Issue 6 of The Lewisham Ledger

Dane and able

A FREE NEWSPAPER FOR LEWISHAM

The Lewisham Ledger I S S U E 6 | A P R I L /M AY 2 0 1 9

The rising star of British comedy PA G E 1 8

Ready steady pho

Vietnamese cooking in Hither Green PAG E S 24, 25

Make way for the queen

Candice Carty-Williams' novel idea PAGES 10, 11

Music maestro

A chat with Squeeze's Chris Difford PA G E S 14 , 1 5

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Welcome to The Lewisham Ledger, a free newspaper for the borough. ach edition of the paper has a particular focus on a different part of Lewisham, in addition to the regular borough-wide news, views and interviews. So far we’ve covered Catford, Deptford, New Cross and Telegraph Hill, Forest Hill and Brockley.

Issue six shines a spotlight on the people and places of Hither Green, coinciding with this year's Hither Green Festival, which runs from May 18-26.

A special section on the area starts on page 16, with a photo-essay on the independent shops, cafes, boozers and barbers of Staplehurst Road.

We also chart the history of drinking in the area, interview standup comedian and writer Dane Baptiste, who grew up locally, pop into zero-waste shop Mission Green and meet the entrepreneurs behind two popular Vietnamese dining destinations: Saigon Streat and Cafe Green.

We now have almost 160 stockists of The Lewisham Ledger across the borough, along with dedicated newspaper stands at Lewisham Library and Goldsmiths. You can find a full list of our stockists here: tinyurl.com/llstockists.

The next edition of the Ledger is published in early June and will have a Sydenham focus. If you have an interesting story about SE26 – or would like to find out more about advertising in the paper – please get in touch via lewishamledger@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading!

e

Mark McGinlay and Kate White

The Lewisham Ledger

A glimpse inside the Ladywell Playtower, which was once a public baths

Progress stalls at Playtower The plan to turn Ladywell Playtower into a three-screen Curzon cinema with up to 21 new flats behind has still not crossed the starting line, as Lewisham Council said it is working to resolve a costing issue with the scheme.

The historic Playtower closed in 2004 and was damaged by fire two years later.

It was named one of the top-10 most endangered buildings in England and Wales by the Victorian Society and was placed on Historic England’s heritage at-risk register.

In 2017 the council invited businesses and organisations to bid to restore the building and received 24 expressions of interest. In November that year it chose a joint bid by Curzon cinemas and Bromley-based property developer Guildmore to take the scheme forward.

But almost 18 months later, the Playtower remains boarded up with no obvious signs of activity. Most recently, two public exhibitions scheduled to take place in January were cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances and ongoing discussions” over the site.

Guildmore said the council has not signed a legally binding development agreement to allow it to progress the scheme further, adding that despite this, it has invested almost £500,000 in the site to date as a goodwill gesture.

Cover photograph Candice Carty-Williams by Lima Charlie Editors Mark McGinlay, Kate White Creative directors Andy Keys, Marta Pérez Sainero Type designers a2-type.co.uk londontype.co.uk Photographer Lima Charlie Features editor Emma Finamore Sub-editor Jack Aston

But the council said the cost of restoring the Playtower is higher than originally anticipated and said it is working with its partners to resolve this. It added that it remains “fully committed to working with Curzon”.

Guildmore and Curzon’s winning bid in 2017 included between 19 and 21 flats, to be sold at market value to fund the refurbishment of the Playtower. But Guildmore’s website later stated the scheme would include a “new development of 34 apartments”.

Asked why the proposed number of flats was now more than 60% higher than the amount in its original bid, the number 34 was swiftly deleted from its website, with a spokesman for Guildmore claiming the figure was uploaded in error by a third-party consultant.

In a statement on the scheme, the Guildmore spokesman said: “Since being selected we have invested approaching £500,000 in good faith creating several concept schemes and carrying out internal works to clean up and secure the Playtower. We have done all of this on a goodwill basis, as we do not have a legally binding agreement with the council.

“We know from meetings that the mayor is keen for the scheme to closely follow what the council’s public procurement process originally requested.

We are excited to deliver this landmark project that will offer a real boost for Lewisham. As soon as the council sign the development agreement, work will be able to commence at full speed.”

A council spokesperson said: “The council’s long-term plan for Ladywell Playtower has always been to refurbish this historic listed building. This refurbishment work is looking more expen-

Contributors Helen Graves, Ronnie Haydon, Rosie Parkyn, Colin Richardson, Paul Stafford, Luke G Williams Marketing and social media Mark McGinlay

sive than originally anticipated and we are working with our partners to resolve this.

