INSIDE
STAY UP TO DATE with brixtonblog.com and @brixtonblog
BRIXTON BUGLE YOUR FREE
No 63 | MAY 2018
Published monthly in and for Brixton
ISSN 2397-852X
COMMUNITY PAPER
Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott and Michael Groce at the Brixton rally in solidarity with the Windrush generation – story page 3
KRICKET BACK
We ask about the new venture 16
FOODBANK AID UP BY A FIFTH Local people have received almost 10,000 emergency three-day food supplies from the Norwood and Brixton Foodbank in the past 12 months – a increase of more than a fifth (22%) on the previous 12-month period. Some 9,809 three-day emergency food supplies were provided to people in crisis, compared to 8,004 in the previous year. Of this year’s total, 3,993 went to children. The local community donated 75 tonnes of food between April 2017 and March 2018. Demand for foodbank help is accelerating. It rose by 18% between 2016 and 2017. Elizabeth Maytom, project lead of the
Community donates 75 tonnes of food over 12 months foodbank, said: “We don’t want to be here forever. No one in Lambeth should need a foodbank’s help and we want to see an end to local people needing emergency food at all. “It doesn’t have to be this way – with a benefits system that catches people before they fall into crisis, and secure work that provides people with enough money to cover the cost of essentials, this is possible. “But, until that time,
we’ll continue to provide vital support when it matters most – we’re dedicated to ensuring that people in our community with no money for food are able to access emergency support, and that has only been possible in the last year because of the incredible generosity shown by local people in donating food, time and funds. Thank you.” The Norwood and Brixton Foodbank is a
member of the Trussell Trust’s national network which today (24 April) reported a UK-wide increase in foodbank use As part of the network campaigning for change, the foodbank offers practical emergency support to help prevent people going hungry and participates in research and raising awareness about the issues local people are facing. The number of foodbank clients on low incomes has seen a sharp rise in the past year. Sandra, a client living in Brixton said: “Foodbank helped to fill a gap. I’m working, but it isn’t enough to cover my bills and provide food. “I pay my bills first then worry about food after
– that’s just me. I work for 25 hours each week and, without the foodbank, it would have been even harder to survive, especially without any family to support me.” The foodbank says that, despite generous donations of food, it has many costs, including advice workers, salaries, insurance, printers, shelving and trolleys. It would welcome any new offer of help with funding – local businesses, organisations and individuals interested in supporting the foodbank’s work can find out more here. If you want to volunteer, sign up for the foodbank’s May supermarket collection, details at norwoodbrixton. foodbank.org.uk.
BRIXTON HI-FIVE
Discover Anthoney’s top tracks 7
CARVED VEGETABLES … Meet the contest organiser
QUESTION TIME
Our local election guide
10
18
2 NEWS brixtonblog.com 2018 MAY
BRIXTON BUGLE brixtonblog.com Proudly edited in Brixton Both website and newspaper are published by a not-for-profit community organisation run by a committed team of people from Brixton @brixtonblog brixtonblog.com
ADVERTISING
Jenny Shramenko 07811 878394 jenny@brixtonblog.com Circulation 12,000 copies Readership: circa 15,000 EDITOR Linda Quinn linda@brixtonblog.com MANAGING EDITOR Simon Still simon@brixtonblog.com NEWS EDITOR Anna McKie newsdesk@brixtonblog.com ARTS & FEATURES arts@brixtonblog.com MUSIC Dave Randall music@brixtonblog.com FOOD Nick Buglione food@brixtonblog.com SPORT Sandra Brobbey sport@brixtonblog.com ISSUE 63 Contributors Alice Crawford Khairunissa Dhala Pam Douglas Talia Hussain Leslie Manasseh Tevye Markson Carina Murphy Jamila Omar Kamal Pasha James Perrett Dave Randall Sue Sheehan Sub-editor: Jamila Omar Production: Alan Slingsby Distribution: Philip King A massive thank you to everybody involved in making this issue, and the Blog & Bugle project, a success If you would like to be a Bugle stockist please email distribution@brixtonblog.com
Campaigners get together for election challenges by Alan Slingsby Local elections in Lambeth have prompted at least two groups of people to come together to promote alternatives to the current political set-up. As the Bugle went to press, local faith groups under the banner of “Lambeth Citizens” were pressing their local election manifesto on candidates at a meeting planned to be 450 strong with young people to the fore and entertainment from choirs. The manifesto of Lambeth Citizens – an alliance of 23 faith, education and community institutions that has been at the forefront of welcoming refugees to Lambeth – is based on discussions with more than 2,000 local people. It concentrates on three areas: ●● Welcoming refugees and migrants ●● Affordable housing ●● Access to university. It calls on the council to back community land trusts, hold rogue landlords to account and to ensure that “affordable” housing really is. It points out that only 43% of Lambeth children go to university compared to 52% in Kensington and Chelsea and 56% in Hammersmith and Fulham. Earlier, groups that have been at the forefront of opposition to the policies of the current council joined forces in the
Anniversary of market bomb is remembered
At the Lambeth Democracy launch (l-r) Andy Plant, Save Cressingham Gardens; Steve Freeman, Lambeth Democracy; Steve Morrow, Lambeth People’s Audit; Laura Swaffield, Defend the Ten “Lambeth Democracy” campaign. It was launched in Brixton with representatives from the Defend the Ten libraries campaign, residents of Cressingham Gardens who oppose the planned demolition of their council estate overlooking Brockwell Park, and Lambeth People’s Audit that has been using relatively recent legislation to try to analyse the council’s buying and spending. At their launch campaigners discussed
Lambeth mayor Marcia Cameron joined members of the anti-hate charity 17-24-30 and local people outside Iceland in Electric Avenue on 17 April to mark the 19th anniversary of the 1999 bomb in Brixton Market. The charity’s name records the dates on which neo-nazi activist David Copeland targeted ethnic minority and gay and lesbian people with three bombs in London that killed three people and injured more than 100. Amarjit Chanion, who was in the Dogstar when he heard the bomb explode, recalled the work of the late Phil Cremin, a civil rights activist and Brixton solicitor for more than 25 years, who was at the centre of a campaign that raised many thousands of pounds to support victims of the bomb and for the plaque on the wall of Iceland near to where it exploded.
“citizens’ assemblies” and “people’s parliaments” as ways for “ordinary Lambeth citizens” to plan and press for change. They say that “electing local councillors every four years is part of a ‘democratic’ sham” and that the council chamber “is little more than a rubber stamp for decisions made elsewhere”. AA www.citizensuk.org/tags/lambeth AA lambethdemocracy.org.uk
Three years in jail for Brixton Barclays fraud A man who defrauded Barclays Bank’s Brixton branch of nearly £50,000 was sentenced to three years in prison in April. Terrence Sabangle was convicted of conspiracy to defraud at London Inner Crown Court, in a case involving more than £49,300 at the Brixton bank. His accomplice, Laurent Ewas, who worked at the bank at the time, received a 12-month suspended sentence after pleading guilty. Ewas was working for Barclays in Brixton in 2016 when he was approached by Sabangle who offered him money to make unauthorised transfers and withdrawals from customer accounts. Ewas moved money from genuine customer accounts without carrying out proper identification checks. He then enabled Sabangle to make cash withdrawals of the fraudulently obtained money. Over a six-week period, fraud totalling £49,300 was carried out. The victims were refunded. The crime was spotted by a Barclays fraud investigator and passed to the national police Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU).
Great Chartist rally is remembered
Flag bearers from four corners of London walked to Kennington Park in April, retracing the steps of tens of thousands of nineteenth century predecessors. At the park, they took part in a ceremony marking the great Chartist demonstration of 1848 there. The commemoration was an initiative of local residents backed by a National Lottery grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and by the Friends of Kennington Park. The project is organising a series of talks and events that continue until October this year.
MAY 2018 brixtonblog.com NEWS 3
IN BRIEF
HAUTE CUISINE FOR LOCAL STUDENT
Lambeth College Level 3 advanced cookery student Judy Solomon, who lives locally, recently enjoyed a placement at world-famous restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire where she rubbed shoulders with the celebrated chef and proprietor Raymond Blanc. The opportunity arose after Judy met Raymond Blanc last year while volunteering alongside other chefs and students to create a lunch for the Sustainable Restaurant Association’s annual awards. The Level 3 City and Guilds Diploma in Advanced Professional Cookery is designed for students who wish to pursue a career in the hospitality and catering industry at supervisory level. The next course starts in September.
Above: Diane Abbott Above right: Weyman Bennett Left: Trevor Right: Gary Younge
Opponents of ‘hostile environment’ policy rally in Windrush Square “I’m very glad to be here in the heart of Brixton, one of the centres for the Windrush generation,” shadow home secretary Diane Abbott told hundreds of people gathered in Windrush Square in April. They were there in solidarity with the children of the Windrush generation suffering from the “hostile environment” created for them by prime minister Theresa May and home secretary Amber Rudd. Now they were apologising, said Diane Abbott. But, she went on: “They should not be apologising. You know why? Because you only apologise when you make a mistake. They knew what they were doing. They knew the consequences of that so-called hostile environment.” Abbott said a whole generation had been turned into criminals and treated with complete contempt. “We need to come together and demand justice. And I will not stop until we have justice.” Weyman Bennett of Stand Up To Racism, that organised the rally and who was MC for the event, was the first of several speakers to link the “hostile
environment” with the problem of youth violence. There had to be hope for young people, he said. But some were excluded from school and ended up in gangs. They were not bad kids, but opportunities were being shut down. Guardian journalist Gary Younge said this year was not only the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush, but also of the founding if the NHS. “My mother came from Barbados to staff the NHS,” he said, “Black people built this place – with white people and Asian people and other people. We are integral to this country. You can’t understand this country’s history, its wealth, its public services, its trains, its sports, its music, without us.” But 2018 is also the 50th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech. “There is an element of this society that has always tried to deny, if not our existence, then our contribution.” One of many other speakers was Trevor. He has lived in London since 1958. His oldest child is 51. “And I’m still trying to get a passport,” he told the crowd. “They
put me in a detention centre, saying I was ‘illegal’. They let me come out with a bit of paper from the Home Office saying I am a British citizen. But every time I try to do something with it, they say it isn’t valid. “I came here with my mother on my mother’s passport. She’s dead now – buried in Tooting. My father was in the British army. He’s dead now – buried in Streatham. “And I still can’t get a passport. “My mother worked in two hospitals. Lambeth hospital, which is no longer there, and Guy’s hospital. “And I still can’t get a passport. “I didn’t decide to come here. You sent for my parents.” Trevor paid tribute to another speaker, Michael Groce, whose mother Cherry was shot in her own home in Brixton by police in 1985. She lived for the next 26 years confined to a wheelchair until April 2011 when she died as a result of the shooting. Groce works at the Green Man centre in Loughborough Junction and has been providing help and advice for local people affected by the “hostile environment” for some time.
Films to watch and make for free
Brixton event to aid local young people
The sixth annual Herne Hill Film Free Festival organised by community volunteers is running throughout May with 21 screenings – many in unexpected locations – and challenges and support to make your own films. Highlights include Loving Vincent, including a Q&A with the producers; Oscar-winning Get Out and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; and documentary Being Blacker, about Blacker Dread with a Q&A with director, Molly Dineen. Films will be shown in schools, community spaces, pubs and at site-specific events such as classic films about carnivorous alien plants (Little Shop of Horrors) at Brockwell Greenhouses and the Tour de France (Belleville Rendez-Vous) at the Herne Hill Velodrome. All films are offered on a “first come first served” basis with no booking and all are free.
Three organisations, AndWhat? LDN (a music first arts collective), Small World Urbanism (set design and upcycling) and Bringing our Communities Together (community building and liaison) have formed a new organisation – Congregate Festival. It plans to organise workshops and training programmes for disenfranchised local people especially young ones. It is planning a series of music events – Congregate Brixton – with the first in Windrush Square on 12 May, followed by 30 June, 18 August, 6 October and 24 November. They will be part of the plan to reinvigorate local entertainment, media and creative aspirations for young people, developing professional skills and talents, working with community partners.
READERS’ FESTIVAL The 2018 Lambeth Readers and Writers Festival has month-long programme of inspirational literary events including a free Polish poetry festival celebrating Polish Heritage Day in Streatham library and journalist Gary Younge talking about his book Another Day in the Death of America. Drop into your local library for full details of these and other events or visit bit.ly/LRRF18.
ROME VISIT Gardeners from the South London Botanical Institute (SLBI) in Tulse Hill were due to visit the Botanic Garden of Rome at the end of April as part of a new botanical exchange partnership between the two organisations.
WINDMILL CENTRE Work is finally about to begin on Brixton Windmill’s education centre. A contractor has been chosen and construction is due to start soon and to be completed in December. New and improved workshops for local school groups visiting the windmill will be one benefit of the centre which has been designed by Brixton-based
architects Squire & Partners. Lambeth council will pay about £700,000 for the centre and the Friends of Windmill Gardens will manage it.
LOCAL HISTORY LEAF TRA, the tenants and residents association covering the Loughborough Road area, is launching a South London Street heritage project with a small grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. It aims to uncover the stories of the people who have lived and worked on Loughborough Road, in its shops and pubs, over the past 200 years. It will run oral history interview training for up to 10 local residents. To find out more, share your stories or get involved, contact Tracey Gregory at leaftra@gmail.com.
VEGAN MARKET Brixton Farmers’ Market is, as usual, on every Sunday and in May the Vegan market is the second and fourth Sunday.
£29,000 per anum pro rata
Project Administrator
15-month contract to start July 2018 17.5 hours per week (incl. occasional evening/weekend work)
A local charity is looking for an organised and proactive administrator to be responsible for the smooth running of a new Heritage Lottery-funded project at Brixton Windmill. Experienced in dealing with the public, the successful candidate will have excellent secretarial and administrative skills including IT and numeracy skills appropriate to the post. For further details and an application form, please email: info@brixtonwindmill.org.uk with ADMINISTRATOR as the subject of your email. Closing date for applications: 25th May 2018
4 CREATIVE BRIXTON brixtonblog.com
From Brixton to the World
BRIXTON BRAINS – MAKING LIFE EASIER FOR USERS OF TWO WHEELS THROUGHOUT THE AGES
Dressmaker who used her skills for freedom
Tevye Markson finds that taking part in the Brixton Design Trail can lead to involvement in wider projects Brixton Design Trail (BDT) returns in 2018 for another week-long creative takeover of Brixton, this time exploring what it means to live in the heart of Europe’s most diverse city. Creative submissions must be registered by Friday 4 May. BDT will this year be partnering with the London Design Festival festival as one of three official design routes from 15 to 23 September 2018. BDT director Binki Taylor said: “We welcome everyone with an interest in being part of the event, whether that
is creating or hosting an event, volunteering your skills or time, being a business partner or a sponsor.” This year’s BDT theme “WE BELONG” is intended to inspire designers to think creatively about local challenges that have global relevance by amplifying the culture of Brixton to an international design-focused audience. A celebration of inclusion and togetherness, BDT has been part of the London Design Festival since 2014. AA To get involved, register at www.brixtondesigntrail.com
Ophelia Gisquet with her Loughborough Farm installation
Spreading love, winning projects Local design studio UpCircle is back at Brixton Design Trail 2018, after last year’s “ROOTS GROW LOVE” theme helped it to win several-high profile projects. This year, it will continue its focus on sustainability and collaboration in the form of a structure created from products designed and manufactured by the Brixton community. The structure can then be dismounted and reused at the end of the festival. Since BDT 2017, UpCircle has worked on projects including rebranding an organic beauty company, a permanent art installation and the redesign of four large courtyards on campus at University of West England. UpCircle designer Ophelia Gisquet said: “Having BDT in our portfolio helped us to win these projects.
