentions seeing Sonic Youth at Thames Poly in 1985 (one of their first UK gigs) and Afrika Bambaataa at Deptford Albany.
If you remember any of these nights, or similar scenes, let us know in comments.
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
WW2 Peace Shop in Blackheath: 'War will cease when men refuse to fight'
Peace News, 5 April 1940 |
In the early days of the Second World War it was opening daily between 10 am and noon, and 3 pm and 5 pm, with Sunday afternoon tea parties followed by open air meetings on Whitfield's Mount on Blackheath.
Peace News, 22 September 1939 |
Peace News, 3 May 1940 |
The shop also featured in a court case in which six officials of the Peace Pledge Union were prosecuted in relation to a poster reading 'War will cease when men refuse to fight. What are you going to do about it?' The poster was said to have been on display in various locations including on a board outside 1a Eddystone Road in Brockley (the HQ of the Forest Hill branch of the PPU) and outside the Peace Shop in Blackheath. The location near to the Heath where 'service men resorted' was cited as evidence for the serious charge that the poster was intended to incite 'disaffection' in the armed forces.
Peace News, 7 June 1940 |
Shortly afterwards it was reported in the Lewisham Borough News that 'Blackheath's little Peace Shop' had closed down after having its window broken again.
Peace News, 15 November 1940 |
Tuesday, February 06, 2024
Delivery Riders Strike and South London 'Dark Kitchens'
Notes from Below report on the recent food delivery riders strike:
'On Friday 2 February thousands of food delivery riders, demanding a pay rise, took strike action against all of the apps, in over 90 zones across London, Brighton, Liverpool, Bath and Glasgow. The strike demanded a pay increase. In 2017, Deliveroo paid a minimum £4 per delivery. Now, they pay a minimum of £3.15 to mopeds and £2.80 to bikes. That is a 40% real terms pay cut. Uber Eats have made similar changes.
This was the biggest strike yet in food delivery in the UK and it shook the management of the apps. Across many areas, riders focused locally and organised pickets to shut down dark kitchens and key restaurants...
20 riders picketed the editions kitchen in Forest Hill. When more riders arrived at the kitchen and learnt about the strike, most stopped working and joined in. Only a couple tried to pick up, and before long the manager had turned off the app. Nothing went in or out for hours. Most riders agree a pay rise won’t be won in a single strike; they’re ready for a longer campaign. A few days after the strike, deliveries seem to be paying more than they did. The rates have been calculated upwards a bit'
The Forest Hill site mentioned is in the Dulwich Business Centre, Malham Road SE23 and is one of a number of 'Deliveroo Editions' dark kitchens. Essentially these are anonymous industrial units managed by Deliveroo where under one roof different restaurant brands use separate kitchen spaces to prepare food. The Forest Hill/Honor Oak one makes food for Coqfighter , Zing Zing , Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Dishoom and Pho. Another one is in British Wharf, Landmann Way SE14 with food vendors including Jacob's Kitchen, Shake Shack,, Poke Shack, Remedy Kitchen, Jude's Ice Cream and Bleecker Burger. This site is known as Bermondsey 1, not far away at 145 Ormside Street, SE15 is Bermondsey 2 with Dishoom , Wing-Stop, Tao Tao Ju and Pho.
Deliveroo's kitchens have been mapped by Autonomy, and they have also researched this phenomenon noting that Deliveroo are just one of the businesses operating this model. Foodstars, another big operator, has kitchens locally at 107 Ormside Street SE15 (off Ilderton Road) and at 81 Enid Street SE16.
With more strikes likely these places will be a focus as busy places where large numbers of delivery riders are constantly coming and going.
(below - pickets at Forest Hill Deliveroo kitchen last week, photo from Callum Cant on twitter.
Update: On Valentine's Day (14 February 2024) there was another successful strike, couriers blocked Westminster Bridge and there was a picket - pictured below - of the Deliveroo dark kitchen on Ormside Street (picture again from Callum Cant)
Monday, January 22, 2024
Music Monday: Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger and the Critics Group in Beckenham
In musical terms the folk singer Ewan MacColl (1915-1989) is associated in most people's minds with the Salford where he was raised (the subject of his song Dirty Old Town) and the Scotland of his parents with which he so strongly identified. But many of his most creative years were actually spent in the outer reaches of South London.