“We are fully committed and excited to be working with Curzon and are looking at all options for a viable scheme.”

In 2017 the council named a joint proposal by Hither Green-based company Hillman and the team behind Peckham’s Copeland Park and Beckenham Place Mansion as the reserve bid, which will be offered the project if “adequate progress towards the building’s restoration” is not made.

That scheme proposed the creation of a mixed-use cultural quarter similar to Copeland Park, with art, leisure, education, commercial and creative space and 20 flats at below-market rent.

The other two shortlisted bids came from Picturehouse, which proposed a five-screen, 620-seat cinema with a cafe and bar; and Goldsmiths, which wanted to use the site for post-graduate courses and a public cafe and gallery.

Ladywell Playtower was built in 1884 to the design of architect Wilson, Son & Aldwinckle. It is one of the earliest public baths in the country, and is among the last surviving examples in London.

The Playtower forms part of a notable cluster of late-Victorian public buildings, including the local coroners’ court and mortuary, the fire station and police station, all of which are grade-II listed.

In its 2017 report, the council estimated that restoring the Playtower would cost in excess of £5 million with completion “no sooner than 2020”, adding that “at least a two-year planning and construction phase will be required”.

In other words, Ladywell residents probably shouldn’t reach for the popcorn just yet.

Editorial and advertising lewishamledger@gmail.com Follow us @lewishamledger @lewishamledger @lewishamledger lewishamledger.tumblr.com

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N EWS

Studio users saddened by plans to redevelop Creative businesses from a Forest Hill mews said they fear the street’s artistic spirit is being eroded after plans were submitted to demolish and rebuild their studio – but the property’s owner said she is “determined to retain and improve the commercial facilities for existing artists”.

The businesses are based in Havelock Walk, a cobbled mews that is home to a host of artists, sculptors, designers, furniture-makers and other creatives.

In February plans were submitted to Lewisham Council to replace the studio at 11 Havelock Walk, currently 1.5 storeys, with a three-storey property with studio space, four one-bed flats and a roof terrace. The council has received a number of objections to the plans.

Furniture-maker Simon McKeown, who has been based at number 11 for three years, said: “It’s a real shame to be losing the workshop, and it’s difficult to be in a situation where we don’t really know when we’ll be out. It’s very difficult to make plans.

“I’m not aware of any plan for the existing artists to be rehoused in the new development, so as far as I know we’ll be out. It’s increasingly difficult to find affordable creative workspace in London and as a result I’m having to seriously consider leaving London to carry on my business.

“I’m no town planner, but I’ve had a look at the plans and I suppose they seem to be reasonable enough in terms of any development of this kind – and

Peter Ayres and Ed Holloway left Havelock Walk last month

people are entitled to develop their properties within reason.

“I can only really speak from the heart and say that I’m personally very disappointed, and a little heartbroken, to lose this space to work in. It’s been something of a lifeline to me. A rare and beautiful thing will be lost.”

Beep Studio founders Peter Ayres and Ed Holloway were based at number 11 for six years but relocated to Deptford last month. Ed said: “We are very sad to be moving away from Havelock Walk.

This is due to the ongoing uncertainty of our tenancy under the current landlord.

There have been extensions suggested

but nothing concrete and we have to run our practice with stability in mind. Our current situation here has been up in the air for nearly two years now.

“We do feel strongly that this, our creative home for the last six years, is to be replaced with what will ultimately be an unaffordable space for practices such as ours. If you look at property prices on the street and consider the cost of redevelopment on the site of number 11, it is hard to see how a developer could make the provisions stack up at similar rents.

“As architects, Beep Studio explicitly chooses to work for local and regional communities over profiteers – hence

our overheads really count in the balance of being able to offer our work at affordable rates to groups who would not be able to access our services otherwise.

“The authorities seem to think you can maintain a community by reproviding space. This is just not the case, this asset is actually a network of people built up over time that practise creativity together on a daily basis, often through collaboration. We will deeply miss the community at Havelock Walk, especially our fellow creatives at number 11.”

Responding to these concerns, the building’s owner, who bought the property with her husband 38 years ago, said she intends to maintain and improve the facilities for existing artists.

Speaking via Bubble Architects, who have designed the scheme, she said: “We made the decision as it is one of the last few buildings in the street that hasn’t been developed.” She added: “We personally feel the architect did a great job designing the layout thus enhancing the street and neighbouring properties.”