“Promoting and engaging with projects following our values has really helped to develop our network. “We had the opportunity to engage with many creative people from Brixton and to take inspiration from them. It comforts us that design can have such a positive impact on society.” UpCircle collaborated with Loughborough Farm for BDT 2017, creating a striking installation that celebrated the community spirit cultivated by the farm. Filled with plants grown at there, the structure of reclaimed wood was constructed by volunteers from the local community. Visitors to the installation were able to take home a ROOTS GROW LOVE plant, which spread the love further into the community. AA www.upcircle.co.uk
Brixtopia – a nation state of mind A new exhibition at the Design Museum in London features “Brixtopia”, a concept launched by Brixton-based designer Charlie Waterhouse during the 2016 Brixton Design Trail. Brixtopia features in Hope or Nope at the Design Museum until 12 August. Hope to Nope explores the pivotal role graphic design has played in reacting to major political moments over the past decade. “Brixtopia is a nation state-of-mind and art happening that creatively explores the possibility of an empathic society,” explains Waterhouse.
“Based on the premise that there is more that unites us that divides us, Brixtopia provides an environment where disparate tribes, interest groups and individuals can gather, discuss, argue, create and inspire. “The only pre-requisite for membership is an open mind and a desire to improve our communities.” An 18-point manifesto was launched during 2016’s London Design Festival and Brixtopia has since organised interventions at the V&A and the Tate Modern. AA www.brixtopia.earth
2018 MAY
Dr Kat Jungnickel wearing a modernday version of Alice Bygrave’s skirt Picture: Charlotte Barnes
Rediscover the joy … Tired of the Tube? Bored by buses? Visualising a Vespa? Then a Brixton-based start-up may be what you need. RIDEto, based at the Eurolink Business Centre on Effra Road, is an online platform designed to bring motorcycle and scooter training into the 21st century. It is designed to match new riders with the best local training schools and to provide an online platform of learning, advice and everything else a new rider needs to get on the road. “With all the negative press around motorcycle theft in London, we feel it’s time to get to re-engage people and get them interested in the joys that two wheels can bring,” says RIDEto’s Tom Baker (right). AA www.rideto.com
Brixton dressmaker Alice Bygrave was one of several nineteenth century female designers determined to make life easier for women cyclists. Women’s clothing in those pre-Lycra days was not good for cycling – even when men who disapproved of women on two wheels were not hurling abuse or stones. Bygrave invented a two-pulley system to keep the skirt away from both the chain and the wheels. She secured her design with patent number 17,145 in 1895. We owe our present day knowledge of this forerunner of today’s Brixton designers and makers to Dr Kat Jungnickel, a senior lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, whose book Bikes and Bloomers, published in April, tells her story along with others. “Women responded to the social, material and technical challenges to their freedom of movement with vivid creativity,” she says. “They actively and directly worked with and around barriers that sought to prevent them from cycling and engaging more broadly in public life. “Their designs offered the means for women to move independently, un-chaperoned, safely and at speed, and through patenting forged new paths into social, cultural and economic worlds.” Dr Jungnickel says that the Bygrave skirt works very well on and off a bike. The gathered fabric is comfortable to sit on or, as Bygrave wrote: “This raising of the skirt before and behind leaves the sides of it festooned, as it were, over the knickers”. AA katjungnickel.com/portfolio/ bikes-bloomers-book/
MAY 2018 brixtonblog.com COMMUNITY 5
BRIXTON LEGAL
Brass in Brixton, a Windrush Square lunchtime concert organised by the Business Improvement District (BID), heard the world premiere of The Windrush Fanfare composed by Dan Jenkins and performed by members of the City of London Sinfonia
Local solicitor Pam Douglas explains the legal background to the ‘Windrush scandal’
A frightening legal limbo What has been termed the “Windrush Scandal” cannot have escaped most people’s attention over the past couple of weeks. The “Windrush Generation” came to the UK from 1948-1971, at the invitation of the British government, to take up work opportunities. They arrived in the UK from the Commonwealth on British passports and were eventually granted “indefinite leave to remain” (“settled” status) in 1973. But no official paperwork was issued to confirm this new status. Then, in 1981, the British Nationality Act gave settled residents a five-year window in which to register as British Citizens, but many failed to do so, believing they already were. Now, years later, thousands find themselves in a frightening legal limbo. The current crisis is principally due to the Immigration Act 2014, which quietly removed the legal protections which previously existed for those with “settled” status. This has resulted in people who have lived here for decades, suddenly being asked to prove that they have the right to remain living and working in the UK. That’s a major hurdle for some, as the government destroyed immigration landing cards in 2010. And producing acceptable evidence of residence for every single year, as required by the Home Office, has also been an uphill struggle. Consequently, many have been deported, prevented from returning, or are living under threat of deportation. Here in Brixton, we’re a diverse community and many of our African-Caribbean residents have been adversely affected. The news media has depicted harrowing stories which detail their heart-breaking experiences. Two Lambeth residents that I am aware of, have not been able to return to the UK after visiting family overseas several years ago. Thankfully, due to the huge public outcry, the government has promised to take steps to rectify the situation and to compensate victims for the financial and emotional distress caused. Lawyers, who alerted the government to the dangers hidden within the Immigration Act even before it became law, are now preparing to assist with the inevitable flood of enquiries. Having spoken to professional colleagues, my advice, to anyone who thinks they may be affected is to check your paperwork to ensure that your immigration status has been regularised and, if in doubt, seek legal advice from a qualified immigration solicitor as soon as possible. Certainly, you should think twice about taking an overseas holiday on a foreign Commonwealth passport if you’re unsure about your UK immigration status. We are very fortunate in Brixton to have the Black Cultural Archives situated on Windrush Square, where there will be a public meeting on Saturday 28 April from 2 to 5pm, so that residents can learn more about this issue. It will be followed by a free legal clinic organised by local solicitors. Please do go along if you would like assistance.
Brixton charity seeks volunteers for a tough call by Leslie Manasseh “Nobody should be judged solely on the worst thing they have ever done”. That’s how Judith Smith, chief executive of the Brixton-based charity the Newbridge Foundation describes its core values. It befriends the most isolated and vulnerable prisoners – usually those without friends or family and who are guilty of the most serious crimes. Smith oversees a team of 250 volunteers who write to, and occasionally visit, prisoners in 76 prisons across the country. The charity was set up in 1956 to help prisoners to resettle in society after release. Smith says there is clear evidence that befriending prisoners helps to
reduce re-offending by building bridges and human contact between them and the outside world. There is a rigorous matching process which involves the prison authorities but, ultimately, volunteers choose the prisoners they wish to befriend. They benefit from an “unqualified, confidential and non-judgemental relationship that they would never otherwise been able to have”. And the vast majority of beneficiaries agree – more than four in five think it improves their mental health. One former prisoner described Newbridge as “the pivotal turning point in my life – a source of humanity… hope and professionalism”. The charity is very sensitive
to the potential difficulties of building relationships between vulnerable prisoners and individual volunteers who are essentially strangers. So volunteers receive training and are mentored by support groups where they can discuss any issues. Smith has no illusions about this kind of volunteering, and is clear that befriending isolated and vulnerable prisoners is a tough call. But she also believes that there are real benefits for volunteers who “learn as well as give” because “people in prison are not just serving a sentence. They are human beings who are interesting and informative”. It is common knowledge that life in prisons is getting tougher
with increased levels of violence and self-harm alongside greater availability of psychoactive drugs and fewer prison officers to manage a growing prison population. Smith notes that more prisoners than ever before are in vulnerable units, so is clear that Newbridge needs to grow. “Our ambition is to double what we are doing. We want to double the number of volunteers, and double the number of prisoners we help. Last year our volunteers travelled the equivalent of four times round the world. So maybe this year we’ll do eight times!” AA You can find out more about the work of the Newbridge Foundation, including volunteering opportunities, at www.newbridgefoundation.org.uk
Young carers to showcase their skills and stories
The Lambeth Young Carers Project, that supports carers aged from 5 to 18 who help to care for someone with a disability or long term illness, is presenting a showcase of its work on 5 May at 2.30 and 6.30 pm. Visitors will be guided through the hectic life of a young carer in an event created by young adult carers who have been hard at work creating art to express and share their experiences. Their skills and stories will be represented in a variety of work, including visual arts, film and live performances. AA The exhibition is at the Myatt’s Field Centre, 24 Crawshay Road, SW9 7RH. Visitors will be able to meet the team and find out more about the services and support we offer. All welcome. Confirm attendance at bit.ly/LYC-showcase.
Dying Matters in Lambeth Dying Matters Awareness Week this year is 14 – 18 May and Lambeth is hosting a range of free events and workshops. There will be information stalls in local hospitals, GP practices and pharmacies, several “death cafés”, information events about end-of-life care options, a theatre performance and a meditation session. The aim is to create friendly spaces for people to discuss and ask questions about end of life care issues, such as making an advance care plan, planning a funeral or coping with bereavement. AA bit.ly/DMAW-Lambeth.
TAP ROOM & SHOP
SUMMER OPENING HOURS! FRIDAYS 6pm - 10pm* SATURDAYS 12pm - 6pm *STARTING 6 APRIL
FREE TOURS SATURDAYS AT 12.15 DRINK IN OR GRAB BEERS & MERCH TO GO!
ARCH 547, BRIXTON STATION ROAD
FOLLOW US @BRIXTONBREWERY WWW.BRIXTONBREWERY.COM
6 CREATIVE BRIXTON brixtonblog.com
2018 MAY
VISUAL ARTS
Portrait of the Windrush generation Ahead of the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush and amid the political storm over the treatment of the Windrush generation, Tevye Markson visited the Clapham Eagles dominoes club to talk to photographer Jim Grover and team captain Trevor Neil about Jim’s new photography exhibition
Jim Grover’s Windrush: Portrait of a Generation is a photo-story of the first generation of AfricanCaribbeans to migrate to the UK. The SS Empire Windrush arrived from Jamaica at Tilbury in 1948. Around half of its migrants were housed in an underground wartime shelter in Clapham. Many “signed on” at the Brixton Labour Exchange. Jim, an award winning Claphambased photographer, met Trevor Neil, 70, at their church. Trevor migrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1963, just after the government restrictions came in. “When it started to get cold I thought: ‘why did I come here’? But you get used to it. “In the younger days, life was good. Growing up in the 60s, there was a lot of prejudice but I never really got involved in fighting.” Trevor learnt dominoes as a boy in Jamaica and has been playing it regularly since the early 1980s when he formed the Clapham Eagles team. “Dominoes brings people together,” says Trevor. “I know a lot of people and places just through dominoes.” Jim Grover wanted to capture traditional life in South
London unseen by mainstream media; Trevor invited him into his community. He walked into the club for the first time as a stranger with a camera. People had no idea what his intentions were or whether to trust him. But Jim has visited the club every week since last June and says one conversation led to another. Over time, he was accepted into the community. “Dominoes is a joy to play,” says Trevor, “especially if you’re playing someone better than yourself and you beat them. It’s like scoring a goal in football.” Photographing dominoes is
Trevor Neil at the Clapham Eagles dominoes club
difficult, but, says Jim: “The more you spend time, the more you anticipate what may happen. You can start to judge if they’re going to slap the table.” The original project was just the Dominoes club. but one
A creator of imaginary worlds Leslie Manasseh previews an exhibition of works by the multi-talented Edward Bawden Edward Bawden was one of the most celebrated British artists of the last century. Best known as a commercial illustrator and print maker, he was also a fine artist, producing many works in different media and capturing some of the main events of his time. Whether as a graphic designer for the advertising industry, an official war artist in France and North Africa, a portrait painter of middle eastern and African people, or simply recording everyday life in Britain, Edward Bawden made a huge contribution to the visual arts. Dulwich Picture Gallery will present a major retrospective of his work from 23 May until 9 September. It will be the first to look at every aspect of his
Albert Bridge, 1966 Trustees of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery (The Higgins Bedford), © Estate of Edward Bawden
60-year career and will showcase previously unseen works and as 18 rarely seen war portraits. Featuring 170 works, the exhibition includes Bawden’s signature linocuts alongside
conversation led to another and the project expanded. “I wanted to try to capture the totality of West Indian life,” says Jim. Over the past ten months, he has been invited into the homes, clubs,
churches and memorials of members of the Windrush generation, now in their late 60s to 90s, who still live in Brixton and Clapham. He went to a family event in Brixton where there were four generations. Grandmother Hermione met Lester in Kingston while waiting for the ship to London. They were on the boat for two weeks, and ended up marrying. Jim learnt about pardner saving schemes, Jamaican front rooms and nine nights, a tradition that marks the passing of a loved one. People sing and drink rum at the graveside and the men dig the earth back in. “You’re celebrating the life of that person,” says Trevor. “It’s a joyful occasion more than being sad.” Jim says such traditions are not as common as they used to be. They are less embedded in the second, third and fourth generations. “If you ask a grandchild if they eat rice and peas they will say with grandma but not at home.” “It’s about 50-50 now whether you do a nine night for your parent if you’re second generation.” “In 20 years time some of these things will be happening much less or not at all.” “Some of these communities are already disappearing because they don’t have enough money to keep going.” “It is really important that the dominoes club thrives.” AADominoes takes place every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at the West Indian Association of Service Personnel on Clapham Manor Street, with league matches on Saturdays. AAJim’s exhibition Windrush: Portrait of a Generation runs from 24 May to 10 June at the Oxo Tower on the South Bank.
VISUAL ARTS ROUND UP watercolours and engravings. Bawden belonged to a circle of artists including Eric Ravilious and Paul Nash. Echoes of their work can be seen in this collection. But his innovative approach to print-making using multiple blocks, overlapping colours and stippling effects underline his individual contribution to the development of this medium. His work is bold and linear yet delicate and humorous. Monumental linocuts for companies like Shell and Fortnum & Mason contrast with lacy watercolours of landscapes and gardens. Bawden was a creator of imaginary worlds, inspired by stories, travel and the everyday world. His work will make a really enjoyable summer exhibition. AA Dulwich Picture Gallery, Gallery Road, London SE21 7AD, 020 8299 8710.