MacColl seems to have first lived in London for a short period in the mid-1930s shortly after marrying his first wife, Joan Littlewood. They hoped to pursue their radical theatre ambitions in the capital. In 1936 they lived for a while in 'a borrowed flat on the north side of Wandsworth Common' then 'rented an enormous run-down house at 113 West Side, Clapham Common, paid a month's rent deposit and a month's down, furnished the place with hire-purchase goods and set about communal living' with a group of young drama hopefuls. The money soon ran out and later that year they moved back to Manchester, though Littlewood was to return in the 1950s and become a major figure in theatre, living on Blackheath (where she hosted Brendan Behan - see previous Transpontine post).
In the 1953 MacColl moved back to South London with his second wife Jean Newlove - a dancer and choreographer who he had met through their involvement with Theatre Workshop. They rented a flat at 109 Rodenhurst Road in Clapham Park then later that year rented a flat at 11 Park Hill Rise in East Croydon; 'Old Theatre Union friends Barbara Niven - now a full-time fundraiser for the Daily Worker - and her partner, the social realist painter Ern Brooks, took the flat upstairs'. MacColl and Newlove put up visiting musicians and friends there including the American singer Big Bill Broonzy, folk song collector Alan Lomax and Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid.
Ewan and Jean had two children together, but by the time the second was born - the singer Kirsty MacColl - Ewan had fallen in love with the American folk singer Peggy Seeger. Peggy first lived in London in 1956 and over a couple of years lived as a lodger in Greenwich (16 Crooms Hill) at the home of another influential figure in the folk revival, A. L. Lloyd - as discussed previously here.
In 1959 MacColl and Seeger rented a flat at 55 Godstone Road, Purley before in 1961 taking out a mortgage on the upstairs flat at 35 Stanley Avenue, Beckenham, Kent - where MacColl lived for the rest of his life. This was not just a family home but a productive centre of London folk music. From 1964 to 1972 a group of folk singers met there regularly to study and sing. The Critics Group recorded a number of albums including two collections of London songs in 1966 'Sweet Thames Flow Softly' and 'A Merry Progress to London'. The collective with its floating membership was active in left wing politics, particularly opposition to the Vietnam War.
As described by MacColl biographer Ben Harker: 'The stalwarts who congregated in the Beckenham workroom on one, two or three evenings a week in 1964 were mainly in their early twenties. They were typically from working-class backgrounds, had been caught up in the skiffle craze, and had subsequently renounced American-based music in favour of British or Irish traditions'. Early members included Sandra Kerr, John Faulkner, Frankie Armstrong and Gordon McCulloch, as well as for a short while Luke Kelly of The Dubliners. Children's author Michael Rosen was a later member.
Sweet Thames Flow Softly, written by MacColl, was sung on the Critics Group recording by John Faulkner. A song of a pleasure boat trip from Woolwich Pier to Hampton Court, it has become something of a folk standard, sung by many including Christy Moore/Planxty, Sinead O'Connor, The Dubliners, Maddy Prior and of course MacColl himself. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s MacColl and Seeger ran their own Blackthorne Records from their Beckenham home where today there is a plaque commemorating 'political songwriter and playwright' MacColl.
Saturday, January 06, 2024
Goldsmiths Occupations: a chronology
Found at the awesome 56a Info Shop archive a copy of SHIP Network News (Southwark Homeless Information Project) reports an occupation at Goldsmiths College in Summer 1991, specifically of the Outreach Unit at 32 Lewisham Way which had just been closed down. 'the occupiers have opened it up to anyone and everyone' and proclaimed a 'free university' with a planned democratic education summer school. Not sure how far this got, as they seemed to have quickly been served a court summons. I don't know if this was the same 1991 occupation at which there was talk of Spiral Tribe putting on a party in the Great Hall only to be blocked by nervous student union officials.
There have been quite a few occupations at Goldsmiths over the years, some of which we have covered here previously. But here's an attempt at a chronology - no doubt missing many so let us know if you have any others - or have memories/documentation of the one below.
March 2011 |
November 2011 |
2013 |
2015 |
2019 |