Yellowzine Issue 2 will be launched at 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, 198 Railton Road, SE24 0JT. The gallery will host an exhibition which runs until 11 May to celebrate the second issue of Yellowzine – an arts and cultural magazine for BME artists and the BME community. The focus of the second issue is photography. Reflections is an exhibition featuring paintings, photography and sculpture by Adjani Okpu-Egbe, Christian Furr, Gered Mankowitz, James Mylne, Emma Elliot and Gary March. It runs until 20 May in Johnson’s Gallery, 58 Battersea Bridge Road, SW11 3AG. The Other Side of Paradise features the work of Lee Johnson, whose linocuts explore the folklore and forests of the Caribbean. Hosted by Slaughterhaus Print Studio, Vincent’s Yard, 119-123 Hackford Road, SW9 0QT, it runs until 12 May. Women Can’t Paint is an exhibition
– obviously by women artists! – in the Turps Gallery, Taplow House, Thurlow Street, SE17 2UQ. It runs until 12 May. Do We Need to Talk About Porn? is the catchy title of Lambeth and Southwark Mind’s 2018 lecture. It will be a dialogue between a psychoanalyst and an artist about the complex and ubiquitous relationships with pornographic and erotic images in the modern world. Organised in collaboration with Block 336, the event is a fundraiser for Lambeth & Southwark Mind’s provision of free long-term psychotherapy. Drinks will be available to buy and visitors can socialise and celebrate Lambeth & Southwark Mind and Block 336. On 9 June from 6 to 8.30 pm in Block 336, 336 Brixton Road SW9 7AA. Tickets (£22.15) via Eventbrite. The 25th Dulwich Festival from 11 to 20 May will see more than 250 artists all over South East London opening their houses and studios. See details at http://dulwichfestival.co.uk.
MAY 2018 brixtonblog.com CREATIVE BRIXTON 7
MUSIC
All we are saying is … Dave Randall’s gig picks of the month are testament to Brixton’s wonderful music scene and the power of music
BRIXTON
HI-FIVE
Each month we ask a Brixton community member to choose five records and tell us why … Anthoney Waugh moved to Brixton from Kingston, Jamaica, seven years ago. For the last four years he has served up delicious food and fresh juices at his One Love Cafe in Brixton Station Road. The cafe was in one of the arches and now trades from a beautifully bedecked trailer opposite the Brixton Recreation Centre 1. REDEMPTION SONG by BOB MARLEY This song is legendary – the words immaculately put. Being aware of the struggle – I can surely appreciate it.
2. SHOW US THE WAY by SIZZLA As a part of the Rastafarian faith, this song addresses society on a political, financial, social and cultural level, showing us the right way to live.
3. READY OR NOT by THE FUGEES It’s one of my personal favourites and I know it word for word. Love this song.
4. PERSISTENCE by NORRIS MAN This is a song I can relate to from the first time I heard it. I did it when Network Rail kicked us out [of the arches]. I got back up!
5. LOVE & HATE by THERON The song is written by my blood brother. I can appreciate his talent. Like he said in the song – easy to love and easy to hate.
I gather my thoughts for this month’s music editorial against a terrifying backdrop. In recent days it has felt as if the world is only a presidential Tweet or two away from war. Too many lives are already afflicted by horrendous conflicts, and in Britain citizens have faced harassment, discrimination and deportation due to our own government’s “hostile environment” immigration policy. More than ever we should be grateful and proud to live in a neighbourhood where the world comes together – for the most part in peace, love and creativity. We in Brixton are also well aware of our debt to the Windrush generation, whose innumerable contributions we celebrate and whose struggles we will never forget. Musical styles inspired by the sounds that arrived with the Windrush generation remain the cultural life-blood of our area. Sounds from everywhere else are celebrated too, in our wonderfully diverse live music scene. We should encourage and support such internationalism. Props this month, therefore, to Brixton venue The Windmill, for hosting all four of my globetrotting music tips. Let’s start with North Dakota born LA-based songwriter and singer TOM BROSSEAU who shares his beguilingly timeless tales of life, love and loss on Wednesday 2nd. His plaintive tenor voice floats sublimely over seductively simple country folk acoustic guitar, creating something rather magical. According to his website, Tom is “gentlemanly and rambling with cowpoke insightfulness”. Sounds good to me. Support comes
Brixton’s premier law firm. Established for over 30 years
Say Sue Me from the French-born Arizonabased “experimental avant-pop” musician and occasional Calexico collaborator Naim Amor. On Saturday 5th, those lucky enough to have nabbed a ticket will be treated to a performance by DAMO SUZUKI, former frontman of German krautrock legends Can. Suzuki was with Can when they produced some of their most enduring and innovative work, including the classic albums Tago Mago (1971), Ege Bamyasi (1972) and Future Days (1973). He then left, aged 23, explaining in his characteristically enigmatic style that he was “much more curious about another life”. On Wednesday 16th it’s the turn of indie-pop quartet SAY SUE ME. The band visit Brixton from Busan in The Republic of Korea, bringing with them deliciously melodious jangly guitar tunes reminiscent of The Cure and early surf-rock. Formed in 2012, they released their debut album We’ve Sobered Up in 2013 on Korean indie label
Make Do and Mend
Wainwright & Cummins llp SOLICITORS • FAMILY • DIVORCE • NOTARY PUBLIC • PROPERTY • WILLS & PROBATE • CIVIL LITIGATION • MEDIATION 57-61 Atlantic Road, Brixton SW9 8PU Telephone 020 7095 5700 • HOUSING • IMMIGRATION & ASYLUM • EMPLOYMENT • CRIME 6A Acre Lane, Brixton SW2 5SG Telephone 020 7737 9330
info@wainwrightcummins.co.uk
www.mdam.co.uk follow us @makedoandmenduk
Electric Muse, before being picked up by London’s Damnably Records. Since then Say Sue Me have enjoyed considerable support from BBC 6Music and have just debuted at SXSW where NPR selected them as one of the hot 100 acts to see at the festival. Support comes from Seoul based Korean blues band Billy Carter. Finally, on Tuesday 22nd, there is a rare chance to see BIRDSTRIKING who join us all the way from Beijing, China. The band was born when guitarist He Fan and drummer Wang Xinjiu met at a Carsick Cars show at Beijing’s legendary, now-shuttered rock club D-22. They quickly established themselves among the leaders of the new Beijing indie rock scene. So there you have it. Political leaders may try to divide us, but music has different plans. Let’s turn up the volume and give peace a chance. AADave Randall is a musician and author of Sound System: The Political Power of Music.
Vintage & Retro Boutiqu Rework e ed vinta g e , fashion & acces sories fr om 1960’s 1990’s Pop Brix ton - Br ixton St ation Ro Open 7 ad days a w eek
THE BRIXTON POUND IS:
The original urban LOCAL CURRENCY with the world’s best-looking money!
A pay-what-you-can COMMUNITY CAFÉ using surplus vegetarian and vegan ingredients.
The amazing BRIXTON FUND supporting grassroots projects and charities.
This is our space This month
Café
What’s On in May May 2—9 Art Exhibition: Box Wine
Fridays Last Friday in the month: Film Night!
Mondays 19:00 Life Drawing
Saturdays 10:30 Kids Kreate! Art Group
Tuesdays 19:30 Introduction to Buddhism
Saturday May 19 14:00 Conversation Café 19:00 Let’s Laugh Comedy
Wednesdays 09:30 Mindful Hatha Flow Yoga 16:00 Kids’ Yoga with YogaFam 18:30 Kundalini Yoga Thursdays 18:45 Yoga South London
Sundays First Sunday of the month: 11:00 DIY Sunday Check the website for the latest listings
Our monthly free film nights have got off to a roaring start, with CrazyWise pulling in a big crowd and lots more in the works. The High Trees Listening project set up camp in the cafe for a couple of days, discussing the effect of gentrification with local residents. Coming up, the basement gets a holistic treatment with sound healing and touch assist workshops in the next couple of weeks. Keep your eyes peeled for BOX WINE, a post-ed art exhibition from Camberwell College of Arts students.
Can you help us? Sales of our amazing David Bowie-approved limited edition A3 prints go directly to support our community work. Ask in the café or go to the shop on our website.
Our basement space is FREE weekday mornings for community activities. Café available for hire evenings and Sundays at very reasonable rates. Open for radical thinking, delicious food and excellent coffee from 08:30 Monday – Friday 09:00 Saturday 11:00 1st Sunday of the month
Brixton Pound Café 77 Atlantic Road SW9 8PU 020 3581 2850 brixtonpound.org
MAY 2018 OPINION 9
BRIXTON BUGLE
COMMENT
Right to vote
Much of the discussion about politics in Brixton and the borough of Lambeth boils down to people saying: “Nobody is listening to us”. And Brixton was recently the setting for a protest against the national “Windrush generation” scandal in which nobody in government listened to the desperate pleas of people refused jobs, medical treatment, homes and re-entry to a country they had grown up in. We are fortunate that there are plenty of people in our borough who are prepared to put in the hard and often thankless work of investigating alternatives, keeping check on bureaucracy and asking awkward questions of both local and national government. Without them there would be no democracy. But the Americans did not coin the phrase “Go fight City Hall” to mean “your campaign is doomed to fail” for no reason. Many people have enough to do just to earn an amount sufficient for their family to survive, and have little time for anything else. So when the opportunity to take 10 minutes, once every four years, to cast a vote comes along it is not one to ignore. Even if you find none of the parties or candidates on offer particularly appealing, consider this: whoever wins on a low-turnout vote will have little reason to listen to protests for the next four years if they can be confident that, as in the last local election in Lambeth, fewer than one third of the voters even bothered to vote – turnout was 32%. The Chartist protesters who assembled in what is now Kennington Park 170 years ago were demanding, among other things, annual parliaments so that voters would have more control over the MPs they wanted to choose. In those days, neither women nor most working people even had the right to vote. Now that we can all vote, it would be stupid not to. Regulated by IMPRESS: The independent monitor for the press 16–18 New Bridge Street EC4V 6AG 020 3325 4288 complaints@impress.press www.impress.press
Sir Lenny Henry and Lisa Burger, executive director of the National Theatre at the launch of the Let’s Play scheme at Brixton’s Hill Mead primary school
Linda Quinn talks to Sir Lenny Henry about fun, education and why learning about and acting in drama at school should not be available only to the children of the rich and powerful
Fun is really important. It’s subversive Sir Lenny Henry, great performer that he is, can switch in an instant from the noisiest boy in the playground to a man of mature wisdom who is studying for a PhD. He visited Brixton’s Hill Mead primary school because he is convinced that there is a direct link between creativity in the playground and successful education – and because he is concerned that the government is ignoring that link. He was there to launch Let’s Play, a learning programme created by the National Theatre, working with teachers and other educators, to bring great and original theatre to primary schools. “I can’t believe that the government think that just cramming and repeating is the way to produce fully rounded citizens,” he says. But drama is not on the list of subjects that government says must be taught in our schools.
The idea of Let’s Play to try to embed creativity in primary schools. “This is the formative age,” says Sir Lenny. “This is when you start to think about who you are as a human being.” Ostensibly, he says, drama is running around a room shouting and then singing a song at the end and having fun. “But fun is really important. It’s subversive.” And pupils putting on a play learn important transferable skills like working as a team, problem solving and hitting deadlines. “If we are to be a fully rounded society, everybody needs to get a go at this, not just a small group of people with the money. It needs to be for everybody.” His advice for any young person who aspires to be an actor is to agitate to make drama a school activity, encourage the school to do Let’s Play, or work with an English teacher to make it an out-of-school activity.
“Watch theatre on the telly, watch films,” he says. Tony Grounds, who wrote BBC One drama Our Girl about female medics in the British Army, used to be a member of a youth club “where he was the gobby one – so he wrote monologues and sketches for people. Now he is one of our best, most awarded writers,” says Sir Lenny. And he points out how much of the wealth of the UK comes from people like Stormzy, Dizzee Rascal, Steve McQueen and other performers with a working-class background who are people of colour. Henry enjoyed running a workshop with the pupils at Hill Mead. “It’s fun giving them a run down. The will to do it and enjoying it is key. If kids want to do it, let them do it. It is structured creative activity – not wasting time.” AA bit.ly/NT-letsplay
The privilege of living in Brixton Alice Crawford recently arrived home to Brixton after serving as an ecumenical accompanier with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme In Palestine And Israel, working in an international team in East Jerusalem Though no two days were the same, my typical week would include monitoring and reporting on breaches of international humanitarian law. For example, the treatment of Palestinians passing through the Israeli military checkpoint of Qalandiya on their way to work every day, or the demolition of Palestinian homes; walking children to school past soldiers and checkpoints; and supporting Israeli human rights and peace activists at their weekly vigils to demonstrate against the military occupation of the West Bank. For the last 50 years the West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation. The occupation is recognised as illegal under international law and condemned by the international community. I visited the Palestinian Bedouin community of Jabal Al Baba (Pope Mountain) each week. Like almost all the Bedouin communities in the West Bank, the village has been given a full demolition order by the Israeli government and, though it is built on land owned by Palestinians and the Vatican, the
residents are at risk of losing their homes at any time. They are refugees, their families having been displaced from the Negev, now in southern Israel, when the state of Israel was established in 1948. Now they are at risk of displacement again. One man told me “nothing can replace our houses. This land is where we were born and we want to die here.” In February a house in Jabal Al Baba was demolished by the Israeli authorities, making a family of 13 homeless. The reason the Israeli government gave for the demolition was that they didn’t have an Israeli permit to build the house, but for Palestinians – these are almost impossible to get. In November, the school at Abu Nuwar, another community we worked with, was demolished for the fifth time by the Israeli authorities. The school was EU-funded and the EU, including Britain, condemned the demolition. The forced displacement of Palestinians – the confiscation of their land and destruction of their property – and the settlement of Israelis in the West Bank are examples of the many ways in which the occupation breaches international law. According to B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, there are over 600,000 Israeli settlers living illegally in the West Bank while Palestinians are stopped from building on over 70% of the land.
As an ecumenical accompanier I worked closely with Israelis who were supporting Palestinians’ rights and working to end the occupation. Combatants for Peace is an NGO in which Israeli ex-soldiers and Palestinians who have been involved in armed resistance to the occupation work together. One of their activities is rebuilding houses which have been demolished by the Israeli authorities. Combatants for Peace believe that “the cycle of violence can only be broken when Israelis and Palestinians join forces” and work to “both transform and resolve the conflict by ending Israeli occupation and all forms of violence between the two sides… building a peaceful future for both peoples”. As a Brixton resident I am more grateful than ever that I don’t live in fear – that I can walk down Brixton Road and see people from all over the world and feel that we can be a community, that we don’t have a to pick any “side”. My admiration for Palestinians and Israelis who take the stand against picking a side and dehumanising the “other” – who work to build reconciliation in the midst of a conflict in which new scars are being created all the time – only grows as I reflect on my time in Israel and Palestine and the privileges I experience at home. AA https://eappi.org AA This is an edited version. The full story will appear on the Brixton Blog.
10 GREEN BRIXTON brixtonblog.com
2018 MAY
Alan Slingsby meets the Lambeth Horticultural Society – and the man who organises the Country Show’s carved vegetable competition Lambeth is well provided for when it comes to tilling the soil. There are plenty of organisations keen to help – Incredible Edible, Brockwell Greenhouses and the South London Botanical Institute, to name but three. But the volunteer-run Lambeth Horticultural Society has been promoting gardening for 67 years, since its foundation in 1951. And, while it has a long history, it is also at the heart of one of modern Lambeth’s cultural treasures – the carved vegetable competition at the annual Country Show in Brockwell Park. Bob Tydeman is the competition organiser and one of several people who help to run the borough-wide society. It organises two flower shows a year, managing a remarkable display at this year’s April spring show in the midst of unseasonably icy weather. The late summer show will be on 1 September. The whole floral marquee at the Country Show – which houses the vegetable competition – is also organised by the society. The society also has a hut that is not a hut but a former council estate laundry leased from Lambeth council – it replaced an actual hut, but the name stuck. Membership is open to anyone and nobody is going to check a new member’s postcode – LHS is unaware of any similar organisations in neighbouring boroughs. Members, who include two Chelsea Pensioners, can enjoy coach trips to important gardens in the South-East of England, talks on horticulture from April to November in West Norwood’s Old Library, garden supplies at discount prices from the LHS hut and a newsletter three times a year. Chris Smith of Pennard Plants – which sells one of the largest selections of edible plants, heritage seeds, fruit and herb plants to be found in the UK – captivates LHS audiences most years with a talk about his garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. Members’ detailed knowledge of local soils and growing patterns – especially as
Gabrielle Garton Grimwood, LHS chair Tony Pizzoferro and Steve Cutler the society’s spring show
It’s nice to meet people who share your obsession
Carved vegetable competition organiser Bob Tydeman
the climate veers from unseasonably cold to hot – and advice and companionship is also really valuable. Members form friendships across the usual boundaries. Steve Cutler with a young son is a good friend of pensioner Betty Cox (inset, left at the society ‘hut’). People from many different backgrounds might be interested in tomatoes and start talking about them, he says, “and, all of a sudden, you’re talking even more”. “Gardening is one of the activities that cuts across perceived barriers,” says LHS publicity officer Gabrielle Garton Grimwood. “It creates a bond between people.” You can, she says, get fanatical about gardening, “so it’s nice to meet people who share your obsession”. The current LHS membership of about 250 is predominantly middle-aged or older, but the society is doing something about that, beginning with a new presence on social media and a revamped website. Gabrielle and Steve believe it is social media that have elevated the status of vegetable competition. And, should you be thinking of competing for the £2 prize money and the glory this year, Bob Tydeman has a suggestion. He thinks that the fight of Dulwich Hamlet Football Club to keep its ground at Champion Hill would be a good topic for a sculpture. AAIt costs just £7 a year to be a member of the LHS. You can sign up at www. lambethhorticulturalsociety.org.uk/ membership.
The work takes place outside, but a lot comes back inside Regular Bugle gardening columnist Gemma hands the trowel to husband Kamal Pasha, who explains what it’s like to live with a gardener You may be thinking that being married to a gardener must mean the garden and outdoor space is always looking tidy with the best kept plants, shrubs and trees. Wrong! When you live with a gardener you realise that all their energy goes into invigorating and making other peoples’ gardens look great. The Gardening Girl’s focus is on the gardening business and making her clients happy. This does mean our garden may get neglected, because she is working on your garden.
When there is time for the Gardening Girl to tend her own garden, the pruning is done with so much haste... I wonder if our wisterias will ever grow back. Living with the Gardening Girl also means having to navigate around muddy boots on the porch and walking though leaves and twigs in the hall – remains from the working day. If it’s been a particularly grubby day, as I call it, there will be the odd scattering of soil like breadcrumbs all the way to the bathroom. This is usually accompanied by a faint aroma – Mother Nature – at its purest. For all the gardening work that takes place outside, there’s a lot that comes back inside.
Occasionally giant trugs of gardening tools will occupy the front room, sometimes under the pretence of “getting our garden done tomorrow”. It’s often because the van space is required for the big planting jobs. Although, the tools do get some TLC and maintenance when out of the van. When the evening arrives, the Gardening Girl is busy responding to emails and Facebook queries, in between the numerous voice messages and texts that people have left throughout the day. The Gardening Girl’s work never seems to end. It carries on into the living room and continues in the background as we watch an episode of our current
Netflix recommendation. So when you get an email or WhatsApp message at 9pm, it means the Gardening Girl is multi-tasking, devoting some of her family time to plan her jobs with you. And this all takes place, while raising a toddler and running a family. When enquiring about gardening work, leave your postcode (a gardener needs to know where the work will be), and describe briefly what you would like done to your garden. But do not be offended if you do not get an immediate response, and smile if you get a message at night. 66 As always, if you would like help with gardening work then please text The Gardening Girl on 07826 551353.
Something we can get excited about Sue Sheehan on why local food growers get so excited at this time of year Finally, spring is here and gardeners in Lambeth are getting very busy. Already, many of our gardens have a surplus of salads, and they are getting ready to start taking delivery of seedlings from Myatt’s Fields Park. Why do we get so excited about growing food and why is it so important for all of us at Incredible Edible Lambeth that we support food growing in our local community? To many people, growing food may seem like an irrelevance – it’s labour intensive, time
All this food was grown in one community garden last year – our urban community gardens grow lots of unusual vegetables and leaves consuming and yields can be very variable. But to anyone who has managed to grow fruit or vegetables – nurturing a seed into life, watching it grow, the satisfaction of harvesting and eating is indescribable! As soon as you have eaten home-grown food, it makes eating anything that has been harvested unripe, stuck in cold storage and transported (sometimes) thousands of miles seem tasteless and unfulfilling. So, taste is one thing, but another is nutritional value – did you know that a tomato harvested before it is ripe has 31% less Vitamin C and that antioxidants are reduced too? Another key reason we love encouraging food growing is that it is a great way to talk to your neighbour and get to know people in your community. Getting outside and digging the soil has been shown to have enormous health benefits – both physically and mentally. There are dozens of places all over Lambeth where food is being grown – if you want to find one near you, go to our website and click on “Map” and, while you’re visiting our site, you can see what else is going on with our calendar of events. Join us on one of our guided walks around Brixton and learn more about your immediate neighbourhood. AAVisit www.IncredibleEdibleLambeth.org to find your nearest garden or come to one of our events to meet community gardeners and join the food growing movement.
MEET THE MEMBERS …
BID RENEWAL BALLOT Brixton BID has been operating for the
culture, boosting the local economy and
whilst maintaining a distinctive Brixton.
past five years and in October 2018 we
making Brixton better for businesses
Over the years, we have achieved great
will have our first renewal ballot.
and visitors.
successes and have big ambitions for
We are hoping to secure another five
With continuous investment and
the future. We now need your support to
years to deliver our ambitions and to
development in the area, the BID is
continue championing Brixton for the next
achieve more successes for Brixton and
ensuring the environment is kept safe
five years.
our businesses.
and clean for everybody to enjoy. We are also working to strengthen partnerships,
■■ We are asking all BID Businesses
London’s emerging destinations. Over
reduce crime and continue the delivery of
to take part in a survey on our
the next five years, we want to establish
vital services.
website. If you want to have a say
We are proud to call Brixton one of
Brixton even more strongly as a hub for
in shaping the future of Brixton,
The Brixton BID’s ultimate mission
entertainment, commerce, creativity and
visit www.brixtonbid.co.uk
is to grow a successful local economy
ST
KITCHEN
THE ARCHES SW9
PUB
LIVE MUSIC
CINEMA
SHOPS
MARKET B£ B£
OCTOBER 2018 VOTE YES #FOR BRIXTON
B£
Respect and understanding BID Managing Director Michael Smith History will not absolve those responsible for creating a hostile immigration environment and the systematic destruction of immigration landing cards. And neither will history forgive those responsible for the highest downturn in retail trade this nation has seen. Most businesses want to be around for a long time, adding value and providing an income/profit for their owners. Most businesses also have a sense of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This, I think, is the case for the more than 500 businesses that are members of the Brixton BID. Pubs and club s, for instance, are working consistently with town centre residents through the Sleepless Brixton campaign, managing late-night dispersal while taking on board the noise nuisance concerns of the residents. Respect and understanding are the hallmarks of this relationship, innovation and creativity guide the output. Our focus on the safety and care of female customers visiting Brixton during the evening and at night is exemplary. Services such as “Ask for Angela” and our Street Pastors are helping to keep Brixton among the safest entertainment night-out areas in London for patrons from all genders. Other local businesses – mainly retail – are working daily with Shop Watch, the Safer Lambeth Business Crime Reduction Partnership (BCRP) and our Section 92 police officers to address and reduce shoplifting and anti-social behaviour affecting our High Street customers. The participation of our businesses in these local initiatives is a reflection of their clear commitment to Brixton and to making its economy a success. The provision of good, meaningful jobs and the prosperity of the Brixton economy are constant challenges for us all, irrespective of the banner we are working under: Regeneration or Brixton Economic Action Plan. If regeneration (i.e. the Brixton Economic Action Plan) is not to fail us, it must address some key fundamentals. Investment and opportunities must continue to come in the area thick and fast. Young creatives and professionals seeking start-up and growth opportunities must be able to see these opportunities local to Brixton. Their representation must reflect the diverse background obvious in Brixton. The potential sources of some of these investments are not always obvious and therefore never fully utilised. Local Credit Unions could have a key role to play in delivering new sources of funding. The local authority must, itself, be prepared to invest new funds and spend locally to boost local economies. Discussions about the impact of events in Brockwell Park such as Field Day and the Lambeth Country Show should consider, in addition to their impact on the environment, the impact on local job opportunities and
local investment opportunities. Such events present local job opportunities, important to the local authority. Local businesses that are already working carefully with the local authority and residents and paying business rates to the local authority should also be afforded a fair opportunity (possibly some kind of preferential partnership status) to accessing the business opportunities created by large local events and festivals. The provision of jobs available only to local people at such events is not enough. The tendering process for elements of these events and festivities must not alienate but should support and encourage local businesses to participate in and achieve from them. We don’t need another consultation on this. Why are contracts that will generate significant sums of money from these events being awarded only to companies from outside the borough? It is not beyond belief that the local authority might re-invest some of its pension fund assets locally without any additional risks to the fund. Improving local job density and growing the local economy will not be easy in this age of austerity. An end to local austerity can be achieved. It will, however, require greater will and financial leadership. The chance is there for the local authority to put its money where its mouth is. The local council elections will soon have come and gone. Whilst the conclusions are not foregone, Lambeth is anticipating a strong showing from new, as well as incumbent, Labour Party candidates. A strong local council is good for local growth and development. The local council under the leadership of Councillor Lib Peck has been strong and supportive of local businesses. She has been responsive to local issues and very supportive of business needs. Discretionary business rate relief for small- and medium-sized local businesses has been a focus under her leadership. The growth of BIDs in Lambeth (Waterloo, South Bank, Vauxhall, Streatham, Brixton, Clapham and now West Norwood & Tulse Hill) happened under her watch. Much of what was started under the leadership of her council should be developed to support business growth and job opportunities. The Brixton BID is preparing for its first renewal ballot in October 2018. We are committed to continuing making Brixton Brighter, Cleaner, and Safer for businesses, visitors and our local town centre residents. We are focussed on activities to increase footfall in Brixton beyond the 300,000 (weekly average) achieved in 2017. ●● We will continue our campaign to preserve our live music venues and our unique evening and nighttime fare that makes Brixton both vibrant and edgy, continuously attracting new visitors. ●● Our direct giveback to our levy payers will continue into 2018 and includes: ●● Discretionary relief on the BID levy paid ●● Staff training (348 BID member-staff trained to date) ●● More than 82 days of additional cleaning per year ●● Cultural events held across Brixton to improve our destination appeal in 2017 (64 held) ●● 4,800 additional policing hours, dedicated to business We need your support to help shape the future of Brixton together. Michael Smith Director, Brixton BID
MONTHLY TOWN CENTRE FOOTFALL COMPARISON
TRAINING DATES Food safety (level 2)
14 May
Emergency first aid (level 2) 21 May Personal licence
4 June
Customer care
18 June
Hair advanced colouring
18 June
Food hygiene (level 3)
25 June
day one* Food hygiene (level 3)
2 July
day two* First aid (level 3) day one*
16 July
First aid (level 3) day two*
23 July
Make-up masterclass
10 September
Health & safety
10 September
Food safety (level 2)
17 September
Emergency first aid (level 2) 24 September Personal licence
1 October
Food hygiene (level 3)
08 October
day one* Food hygiene (level 3)
15 October
day two* First aid (level 3) day one*
22 October
First aid (level 3) day two*
29 October
*Please note that all Level 3 courses require participants to complete both days of training.
All training takes place at Lambeth College, Clapham Centre (45 Clapham Common South Side, London, SW4 9BL) and start at 10am with a 5pm finish. These training sessions are fullyaccredited courses, free of charge to BID levy payers and are available strictly on a first-come, first served basis. Email admin@brixtonbid.co.uk to reserve your space.
COMING HOME – BEAUTIFUL BOOKS
MORE THAN A TRADE Beautiful Books is one of the many well loved, well established businesses that will be returning to the refurbished Brixton arches when work is complete. We chatted to the owner Regina Weidenmuller to find out more. Having traded there for almost a quarter of a century, Beautiful Books has been at the heart of the Brixton arches. And to those who shop there it provides an important source of Christian literature. Once dubbed ‘the bookshop of a 1000 bibles’ by a customer, the shop has a broad range of bibles, some in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian, as well as a selection of gifts and greeting cards for all occasions. Regina & Johanas Weidenmuller, the team behind Beautiful Books, feel that its longevity is partly because shops representing the Christian
faith are a rarity, evident in how far their customers travel to visit them. “They come from far and wide” says Regina. As a result the visitors have become more than just customers over the years. “You develop friendships, it’s more than a trade, it’s personal.” Since September 2016, Beautiful Books has been trading from temporary premises only 100 metres further down Brixton Station Road, at number 53. This has proved difficult to find for some customers, so Regina and Johanas are looking forward to returning to where their loyal customers know they can usually be found, as well as being closer to the hub of Brixton and the market where Regina likes to stroll and enjoys its multi-cultural character. “I’m not British and I feel very much at home,” she says.
On their return to the arches. Beautiful Books will be continuing its emphasis as a Christian bookshop as well as continuing its Bible study, children’s club, and Sunday meetings, which are held at their current premises. We want to say to our customers “We’re still here! Don’t give up trying to find us! God Bless our customers and community.” Children’s club: Monday 5.30pm - 6.30pm Bible study: Tuesday 12.45pm - 1.15pm Meetings: Sunday mornings
GO BEFORE YOU GO
PUBLIC TOILETS IN BRIXTON
Go before you go.
2
Join Brixton BID' s anti-street urination cam paign. You can help by going before you go. Thank you!
3
4
1 2
5
3 4
5
6
6 7
8
7
inute
9
lk wa
10m
xt
1
There are now also now five publicly accessible toilets available from 9am until 5pm on the ground floor of the Civic Centre with baby-change facilities and disabled access
8
9
Stockwell Avenue
Open Friday Night & Weekends
POP Brixton
0900 - 2300 Sunday - Wednesday 0900 - 2400 Thursday - Saturday
Popes Road
0700 - 1900 Daily (20p Charge)
Brixton Village 0800 - 2330 Daily (20p Charge)
Electric Avenue
2200 - 0600 Daily
Market Row
0800 - 2330 Daily (20p Charge)
Brixton Library
1300 - 2000 Monday 1000 - 2000 Tuesday & Thursday 1000 - 1800 Wednesday & Friday 0900 - 1700 Saturday 1200 - 1700 Sunday
Brixton Pound Café
0800 - 1800 Monday - Friday 0900 - 1800 Saturday 1000 - 1700 Sunday
Tesco - Acre Lane
0600 - 2300 Monday -Saturday 1100 - 1700 Satu rday
MEET THE BID MEMBERS … DIVERSE
CAFE ON THE HILL
Anita Thorpe’s Diverse gift shop grew from a modest silver jewellery stall on Brixton Station Road in the mid-nineties to the vibrant design-led emporium that thrives on Coldharbour Lane today. “We were the first to showcase the work of local artists and designers, while also offering unique, hand-crafted products from artisans across the globe,”says Anita. Diverse also works with social enterprises such as Tree Shepherd to train and inspire the next generation of Lambeth entrepreneurs. “We love trading in Brixton,” says Anita. “We’ve done so for a long time and we’re very much a part of the local landscape. “We’ve always been supported by the local community and now we have new customers in the many visitors who are discovering the delights of Brixton. “In return, we try to give
As foodies and tourists flock to enjoy Brixton’s fashionable pop-up restaurant scene, cash-strapped locals can take refuge in Cafe On The Hill. Behind a modest shop front bearing a large and slightly wonky red and white sign is a clean and airy cafe where Ekrem and Sabaht Yuce serve up classic English cafe fare seven days a week from 6am* to 4.30pm. And their prices seem to be from a bygone age. Here are some examples: Breakfast of egg, bacon, sausage, chips and beans including tea and toast is £5. £4.50 buys home-made shepherd’s pie, chicken pie or spaghetti Bolognese. A jacket potato with cheese is £3.50 and, for the kids, fish fingers, chips and beans will set you back £2.90. Tea is 70p, cappuccino £1.30, espresso £1.50. There is thai curry or beef penang (£5), paninis and baguettes, lamb chops and stews, salads and omelettes, falafels and fish — the list goes on. Ekrem came to the UK from his village home in Turkey in 1996 and met Sabaht when she arrived in London a few years later. They started out with a kebab shop up
PART OF THE LANDSCAPE
PRICES FROM A BYGONE AGE
something back to the area in the trading and training opportunities we offer to local creatives and budding entrepreneurs.” Diverse is open seven days a week at 390 Coldharbour Lane, SW9 8LF @diversegifts 020 7733 1488 info@diversegifts.co.uk
in Streatham and, fortunately for Brixton, are now keeping the tradition of the Great British Cafe alive on Brixton Hill. Cafe on the Hill, 91 Brixton Hill, SW2 1AA. 020 8671 6012 * Ekrem and Sabaht have a little lie-in at weekends: Sat: 7am-4.30pm | Sun: 9am-4pm
SEVEN & THREE EIGHT FOUR
SPONGE AND CREAM
Two of Brixton’s earliest and most successful promoters of the “small plates and cocktails” scene are Jonny and Liam, proprietors of favourite Brixton watering hole Seven on Market Row and more recently Three Eight Four on Coldharbour Lane. They met working for a large bar and restaurant company in 2006. “We both had a desire to do things our own way,” says Liam, “so agreed to start squirrelling away some cash to look to do our own thing.” With extremely limited funds plus the help of Liam’s dad’s credit card, in October 2011 Jonny and Liam opened Seven. “All we had was a sink, a cubed ice machine and glassware. In those first 12 months we worked 13 days on, 1 day off – and reinvested everything.” Their passion is for cocktails. “We wanted them to be exciting and innovative with adventurous ingredients, while still providing good value for money. We also wanted to create a place where people could drink, eat, relax and socialise. We are now entering our seventh year of trading, and the same focus we had back in 2011 still resonates with us and our team today.” Frustrated by the 11.30 closing time of the Village, Jonny and Liam opened latenight venue Three Eight Four nearby on Coldharbour Lane in 2014. “It gave us an opportunity to do something a bit different in
Paulina Byrne’s earliest memories are of baking banana bread loaves – lots of them – for her family at the age of seven. She graduated to baking for neighbours, with one memorable mistake. “I poured a whole bottle of vanilla extract into one cake mix,” she laughs. “I was pleased when they said they loved it.” But academic studies and a career in IT followed. “One day I realised I was not satisfied living the 9-5 life style and I made a drastic decision to change course,” says Paulina. Years of planning, learning, and testing thousands of recipes followed before Sponge and Cream was born. The shop is tucked into Unit 99 of Brixton Village, just inside the small side entrance to the market from Pope’s Road. Sponge and Cream specialises in luxury layered cakes, cupcakes and luxury wedding cakes,. You can buy huge luscious slices of layer cake over the counter, a whole cake, or order to your own
COCKTAILS MADE WITH PASSION
DELICIOUS CAKES IN THE MARKET
Brixton as we opted for small plates rather than the Iberian themed tapas of Seven,” says Liam, They are now trying their winning formula in Peckham. “Two Hundred has a garden,” he says, “so here’s hoping for a good summer.” Seven OPEN Tues - Fri: noon-11.30pm Sat 10am-11.30pm, Sun10.30am-11.30pm Seven at Brixton, Unit 7, Market Row, SW9 8LB. 020 7998 3309 | www.sevenatbrixton.com Three Eight Four OPEN Mon-Wed 5pm-midnight, Thur-Fri 5pm-1am, Sat 10am-1am, Sun 10am-midnight 384 Coldharbour Lane, SW9 8LF 020 3417 7309 | www.threeeightfour.com Now serving new Spring cocktails. Take advantage of happy hours at both bars.
requirements, incorporating your own ideas and designs. Paulina is proud to have developed Sponge and Cream’s signature style using her own unique recipes and flavours, and providing for all dietary requirements: gluten free, wheat free, egg free, sugar free, dairy free and nut free cakes. Open seven days a week, Sponge and Cream deliver all over and outside London. Unit 99, Brixton Village Market, Coldharbour Lane, SW9 8PS 020 3645 6553 WhatsApp, call and/or text 07833 465 665 contact@spongeandcream.co.uk
15 brixtonblog.com 2018 MAY
FOOD & DRINK REVIEW: DIP & FLIP
Sticky Fingers Nick Buglione rides the gravy train at Dip & Flip
Is there anything left that you can do with a burger? Toasted brioches, griddled patties, slow roasted meatfests, buttermilk chicken, deep fried lasagne burger… among a cast of thousands, we have surely reached tipping point? Not according to Dip & Flip who have, instead, reached dipping point. So for Dip & Flip virgins (as we were tonight), they are a South London mini-chain doing slow roast meats, burgers, huge meaty sarnies, your usual suspects… but with the Dip & Flip USP – cooked in gravy, covered in gravy and dipped in gravy. Steal a bib from a local toddler, grab some kitchen roll, things could get messy.
The menu is a carnivore’s carnival. Choose from roast meat dip sandwiches – topside, lamb or chicken, sauces and then a “gravy boat” to get messy with. You can even throw extra meat on top of your meat. Ditto the gravy treatment for all sorts of burgers alongside patty melts loaded with cheese and a range of cheesy, squeezy, chilli cheesy fries including, yep, fries with gravy. Plus the occasional lonely salad. Veggies could try the potato rosti and fried egg burger if they are feeling left out. Cocktails from a bespoke menu designed by our very own mix-innovators Shrub & Shutter. Mrs B had the Cobb salad (#Seinfeld episode), the classic stateside main course mega salad – chicken, bacon, egg, avocado, tomato, Cos and all sorts of leaves (though without cheese which I think would possibly confuse a Cobb classicist) drizzled with a honey
and mustard dressing. She ended up doggy-bagging half of it. No-one leaves Dip & Flip empty or, in this case, empty handed.
I went for their trademark burger, a behemoth of 180g pattie of forerib, chuck, West Country beef augmented with slices of gravy
roasted topside (lamb is an option but a peculiar one), cheese, slaw, pickles yada yada encased in toasted brioche, already oozing gravy. Grab your burger, dip it into what is a proper roasted and simmered bone broth and dive in. It’s a good burger and a nice gravy. Mr Bisto is not in the building. In a moment of heroically misguided gluttony, I added cheesy, green chilli, bacon fries… with gravy. With beers. It is a decent challenge dipping and holding all and sundry together but that’s the fun right? Stylish, simple with some funky murals, pretty much your identikit, post-hipster burger joint, minus the building site distressed brickwork and oh-so-cool-are-we staff, Dip & Flip is worth a discovery trip for patty and bun fans. It’s wallet friendly, people friendly and their wares walk the talk. You’ll at least discover a burger or meaty stack sandwich with a difference. To quote Bette Davis: “The money is the gravy”. Bib style.
64 Atlantic Road, Brixton, SW9 8PY | dipandflip.co.uk/Brixton | @DipFlippo
REVIEW: TULSE HILL HOTEL
On The Road Carina Murphy rediscovers the Tulse Hill Hotel When we moved to Tulse Hill 12 years ago, there were several local establishments my then boyfriend and I were keen to visit. The Tulse Hill Tavern wasn’t one of them. A shabby, unreconstructed old boozer, equally old school clientele and its location by the South Circular gyratory didn’t exactly lure us in. So, at the back end of 2014 when the 1840s building was re-vamped as the nine-bedroom Tulse Hill Hotel, promising modern gastrostyle pub trappings, we were all ears. We weren’t disappointed. The décor harks back to a former Victorian splendour and it feels comfortably lived-in, like it’s been there forever already. I’ve been at every time of day, but the Sunday roasts with their massive Yorkshire puds are a particular family crowd pleaser. The front of the pub is still good to pop in for a pint and it’s particularly lovely by candlelight with its squashy sofas. You can eat there too and the amicable, yet trendy, well-dressed staff, where natty beards are de rigeur (and the men make an effort too) always keep back some tables for walk-ins. But it’s the more formal restaurant out back that we’re heading to for a mid-week dinner. The open plan kitchen turns out a broadly speaking modern European menu, but isn’t afraid to dabble in more far-flung flavours. We started with ox cheek and Stilton croquettes with mushroom ketchup (picture). Three gargantuan bad boys were full of
six years in the heart of Brixton flavour and nicely crispy. Our miso and honey roast aubergine would have benefitted from further and slower cooking as it wasn’t quite that desired melting, sticky consistency. They’re rightly proud of their Robata grill (flashy Japanese BBQ) and the flat iron steak with garlic butter was beautifully cooked. The spiced cauliflower, also from the Robata, was less of a success – its accompanying crispy chickpeas, tahini and almonds made for a slightly bitter ensemble. Sides of polenta chips and Bloody Mary ketchup and kale with walnut butter were generous. Puddings were a highlight, well executed and showing the proficiency of the kitchen. As I take my food reporting duties seriously, I gallantly tackled the cherry cheesecake, chocolate leaves and brandy cherries, which was as decadent as it sounds. Booze-wise, admirably they offer close to 20 whites and reds by the 175ml glass, 500ml carafe and bottle and prices are fair. We tried Beck Ink, an organic red from Austria, mainly because we’d never heard of it and it was an inky old night out. We got a splash to taste first and it was great. Trendy seasonal cocktails might include a rose negroni or black cherry bourbon sour. Reluctantly we stumbled back outside via the beer garden, which really can’t disguise the fact that it’s bang on a major road, so it’s further testimony to the hotel’s allure that it’s always rammed when the weather lifts.
150 Norwood Road, SE24 9AY | tulsehillhotel.com | 020 8671 7499 | @TulseHillHotel
International chef Brian Danclair combines the warmth and soul of his Trinidadian granny’s cooking with modern flair to create his own “nouvelle Caribbean cuisine”. Light, fresh, delicious.
Unit 79 Brixton Village on Coldharbour Lane SW9 8PS www.fishwingsandtings.com
ur a b ottle of o Ta ke h o m e y z u S ra n ny le g e n da ry ‘G u c e’ ! Pepp er S a
Tuesday 12noon-10pm Wednesday-Saturday 12noon-11 pm Sunday 12noon-10pm
16 FOOD & DRINK brixtonblog.com
2018 MAY
INTERVIEW: KRICKET
The Boys Are Back In Town
area, developing and we have lots of friends round here that could be a support network. We kind of stumbled across Pop and it provided the perfect platform. We could try out the whole concept without it being such a massive risk. We never imagined we would end up in a shipping container. If you can’t get enough people through the door in an area like this when you have just 20 seats, you are going to struggle. Pop also help with things like licensing and marketing so we got to concentrate on the food and service.
Will Bowlby and Rik Campbell of Kricket are back in Brixton. Nick Buglione has a chat. Kricket#1 turned a rectangular metal box into one of the most talked about new restaurants in London. When Pierre Koffman and Michel Roux Jr are singing your praises in a tin box, you must be doing something right. And Brixton absolutely loved them. Chef Will Bowlby (left in picture) and co-founder Rik Campbell decamped to Soho’s Denman Street and I guess we thought that was that for SW9. But as well as opening a Kricket in the new Television Centre, they are having a Brixton homecoming. As far as Brixton is concerned, welcome to Kricket#2. So here’s a quick catch-up. Will was a fledgling chef from knee high after seeing Jamie Oliver on TV, running a catering company while at school. Between the kitchens of Rowley Leigh (Café Anglais) and Vivek Singh (Cinnamon Kitchen), he head cheffed Mumbai’s Cheval and
NB: What is it like working in a metal box?
then went on a culinary pilgrimage round India. His, and I quote. “unique approach in marrying British ingredients with authentic Indian flavours” became Kricket when Rik (uni hospitality entrepreneur) jumped from corporate finance services in the City to join up with his bestie. Partners in Kricketing crime and more or less poster boys for sea container to bigger things journeys. Time for a chat.
it was all about finding the right place. I left a job in the city so my parents thought I was crazy. We
were originally thinking about a standard bricks and mortar site in Brixton, it was and is an interesting
WB: Hot! It was great but it definitely comes with its challenges. And frustrations. In the summer it sometimes got so hot, people would walk in and walk out straight away. People seemed amazed we could come up with these dishes in such a tight space. The less space in a kitchen the more organised you have to be. I kind of miss it though and, once again, if you can pull it off in a sea container, you can probably pull it off anywhere. NB: I presume you can’t make ‘proper money’ in such a small space? RC: Not really. We made enough to live modestly, it washed its face as they say. But it worked almost perfectly for us. You refine what you are doing, test things, make your mistakes, build your brand and word of mouth. It’s a great start-up opportunity but no-one retires on sea container takings. That’s why we left after two years,
NB: What attracted you to Brixton first time round? RC: Will was living here but that’s not the reason. We had the idea to work together, wrote out a rough business plan and then
Come on down to Electric Avenue’s favourite Caribbean restaurant and takeaway. Here at Healthy Eaters we serve freshly cooked, great value, great tasting authentic Caribbean food over the counter with speedy and friendly efficiency. So stop by for a take-away or sit a while and eat in. We have a downstairs eating area and we are open early lunchtime right through the afternoon.
17 Electric Avenue
Brixton SW9 8JP www.healthyeaters.co.uk 020 7274 4521
Stafford and the team, working tirelessly for Brixton
FOOD & DRINK 17
MAY 2018 brixtonblog.com RECIPE: KRICKET’S BHEL PURI although we were always looking to come back. If it wasn’t for Pop, we wouldn’t be in the position we are in today. NB: How will Kricket Brixton compare with Soho and TV Centre? WB: They will all be Kricket, but we want each one to have its own identity. Including the menus. For example, we know people like their favourites at Kricket but in Brixton we will have only three dishes that are on the Soho menu. We hope to get a bit more experimental in Brixton, play around with things a bit more. We’re not interested in being an identikit chain. NB: Can you explain your approach to fusing classic Indian flavours with GB ingredients? WB: Our menu isn’t from a particular region in India. The concept is the fascinating history and huge variety of Indian food cultures. The possibilities are seemingly endless. And here we have wonderful ingredients, brilliant seafood and vegetables, and we can throw in ingredients that may not be available in India. That gives us the freedom to come up with things that are often unique. But we love it when we have Indian guests who say they really like it although they are often surprised there is a white guy cooking them! NB: How do you go about devising the menu? WB: Recipe ideas can more or less come from anywhere. Reading a book, listening to music, whatever, but we also go to India every January. Last time had a great 10 days that gave us loads of ideas to come back and play with. RC: And we look at what’s in season. Today we have been working out an asparagus dish for Brixton and the market is on our doorstep. So here, especially, we can change the menu daily or weekly. Kricket Brixton will definitely be where we experiment more, partly as a testing ground for the other sites, so it will be our funkiest menu. NB: And you have a cookbook on the way? WB: Yes, we were asked to do it while we were still in Pop. It’s been a labour of love since then and we are launching it here – where Kricket all began. We’re really pleased with it and we think it looks great. There is quite a lot going on backstage in a lot of our dishes, despite their simplicity to the eye, but the recipes are designed to be achievable at home in a normal kitchen. If we can do it in a shipping container, people can pull it off at home. NB: Where do you like to eat round here? BOTH: Naughty Piglets is great, we love Salon and Smoke and Salt, Made of Dough do a great pizza and if we are grabbing a burger, Honest. But there is an ever changing menu as new guys pitch up so there is always something interesting to try. 41-43 Atlantic Road, SW9 8JL | kricket.co.uk/Brixton | @kricketlondon
DIY COCKTAIL: 384’S ZIGGY STARDUST
Brixton bhel puri Kricket’s Will Bowlby says: This is another signature Kricket dish that has been on the menu since day one. Each street vendor in Mumbai has their own version and we have kept this recipe fairly traditional. It’s incredibly quick to make and virtually
all raw, so it’s healthy to boot! You will find both bhel mix and sev in most Indian stores. Bhel mix is made from puffed rice and vegetables while sev is a deep-fried chickpea-noodle snack seasoned with turmeric.
INGREDIENTS (serves 4)
22 4 tbsp yoghurt 22 Caster (superfine) sugar, to taste 22 100g (3½ oz) bhel mix 22 ½ red onion, finely diced 22 1 green raw mango, finely diced 22 4 tbsp coriander chutney, 4 tbsp tamarind & date chutney (see below) 22 4 pinches of chaat masala 22 80g (3oz) store-bought sev 22 Small handful of coriander cress or finely chopped coriander leaves
METHOD
TAMARIND & DATE CHUTNEY (approx. 900g) 22 500g tamarind paste 2 cinnamon sticks 1 tsp black peppercorns 2 fresh Indian bay leaves 300ml water 2 tbsp Kashmiri red chilli powder 4 tbsp date puree or a handful of fresh dates (6-7 dates) 200g jaggery or caster (superfine) sugar. ¡¡ Boil all the ingredients in a large heavy-based saucepan over a low heat for about 1 hour until well blended and thick. Set aside to cool. ¡¡ If you have used fresh dates, you may need to blitz the chutney in a blender until smooth. ¡¡ Once cool, store in sterilised jars in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. This chutney will also freeze well if you wanted to keep it for longer.
CORIANDER CHUTNEY (approx. 400g) 22 500g fresh coriander, stems and leaves 200ml vegetable oil thumb-size piece of fresh ginger root 4 garlic cloves, peeled 2 green chillies 6 tbsp lemon juice Caster (superfine) sugar and sea salt, to taste. ¡¡ Blitz the coriander in a food processor with the oil, ginger, garlic and green chillies until it forms a fine paste. ¡¡ Add the lemon juice and season to taste with sugar and salt. ¡¡ Store in sterilised jars in the refrigeratorfor up to 1 week. This chutney will also freeze well.
AA KRICKET: An Indian-inspired Cookbook by Will Bowlby (Hardie Grant, £26.00) Photography: Hugh Johnson
Short of another (dare we say dodgy?) mural, this is our favourite Brixton Bowie homage, still going strong on 384’s new summer cocktail menu.
INGREDIENTS
NN 37.5ml home infused lemon Stolichnaya vodka – infuse your vodka with lemon zest for 48 hours NN 12.5ml creme de cassis NN 1 egg white (aquafaba alternative if vegan!) NN 50ml pomegranate juice NN Garnish with an orange zest flame and edible glitter dusting
METHOD
¡¡ Beat the yoghurt in a bowl and sweeten to taste with sugar and set aside ¡¡ Put the bhel mix in a bowl, add the onion, mango, coriander chutney and chaat masala and mix well. ¡¡ Spoon the mixture into mounds on four serving plates. ¡¡ Spoon over the yoghurt and tamarind and date chutney, leaving some yoghurt visible. ¡¡ Sprinkle the sev, and top with the fresh coriander.
Serve immediately as it will become soggy very quickly.
Glam Rocks!
NN Add one egg white to a Boston tin (cocktail shaker) of cubed ice NN Add all remaining ingredients and shake. NN Strain into a chilled martini glass NN Garnish with a flaming orange zest (optional) and top with edible glitter! 384 Coldharbour Lane, SW9 8LF | threeeightfour.com | 020 3417 7309 | @sevenatbrixton
LUNCH - DINNER - APERITIVO - TAKEAWAY - CATERING
Stefania and Pietro invite you come and try their new summer menu
including fresh octopus and home made Sicilian granita
Trattoria Franzina POP Brixton
49 Brixton Station Road SW9 8PQ. 07802 473 444. @Pop Brixton. info@ franzinatrattoria.co.uk
WWW.FRANZINATRATTORIA.COM
18 ELECTION GUIDE brixtonblog.com
2018 MAY
The choice is yours … As Lambeth prepares for Brixton Hill NAME OF CANDIDATE PARTY/DESCRIPTION council elections on 3 May BAILEY Elaine Tamara Conservative Party Candidate that will see three councillors BAKER Janet Anne Womens Equality Party elected for each of the BUCK Gwen Green Party BULTITUDE Richard Jonathan Green Party borough’s 21 wards, 63 in total CARTWRIGHT Lavinia Arden Conservative Party Candidate Anna McKie takes a look at EAVES Will Green Party what candidates are offering GARDEN Adrian Lawrence Labour and Co-operative Party Although notorious for poor turn-outs, the council elections will have important implications for local people and issues. In Lambeth, the housing crisis is sure to be a huge issue, but there will also be a focus on libraries and their services, road safety and air quality, as Brixton is home to one of the UK’s most polluted roads. Other responsibilities that lie with the council include care of the elderly and support for people with disabilities, local schools, parks, council tax, planning, street cleaning, looking after vulnerable children, funding care homes, adoptions and fostering, and rubbish collection. Elections in 2014 saw the Labour Party further increase its majority, winning all but four of the 63 council seats. Liberal Democrats lost all 15 of their seats that year. The Conservatives lost one seat, taking their total to three. The Green Party won one seat but, overall, had the second highest percentage of the vote after Labour – 15.5% to Labour’s 49.7%. AA Voting opens at 7am and closes at 10pm on 3 May. AA Brixton wards are Brixton Hill, Coldharbour, Ferndale, Herne Hill, Tulse Hill and Vassall.
Ferndale
ANYANWU Donatus
Labour and Co-operative Party
NAME OF CANDIDATE ALEXANDER Rachel
PARTY/DESCRIPTION Green Party
BERTIN Olivier
Liberal Democrats
AUSTIN Benjammin Luke
Liberal Democrats
GROCE Michael
Green Party
BARRETT Craig
Conservative Party Candidate
Conservative Party Candidate
FAZAL Leila
Womens Equality Party
HEYWOOD Rachel Mary Therese Independent
LEIGH Jessica Kate
Labour and Co-operative Party
JOHNSON Michael James
Conservative Party Candidate
LINDSEY Joshua
Labour and Co-operative Party
Liberal Democrats
MOHAMMED Irfan
Labour and Co-operative Party Green Party
NAME OF CANDIDATE
HENNESSY Amy Grace
LEWIS Clive David
PARTY/DESCRIPTION
KAY Maria
Labour and Co-operative Party
McMORROW Henry Francis
Liberal Democrats
PICTON-HOWELL Indar Hugh
LEWIS Sarah Rose
Liberal Democrats
NIX Rashid
Green Party
POPE Aedan Donald
Liberal Democrats
PORTELLI Peter Paul
Liberal Democrats
NYE Emma Louise
Labour and Co-operative Party
RICHARDSON David Macbeth
Conservative Party Candidate
PRICE Jonathan Somerville
Liberal Democrats
PARR Matthew Martyn
Labour and Co-operative Party
SIRAUT John Joseph
Liberal Democrats
TIEDEMANN Martin Andreas
Labour and Co-operative Party
Conservative Party Candidate
SLACK Katy
Conservative Party Candidate
YOUNG Savill
Conservative Party Candidate
Herne Hill NAME OF CANDIDATE BAKER Claire Mary
PARTY/DESCRIPTION Conservative Party Candidate
CHRISTIAN Nick DICKSON Jim
STEWART WILLIAMS Yvonne Patricia
Tulse Hill
Vassall
NAME OF CANDIDATE ATKINS Mary Frances
PARTY/DESCRIPTION Labour Party
NAME OF CANDIDATE BARR Stuart David
PARTY/DESCRIPTION Conservative Party Candidate
Green Party
CAMERON Marcia Anita
Labour Party
CHAPMAN Mark
Pirate Party UK
Labour and Co-operative Party
COLDRICK Matthew Francis
Liberal Democrats
COMBELLES Bruno Stephane
Green Party
EDWARDS Nick
Herne Hill Community & Libraries Campaign
CURTIS Terry
Liberal Democrats
DYER Jacqui
Labour Party
GEORGE Pauline
Labour and Co-operative Party
GARDINER Claire
Conservative Party Candidate
GADSBY Paul John
Labour Party
HASTED Poppy Louise Dorothea Veronica
Liberal Democrats
GNIEWOSZ Gerlinde
Green Party first choice candidate
GALLOP Annie
Labour Party
GORMLEY Edward Louis Christian
Conservative Party Candidate
HODGES Juliet
Liberal Democrats
GREEN Roger Richard
Conservative Party Candidate
LUBBOCK John William Stewart
Liberal Democrats
KIND Ben
Labour Party
MYNOTT Sarah Lucy
Green Party
NOBLE Kate
Liberal Democrats
POLLOCK Florence Rose
Green Party
PROMNITZ Glen Rory
Conservative Party Candidate
WALLACE Gareth Robert
Conservative Party Candidate
HOLBORN Jack Nathaniel Newton Labour and Co-operative Party LESTER Rachel REYNOLDS Matt RICHARDS Anton Egerton Eric
Liberal Democrats Green Party Conservative Party Candidate
SANDFORD Luke Richard
Liberal Democrats
THACKRAY Becca
Green Party
TOOZE Dick
Conservative Party Candidate
LABOUR
Labour’s strength is its strong track record leading the council, says council leader Lib Peck (right). That, combined with “a costed and comprehensive manifesto, will make Lambeth a better and fairer place,” she told the Bugle. “Voters can see the things that we’ve actually done, such as putting record investment in our roads and cracking down on crime and anti-social behaviour,” she said. Peck also highlighted the party’s emphasis on keeping Lambeth’s children’s centres open, building a first generation of new council homes and its women and girls strategy. One of the key things the party wants to tackle is Lambeth’s housing crisis, Peck says. “We want to continue to build genuinely affordable new homes, we really want to work with the mayor of London to try and tackle homelessness and we also want to drive up standards for private renters – which now make up a third of people in the borough.” Housing is a thorny issue for the council, which has faced controversies over its plans and consultation for regenerating the Cressingham Gardens estate and others. Other controversies, including changes to the borough’s library services, have been singled out by Labour’s opponents. But Peck says these issues have not come up all that much during doostep canvassing and she feels that this is because voters understand the challenges the council faces. “We’ve endured government grant cuts of 56 per cent. Many local authorities have shut their libraries and I’m proud that we’ve managed to keep 10 of our libraries open. In
Coldharbour
LIDDLE Scott Douglas Raymond Liberal Democrats PLANT Andy
Green Party
WHITEHEAD Kate Rowan
Green Party
TO FIND YOUR POLLING STATION, GO TO: HTTPS://WHEREDOIVOTE.CO.UK
GREEN
our town centre libraries, we’ve managed to increase the opening hours. We’re actually providing more activity from that library than ever before,” she says. “That’s completely contrasted with the situation around the country.” Despite her confidence, Peck says that she is “never complacent about elections, you have to work for every vote”. She adds that “for the first time, we are facing a united opposition with the Greens and Tories working together to get rid of Labour.” “We’ve been a strong team, standing up for our residents and standing up to government and making sure we get the best deal for Lambeth,” she says. “The important thing for me is we’re able to retain control of the council and are able to make the place fairer and better.” AA www.lambeth-labour.org.uk
The Green Party has a fairly strong support in many wards in Lambeth, narrowly missing out on a second councillor at the 2014 elections. Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party nationally and standing in St Leonard’s ward in Streatham, told the Bugle that the party is the only one offering “serious opposition and scrutiny” on the council. “At the moment it is a one-party state and our Green councillor Scott Ainslie (right) has been calling in and questioning decision after decision, such as over Cressingham Gardens estate regeneration,” he said. Bartley said the party would be fighting the case of residents of the estates, and supporting their campaigns so that they have proper ballots on plans to demolish estates, are consulted properly on the future of their estates and have their final say in what happens to them. The Green Party supports the People’s Plan for Cressingham Gardens – drawn up by professionals for residents – which, it says, would provide more truly affordable and social housing without estate demolition. “The council has become complacent and is making the wrong the decisions and it’s making bad decisions,” Bartley said. “We’ve seen that the council acted unlawfully over the consultation around festivals in Brockwell park.” [A council spokesman said the decision was not unlawful, adding: “This was a procedural omission relating to how the decision was published and communicated, rather than how the decision was made or the decision itself.”] Bartley said that a Green voice on the
council would “offer significant scrutiny to what Lambeth Labour is doing”. The party wants to support groups, like Lambeth People’s Audit and its examination of council accounts, and to protect the borough’s libraries. Bartley says that the Carnegie Library is a library in name only. “We also want to Lambeth to drag itself up from being almost bottom in air pollution in London, we want it to end its incineration of waste and we want to see the 20 mph limit properly extended across the borough,” Bartley said. He said that “Lambeth also needs cleaning up literally as well as politically – whether that be the fly-tipping that blights our streets or the deadly pollution in our air – and we will bring the change needed to end Lambeth’s reputation as London’s dirtiest borough.” AA lambeth.greenparty.org.uk
MAY 2018 brixtonblog.com ELECTION GUIDE 19
Candidates at a hustings orgnised by Lambeth People’s Audit (l-r) Scott Ainslie (Green), Janet Baker (Women’s Equality), Tim Briggs (Conservative), Rachel Heywood (Independent), Ashley Lumsden (Liberal Democrat), Lib Peck (Labour) The Rev Steve Coulson, inset, asked the questions costed in our budget, it’s not pie in the sky,” he says. “We also want government to delegate primary care to councils. You can build a service around residents, contract to make sure people have a much more holistic set of services supporting them.” AA www.streathamconservatives.com/ clapham-news
didn’t meet that,” he said. A key policy for the Lib Dems, said Turner, is making sure the accountability of the council “is baked in to the way it operates”. He said that if his party was in charge, it would ensure that the council’s overview and scrutiny committee, which is meant to scrutinise the decisions of the council, was led by an opposition councillor, unlike now. “If Labour were the second placed party, we would vote for the Labour candidate to be the chair of the scrutiny committee,” he says. “That what’s the Lib Dems did when they ran the council from 2002 to 2006. We think it’s important the opposition has an established and official role in scrutinising the decisions.” AA www.lambethlibdems.org.uk
CONSERVATIVE
Lambeth’s Conservatives are looking to their currently Tory-led neighbouring borough Wandsworth for inspiration and support. “We want to make Lambeth into a commissioning council to give it a long-term future” said Tim Briggs (above), the leader of the opposition on the council. “Labour keeps salami-slicing services on the basis that they’re receiving less funding overall, but if you share services and share contracts with another council, you get economies of scale like Wandsworth do. They save about £12m a year and you can then spend that on lowering taxes, improving services and helping vulnerable residents,” Briggs said. “Labour has run out of ideas, the Liberal Democrats are more of the same, the Greens are basically a far-left party who want to spend more money. We are the only party that have a plan and we’re more realistic because ours are tried and tested.” Briggs concedes that the Conservatives do not have huge support in certain parts of the borough. He said part of the reason is that Labour is telling so many people that the Conservative government is cutting funding for schools when, actually, school funding is increasing by 0.9 per cent in Lambeth over the next two years. “They bring in all these national issues, which is a shame, because we have some very specific policies that will help locally,” Briggs said. “We’ve been trying to get out there and show people we have good ideas and are a party for everyone. There is this narrative that Labour puts out that we’re somehow against our own residents, which is absolute nonsense. I ,and all my colleagues, went into local politics to help people,” he said. The priorities for the Conservative candidates include cutting council tax by 1 per cent, supporting the London Living Wage, extending council tax relief for residents moving in to work and providing extra after-school tuition. “These are all things
Independents in other Brixton wards WOMEN’S EQUALITY PARTY The party is running two candidates in the Brixton area, Janet Baker in the Brixton Hill ward and Leila Fazal in Ferndale. Janet Baker told the Lambeth People’s Audit hustings that “We as a party look at things from a woman’s perspective”. The party was willing to learn and to listen and to work with other parties. AA www.womensequality.org.uk/objectives HERNE HILL Nick Edwards is standing as Herne Hill Community & Libraries Campaign on a platform of environmental improvement; establishing a “parish council” for the area; and a return of all Lambeth libraries to full council funding. AA www.hernehillclc.org.uk/policies.html
LIB DEM
The Liberal Democrats will be looking to reverse their disastrous result at the last council election, where they lost all of their 15 seats. Ashley Lumsden (above) stood down as leader of the local party. George Turner, who is leading the Liberal Democrat campaign in Lambeth, says Labour’s dominance has allowed it to become complacent and that the party has “started to take the residents for granted”. The “outrageous example was the debacle at Cressingham Gardens, where they were slapped down over their consultation by a High Court judge”, Turner said. “Again and again you get the council using the huge resources they have to oppose the wishes of local people to side with often wealthy developers.” He said that the Liberal Democrats could offer “extremely strong” representation on the council and in the wards. Where they were elected, they would be “fierce champions of their local communities,” said Turner. “What we need is a new set of councillors who will come in and use their seats on the council to fight for issues in the wards, which will differ across the borough but that needs to be the first principle,” he said. On housing, the Lib Dems would be “very strong” on holding developers to account and forcing them to build an appropriate level of affordable housing, Turner said. The problem was that the current Lambeth housing policy to have 40 per cent of affordable housing on new developments was almost never respected. “We would vote against any proposals that
concerns about future funding for the Black Cultural Archives and the state of Brixton Rec. At a hustings organised by Lambeth People’s Audit, she said that she was “very concerned” about central Brixton. “I want to protect it. I want to see it respected. It is an amazing place with incredible people.” There had been a loss of social housing and small businesses and a diminution of public services. “I won’t be running the council, but I would certainly like to influence what it does over the next four years. I don’t want to see Brixton disappearing.” AA https://vote4rachel.blog
INDEPENDENTS
A number of candidates are standing as independents, including Rachel Heywood (above) who was a Labour councillor for 12 years, but is running as an independent in Coldharbour ward in this election. In a statement, Heywood said that, although she believed in the values of the Labour Party, she did not believe that local residents “are adequately served by a Labour administration that appears to have priorities spectacularly different to theirs”. Heywood said there are “huge discrepancies” in the number of council houses the council claims it is building and its returns to government, and that an “ethos of ‘command and control’ has shut down some brilliant local initiatives”. Heywood said that Lambeth needs to “change the way we do politics and enter into new relationships with the communities we serve. There is a democratic deficit in this borough and we must seek to address it urgently.” Standing for the central Brixton ward of Coldharbour, she has made what is happening there a central issue in her campaign. She told the Windrush generation rally of her
VASSAL Mark Chapman is standing as a Pirate Party UK candidate. He backs the party’s focus on evidence-based policy, on the internet and technology as something to be optimistic about and the underlying principle that society is best when knowledge is shared. He says he is standing “to encourage openness and transparency of Lambeth council”. AA www.pirateparty.org.uk/mark-chapman
Independents in wards near Brixton include THURLOW PARK: Robin Lambert, whose policies include a freeze on business rates, parking amnesties for shoppers, encouraging tech start-ups, and “building some public loos”. STOCKWELL: Lisa Bainbridge and Steven Nally are standing for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition on a platform of opposing all cuts and supporting all workers’ struggles against them and against privatisation. AA www.tusc.org.uk/home STOCKWELL: Tadeusz Slaski is standing as Duma Polska = Polish Pride. His policies include: fixing broken CCTV cameras; increasing the number of parking spaces and reducing the resident permit prices; and free, specialised English language and vocational courses. AA polishpride.org/tadeusz-slaski
20 WHAT’S ON brixtonblog.com
2018 MAY
Jamila Omar rounds up an eclectic May selection of gigs and more in Brixton and nearby FRI 27 @ HOOTANANNY They Say Jump celebrate the release of their latest EP – a sensual and melodic blend of LATIN brass sections, reggae tones and D&B rhythms. Pulling influences from the reggae of Bob Marley, to the rhythms of ska pioneers like Prince Buster, it’s ready made for the dance floor. 9pm – 3am. £5.
SAT 28 @ WINDRUSH SQUARE HUMAN FLOW: Idomeni Camp, Greece. 18 March 2016
What’s on at Whirled
Highlights this month include Monday 30 April - Wednesday 2 May | 8pm Sunday 6 May | 8pm In Andrey Zvyagintsev’s film Loveless, Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce and are impatient to begin again – even if it means threatening to abandon their 12-year-old son Alyosha. Until, after witnessing one of their fights, Alyosha disappears… Thursday 3 May | 8pm Created over a year by exiled Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, Human Flow was shot by 25 crews in 22 countries. It captures the massive and shocking breadth of the global migration crisis, portraying the plight of 65 million people in search of new lives.
Monday 7 – Wednesday 9 May | 8pm Sunday 13 May | 6pm Ruben Östlund’s The Square is a hilarious and surreal satire on art, culture and communication in the digital age that won the Palme d’Or at the 2017 Cannes film festival. Christian is the curator of a contemporary art museum in Stockholm. A scam forces him to question the world around him and his place in it, while a viral stunt by the museum’s PR agency backfires, sending him and his museum into an existential crisis. Monday 14 – Wednesday 16 May | 8pm Sunday 20 May | 6pm A Fantastic Woman is an outstanding production that recalls the best films of Pedro Almodóvar. Sebastián Lelio’s Oscar-nominated film about a trans woman’s fight for acceptance is an urgent call for compassion towards a community that daily faces bigotry and hostility.
Whirled Cinema | 259 Hardess Street, Loughborough Junction SE24 0HN | 020 7737 6153
The BRIXTON DISCO FESTIVAL – brand new day and night festival celebrating over 40 years of disco, with live music, DJs, record fair, film screenings, art, food and drink in and around Windrush Square (Electric Brixton, Prince of Wales, BCA) with Brixton Night Market plus a roller disco. 2pm – 4am. Various prices.
SUN 29 @ THE WINDMILL
PUNK ROCK BBQ, with Skaciety, Call Me Malcolm, Splurge, Shark Party, Three Months to Kill, Lead Shot Hazard and The Pisdicables. 4 – 9pm. £5.
MON 30 @ KATAKATA Pop up to this Brixton Hill vegan eatery and art space to catch Perspectives, a GROUP EXHIBITION with colourful figurative blends from Natasha Fontanelle, pro boxer Angel McKenzie’s personal interpretations of the human body and Ghanaian artist Matthew Godsson Afful’s imaginative paintings. Ends 3 May. Free.
TUE 1 @ PRINCE REGENT
The Prince Regent PUB QUIZ is held every Tuesday. Big cash prizes, free drinks questions and a rollover jackpot question that grows each week. Come down early because it’s first come first served. 8pm.
the
WED 2 @ MARKET HOUSE
tavern
Say hello to Brixton’s newest local We may be just up the hill but we promise the walk is worth the effort!
Classic pub grub Great beers & wines Friendly service Live sports Weekly quiz
elmparktavern.co.uk
A night for the weird and the wonderful, HOUSE OF IDIOT is a weekly performance party bringing brilliant acts from alternative comedy, sketch, character, musical comedy, clown and cabaret. 8pm. Free.
THUR 3 @ CLUB 414
Each and every Thursday BRIXTON RETRO GROOVE plays the best soul and groove from the 70s, 80s and 90s. DJ Red Clay will take you back on a journey in time when you never had a care in the world… 11pm – 6am. £3.
FRI 4 @ CAFE CAIRO
A new bi-monthly DANCE EVENT with hosts Tom WhiskeyKitten and DJ Codename Sparrow playing four-to-the-floor soul, Bowie, indie nuggets, party bangers and psych, with special live guests Cats from Japan – London’s most exciting Bowie tribute. 8.30 – 11.45pm. £5.
Sexy BLUES TUNES paired with a side of succulent and saucy ribs. Each and every Monday night. 8pm-midnight. Free.
TUE 8 @ EFFRA SOCIAL
Tuesdays mean nothing other than PUB QUIZ. Tommy McArdle hosts one of the busiest quizzes in Brixton, with a cash prize for first place and booby prizes for second and second to last place. Starts at 8pm, £2pp.
WED 9 @ WINDMILL BRIXTON Fresh from a tour supporting Goat Girl, Suitman Jungle – who plays LIVE jungle and drum & bass mash-ups – headlines a show with handpicked support from Guildhall Military Orchestra, Sam Amant and Simon and the Spears.
THUR 10 @ WHIRLED CINEMA Metropolis Music present Kiran Kai, a South London songwriter, producer, DJ and artist. His eclectic style has elements of soul, R&B, cloud rap, lo-fi, darkwave and baile funk, with an undercurrent of our local soul-steeped, jazzy and hazy sound. The ECLECTICISM of his sound is an emblem of the diverse and multicultural hub that is London. 7pm. Tickets £8.95 from bit.ly/WC-KK.
FRI 11 @ ELECTRIC BRIXTON Chali 2na & Krafty Kuts, Apollo Brown featuring Planet Asia, Renegade Brass Band and Mr Thing. Founding member of Jurassic 5 joins Powerful Force in UK HIP HOP for one massive night. 10.30pm – 5am. £19.50.
SAT 12 @ PRINCE OF WALES Returning to London’s favourite rooftop venue for their fifth year are Brame & Hamo, Dave Harvey and more with their summer DAY & NIGHT PARTY. Expect 14 hours of house, disco and techno, plus plenty of dancing and good vibes all around. 2pm – 4am. £5/£10.
SUN 13 @ THE WINDMILL The No Frills Folk Club offers proper, roundthe-table FOLK MUSIC. All musicians, abilities and styles welcome, from Irish, Welsh, English and Scottish, American old time, bluegrass and western swing, French, Yiddish, East European, Scandinavian, Greek, Turkish, Balkan and more. Swap tunes and songs, meet people and learn stuff. 7pm. Free.
MON 14 @ BRIXTON POUND CAFE
A friendly LIFE DRAWING CLASS with tutor Natalie and local artist Andy. Come and expand your skills and enhance your creativity in a relaxed setting. Sketch books and materials provided. 7 – 8.30pm. £10/ £7.50 concs.
SAT 5 @ DOGSTAR
TUE 15 @ POP BRIXTON
AudioSushi is one of Brixton’s longest running Saturday nights with DJs spinning deep house, bass bangers, classics and shouts from the floor – a non-stop full-on hands-inthe-air PARTY MIX. 9pm – 4am. Free before 10pm, £5 after.
From reading to karate, Pop Brixton’s afterschool KIDS KLUB has something to keep them learning new things until dinner. This Tuesday join Ming from Koi Ramen Bar as he provides an introduction to karate. Expect lots of shouting and jumping around. 4.30 – 5.30pm. Free. Booking essential.
SUN 6 @ BRIXTON JAMM The Elm Park Tavern, 76 Elm Park, SW2 2UB hello@elmparktavern.co.uk | 020 8671 9823
MON 7 @ BLUES KITCHEN
Funk & soul bank holiday carnival with Funk, Soul, Disco, Rare Groove, Hip-Hop, Afro Funk and more. Start on the terrace with DJs, rum punch or cocktails then move indoors to dance to an energetic line up including headliners Riot Jazz Brass Band, Jandu, Omah (Soundishm), plus special guests TBA. 4pm – 5am. £11.30.
WED 16 @ HOOTANANNY
The Floor Rippers’ monthly ELEMENT JAM showcases hip hop culture with music, dance and wordplay, bringing together musicians, dancers, MCs and fans to battle and jam in a melting pot of talent and culture. Hosted by R-QI-TEK, with Floor Rippers Live Band, DJ and MC Cypher. 9pm – midnight. Free.
MAY 2018
WHAT’S ON 21
New Tommy and Mary album
Musicians, singers, MCs and the whole local musical community and beyond are welcome at Club 414’s Wicked Wednesday Jam. With Aurora Dawn (Alabama 3), Laura Ibáñez (Brixton Gypsy Jam) and James Lawrence (Ronnie Scott’s Triple Jam Sandwich). Every Wednesday from 8pm to 3am. £3 donation. Aurora Dawn photograph by Andy Lee
THUR 17 @ THE CAMBRIA
David hosts this popular PUB QUIZ. Teams of six or less battle it out for a cash prize, which is doubled if the winning team gambles and answers the Killer Question correctly. Second place wins a bottle of wine. Each player will receive a raffle ticket for a Meal For Two voucher. 8pm, £2 per player.
FRI 18 @ GIGALUM
Designed for the discerning musical palate, a roster of international DJs serves up a variety of delicious PARTY STARTING JAMS, guaranteed to get you moving and grooving. Enjoy the outdoor patio and sample a tasty selection of food as you dance the evening away. 7pm – midnight. Free.
SAT 19 @ HOOTANANNY
STP presents THE ROUSTABOUT COLLECTIVE – circus acrobats and gypsy folk conjoined at the hip. Their raggle-taggle troupe boasts violin, accordion, trombone, vocal trio, guitarists, bass, percussionists, jugglers, dancers, fire eaters and spinners. With Kibitz, Trixie & The Trainwrecks and Talulah Blue. 9pm – 3am. Free before 10pm, £7 after.
SUN 20 @ EFFRA HALL TAVERN
A great weekly LIVE JAZZ session at this much-loved classic Brixton boozer every Thursday night. From 9pm. Free.
MON 21 @ @ POP BRIXTON
Each Monday, Daddy, Mummy and Me TODDLER YOGA focuses on the children with the encouragement of parents, guiding their child to learn and grow. It includes breathing games, yoga postures, singing, stories, yoga games and music. 11 – 11.45am. Free.
TUE 22 @ BRIXTON JAMM
Check LA-BORN RAPPER, singer and fashion icon Brooke Candy in her debut headline UK and Irish tour. 7pm – 9.30pm. £20.
FRI 25 @ GREMIO DE BRIXTON
THUR 24 @ ELM PARK TAVERN
This weekly QUIZ NIGHT is hosted by hilarious quizmaster Joe, with a chance to win prizes galore including a £30 bar tab, spot prizes and of course, the Mega Cash Jackpot! The more that play, the higher the pot. From 8pm. £2pp.
Tommy in Brixton in a preview video: youtu.be/i-Re7zVYJRA
In the majestic crypt of St. Matthews Church, this authentic SPANISH TAPAS restaurant/ bar oozes style. DJs play commercial house on rotation from 10pm at weekends, with a live saxophonist from 11pm. Open until 3am. Free.
Jazz wear
SAT 26 @ BUSSEY BUILDING
Pop over to Peckham for this Bump and Hustle Music live special. The legendary PAUL TROUBLE ANDERSON welcomes from the USA Tortured Soul (live), with the mighty Kevin Fernando. With Main Squeeze DJs Bobafatt and Mo Fingaz on Level 2. 10pm – 5am. From £5.
Brixton’s Pure Vinyl Records at 246 Ferndale Road will host the launch on Monday 30 April at 6.30pm of a new clothing range – We’re Jazz Clothing. GW Jazz co-founder and creative director Gillian Wedderburn (left) tells you all about it in a poem you can see and hear at youtu.be/rHa6kddMxxg.
SUN 27 @ CLUB 414
Grassroots Live Music. A weekly Sunday night that encourages and inspires LOCAL GRASSROOTS TALENT. UB40 trumpeter Patrick Anthony leads the experienced house band with resident DJs and Caribbean food available too. 10pm – 3am. Free.
MON 28 @ THE COMMERCIAL
This friendly Herne Hill boozer hosts a weekly PUB QUIZ every Monday evening with cash prizes and wine up for grabs. 8 – 11pm. £2.
TUE 29 @ BROCKWELL PARK
Take your pick of two regular keep-fit events for older people. The TUESDAY WALK begins at 11am and friendly walk leaders will support and encourage you. Free. Get to the café at Brockwell Hall at 2pm for a 2.30-start. EXERCISE CLASS Choose from Nordic walking (limited places, FCFS) or pilates. Refreshments and a chat at 3.30pm. £2 Silverfit members, £3 non-members. First session free.
WED 30 @ QUEEN’S HEAD
A5 Flyer Portrait
210mm x 14 8m m Remember to delete or hid this laye r.
e
T: 01702 460047
This once notorious Stockwell Road boozer has cleaned up its act, yet still supports upcoming musicians on their OPEN MIC nights, promising a £10 meal and a free drink for acts, as well as cheap pints for punters. 8 – 10pm. Free.
10pm – 3am Bleed Area
WED 23 @ CLUB 414
With even more to smile about after this long-standing and much-loved local club recently received a reprieve from closure, weekly event WICKED WEDNESDAY JAM, hosted by Alabama 3’s Aurora Dawn, is already a big hit. Local musicians are invited to come on down and join in to play funk, jazz, reggae, soul and more, with well-known faces often making a surprise appearance. 10pm – 3am. £3 donation.
Brixton duo Tommy and Mary’s new album Feelings will launch on 4 May. “We’ve put a lot of hard work into it and are really, really proud of it,”they say. “Expect plenty of diversity, head-banging, grooviness, anger. love … full of emotion. “It’s our fourth album and it is as honest and raw as our previous ones. Cannot wait to play it live to all of you.” It will be available on all the usual online outlets. AA See www.tommyandmary. co.uk
remember to extend any colouring or images into this 3mm bleed area to avoid white lines appearing during th print finishing stages.
e
Trim Your job will be cut on the solid black line, any images or text placed in incorrectly .
THUR 31 @ DULWICH PICTURE GALLERY
Master printmaker, illustrator, watercolourist and designer EDWARD BAWDEN pushed the boundaries between fine and commercial art, with themes including leisure, nature and architecture. This exhibition will be the first to show the full breadth of Bawden’s artistic output. Until 9 September. 10am – 5pm. £16.50/ £8 concs. Preview: page 6
Safe Are a Keep all your information inside the white area. Remember to use hig h resolution images (300dpi) for the best results.
414 - 416 Coldharbour Lane - Brixton - London - SW9 8LF
Independent music, food and drink.
Derrick Carter Presents: Derrick Does Disco
Midland Horse Meat Disco Honey Dijon Mr Scruff Crazy P Soundsystem Greg Wilson Norman Jay MBE Maurice Fulton Bradley Zero Daniele Baldelli Chaos In The CBD DJ Alfredo Gideรถn Mafalda Donna Leake Krywald & Farrer Love Glove Z Lovecraft Raw Silk Little Gay Brother Festival Partners HORSE MEAT DISCO
Peckham Rye Park Bank Holiday, 27th May Tickets on sale at www.thisisgala.co.uk
MAY 2018
Hill Mead HERALD Our theme for National Science Week was finding out about famous scientists. We shared our science knowledge with other year groups with a science exhibition on the last day of term ELECTRICITY
Shocking experiment By Abdishakur and Lita Year 6 In Year 6, we studied Benjamin Franklin who discovered electricity in 1752 in Boston, USA. During a thunderstorm, he flew a kite with a metal key attached which conducted the electricity from the lightning. One of his inventions were the lightning rod to protect buildings another was the Franklin stove to use fuel more efficiently. The experiment that I (Abdi) demonstrated was to show the year groups that electricity can go round in a circuit. I showed them that there are different ways to make a circuit. I enjoyed them looking shocked when I touched the two pennies so the electricity went through my body, and made the light bulb light up! At the science exhibition, I (Lita) was helping other children find out what materials will make cars go faster. We put different materials on a ramp and tested how fast a toy car would go. We discovered that the plastic was the best because it was the smoothest material and there was less friction. Friction is a force which changes an object’s speed as it passes over a surface. We enjoyed seeing how fast the toy cars would go on different surfaces. The children loved guessing what material would be best.
THE SOLAR SYSTEM
The inventive Nicolaus Copernicus By Konrad and Amy Year 5
We presented our topic on the Solar System, sharing fantastic facts about it with different classes. Most of them found it fascinating. One told us that his favourite planet was Saturn. Did you know that Saturn has seven rings, and it takes 29 years to orbit the Sun? We studied Nicolaus Copernicus who
was born 1473, more than 500 years ago, and discovered that the Sun does not go round the planets as people thought then – in fact the planets go round the Sun. Copernicus was an astronomer, mathematician, translator, artist, and physicist among other things. Fun fact: he is from Poland like me (Konrad)! The Solar System is known for having nine planets. But we found out it actually has eight, because one of the nine, called
DNA
ATOMS
Fantastic animals
What’s in the box?
By Kadi and Tilyrea Year 3
By Reggie and Najia Year 4
Year 3 learnt all about Rosalind Franklin who is famous for helping to discover DNA. We had an exhibition in the hall and put on white coats and represented our year group on the exhibition stand. Rosalind Franklin’s work was important because DNA tells the millions of cells that make up your body what to do. It is like a computer code. We made our own models
of DNA using pipe cleaners and four coloured beads. DNA is what makes us different. This made us think about how animals are different and what it would be like if we mixed up their body parts. So we decided to invent our own super animals who could help us in our lives. We showed examples of these at the exhibition and asked other children what super DNA animals they would make. Everybody loved looking at our fantastic animals.
Our focus was on a scientist called Ernest Rutherford who knew that everything was made of atoms and discovered that atoms are made up of even smaller parts. We learnt that inside an atom there are protons and neutrons and that inside protons and neutrons are quarks – the smallest particles known to exist. We know that the whole universe is made out of atoms. Our exhibition tried to help children understand that everything is made of these tiny things that we can’t see. We used a can and a box! We let the little ones use a magnet, water and a scale to try and find out what was in the can by using the scale to see how heavy it
Pluto, is now classed as a dwarf planet. We used fruits to demonstrate how the planets orbit the Sun. Most children at first found it confusing to organise the fruits in order of the planets. Once we had discussed and explained the order of the planets and how they work they found it easier. We appreciated being part of the science exhibition and hope to be involved again next year.
was and also using a magnet to see if it was magnetic. We also let them put it in water to see if it floated or sank. We let them shake the can to see if we could hear what was inside. We explored Rutherford’s atom experiment by using black boxes. To find out what was inside we used a marble and a ruler and rolled the marble underneath the box at different measurements, making a note of when the marble hit an object and when it didn’t. When they used the magnet to get the can out of the water, the year 1 children were surprised. They didn’t know that the can would stick to the magnet and asked us how it happened. When we did “What’s in the box?” with them, they were struggling to find out what was inside, so they decided to look inside when we weren’t looking! Oops!
Refugee welcome committee is seeking a local landlord
BRIXTON
Bugle
Pensioner group proves the power of direct action by Jenny Shramenko Lambeth Pensioners Action Group demonstrated the power of direct action when they announced they were going to march on the Town Hall in Brixton in April. A 30-year arrangement for free use of Town Hall meeting rooms had not been renewed after their refurbishment. A letter sent by the group in November had been fobbed off with a leaflet detailing room hire costs at £40 an hour. It took until February to get a meeting in which deputy leader of the council (investment and partnerships) Paul McGlone had provoked further anger by telling them they should be able to get hire fee from their members.
But the evening before the planned action and a week before the local elections, the council agreed to renew the free access agreement. But LPAG wanted to hear it from the council in person so they decided to go ahead as planned and pay a the council a visit. It fell to Sue Foster, strategic director of neighbourhoods and growth, and council leader Lib Peck’s PA Michael Warren to face the music. Unconditional apologies were given and the pensioners were told: “It should never have happened; it should never have come to this”. They were then taken on an immediate tour to assess which rooms were most suitable for their purposes.
Checking the small print: (l-r) LPAG vice chair Ted Knight, LPAG secretary Penny Savage, chair Ellen Lebethe, Michael Warren, Lib Peck’s PA, and Sue Foster, the council’s strategic director of neighbourhoods and growth
TO LET / FOR SALE SHOPS & OFFICES TO LET
Unique Period D1 Property large rear yard
The Welcome Committee is a group of Londoners who have come together to sponsor a refugee family from Syria to come to Lambeth. Members plan to support the family at all times and the only thing holding them back is accommodation. The group is in search of a two or three bedroom house or flat in Lambeth for a minimum of two years, which they could rent at London housing allowance rates. The Welcome Committee sponsors refugees through a government-run community sponsorship scheme and wants to sponsor two refugee families – with the second settling in North London. They have met their fundraising target and have submitted their application to the Home Office. “We have been overwhelmed by all the generous support in raising funds, and in the interest shown by local people, businesses and the council. We have really enjoyed meeting and making links with other groups in Lambeth. The only thing left now is finding suitable housing,” said Khairun Dhala from the Welcome Committee. “We would be grateful for any leads”. Lambeth is one of the most welcoming London boroughs,
with 22 families already resettled through the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme (VPRS) and supported by Refugees Welcome Lambeth. It also has at least two community sponsorship groups in the process of sponsoring refugees. The community sponsorship
scheme allows communities to come together and in support of refugees in an otherwise increasingly hostile environment. Requirements include raising over £9,000 per refugee family, finding suitable accommodation at London housing allowance rates, and helping the family to find schools and healthcare, learn English, find jobs, and anything else they may need in order to be independent and restart their lives in London. AAIf you are a landlord and interested in supporting the Welcome Committee please contact welcomecommittee@ outlook.com.
0207 566 6455
www.goodsircommercial.co.uk
FOR SALE / TO LET NEW OFFICE / RETAIL UNITS
3-5 Gresham Road SW9
The Edge 86-88 Gresham Road SW9 9NP
Ground, First, Second & Third Floor Classification: Non-residential (D1) use 4,530 Sq. Ft GIA Terms: Upon Application
Office (B1), Retail (A1) Rent/Price: on application. Sizes: Reach up to 11,010 sq ft approx l New development l Vacant possession l Other uses considered (STP)
TO LET RETAIL
TO LET RETAIL
380 Coldharbour Lane SW9 8LF
23-25 / 27-29 New Park Road SW2 4DU
Retail (A1), Restaurant (A3, STP) Rent: £60,000 pax Size : 1,042 sq ft approx Prime bar/ restaurant pitch.Large rear yard Suitable for A3 use (STP)
Retail (A1) Use Rent: from £10,000 pax Size: Up to 1,069 sq ft l New build shops l New lease available l Rates relief may apply
WE AIM TO PROVIDE OUR CLIENTS WITH A ONE STOP PROPERTY PRACTICE. AS A FIRM OF CHARTERED SURVEYOURS, OUR COMPANY SERVICES INCLUDE: l PROPERTY INVESTMENT
CONSULTANCY l COMMERCIAL AGENCY l PROPERTY MANAGEMENT l RENT REVIEWS l CHARTERED SURVEYING For a full list of our shops and offices or to arrange a viewing please contact: Mark Pearse markp@goodsircommercial.co.uk Fergus Emmerson fergusemmerson@ goodsircommercial.co.uk regulated by