Bubble Architects said: “The current building is in some disrepair and at 1.5 storeys high is completely out of keeping with Havelock Walk. Given its urban location, which is well served by public transport, it is an ideal brownfield site to provide much-needed residential accommodation in the borough while at the same time retaining the muchvalued studio spaces.”

To view the plans in full and have your say, go to tinyurl.com/11havelock

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WI seeks new members Local WIs are a great way to meet your neighbours and make new friends. And now the Honor Oak branch is inviting anyone who would like to become a member to get involved.

The group began eight years ago and has around 30 members, who meet every month. They enjoy a wide range of activities that are far removed from the organisation’s “jam and Jerusalem” image of old, such as craft beer tastings, foraging and talks on vintage fashion.

“It’s definitely varied and there are also lots of opportunities to learn about things you wouldn’t necessarily think of otherwise,” said Joanna Masini, who joined seven years ago.

“We had a talk on the history of playing cards for example. It was fascinating and something you’d probably never learn about in any other circumstance.”

Members have learned to play bowls at Forest Hill Bowling Club and made their own wallets with a local leatherworker. “We’ve also played darts in the past, which is always a good excuse to go to the pub,” Joanna said.

“The group has a really good mix of ages and people from all walks of life,” she added. “You don’t have to be crafty or a good baker to join in. It’s a lovely way to meet a network of people in the local area who you can call your friends and neighbours.”

To join, contact the WI via Facebook or Twitter @honoroakWI and come along to your first meeting for free

Telegraph Hill Festival celebrates 25 years The Telegraph Hill Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary this spring, with a huge range of events that will appeal to all ages and tastes.

“We’re really pleased with the programme this year,” said local resident

India Lovett, who has taken on the role of chairperson after three years on the committee. “I think it’s our biggest festival to date in terms of the sheer number of events. We’ve got almost 150.”

To celebrate the quarter-of-a-century milestone, there will be a 25th anniver-

Above: A Grande Scheme will perform at Brockley Nature Reserve on April 14

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sary spectacular on April 13, the penultimate night of the festival.

“We’ve invited lots of different people to put up installations in the park, we’ll have live music and we’ve invited Goldsmiths’ computing department to take part and really represent the future of the festival,” India said.

“It will celebrate the past, present and future of the festival and will be a free event for the whole community. We’re really proud to be hosting it.”

This year’s programme also features plenty of activities for families, with lots of free events including nature trails with prizes, hula-hooping and denbuilding in Brockley Nature Reserve.

“Another highlight is the sheer diversity of the music we’ve got at the festival this year,” India said. “It ranges from country and rock to classical arias and historical chamber music, experimental, jazz, electronic, punk, folk and gospel.

We’re delighted to have the London African Gospel Choir doing a big concert for us this year.”

The annual event started life as a picnic in the park organised by the vicar of St Catherine’s Church to bring the community together. The festival was formally established in the 1990s and has grown from there.

“The festival showcases a lot of creativity that’s already in this community,” India said. “The community is already here, but it helps build it further by having this event where neighbours can come out of their houses and meet each other. The fact that it’s completely volunteer-led also generates a huge amount of goodwill. It’s a wonderful platform.”

The Telegraph Hill Festival is on until April 14. For the full programme, visit telegraphhillfestival.org.uk

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Public artwork to mark the Battle of Lewisham Plans for a permanent public artwork to mark the 1977 battle to block a National Front march from passing through Lewisham have been unveiled.

Goldsmiths is asking local people to have their say on the provisional design, which has been created by graduate Ted Low. Inspired by 40 creative collages made by participants in a series of workshops, it features photographs of demonstrators and community leaders taken by some of the most prominent social documentary photographers of the time, including Chris Schwarz, Syd Shelton, Paul Trevor, Chris Steele-Perkins, Peter Marlow and Homer Sykes.

The work is likely to measure around nine metres wide by three metres tall

Above: the proposed artwork, designed by Goldsmiths graduate Ted Low

and will be printed onto weatherproof Perspex. The small park on Batavia Road off Clifton Rise in New Cross has been identified as a possible location.

Lewisham residents are invited to have their say on the plans at a number of pop-up consultations in April, at locations including the Telegraph Hill Festival, the Moonshot Centre and Lewisham Library. Feedback can also be submitted via the website.

The artwork forms part of an ongoing project led by Goldsmiths’ head of history Dr John Price, incorporating research, talks, interviews, podcasts and community events exploring the Battle of Lewisham.

It took place on August 13, 1977 when around 500 members of the National Front set out to march from New Cross

to Lewisham, with the far-right political party’s Martin Webster declaring: “We believe that the multiracial society is wrong, is evil and we want to destroy it.”

The marchers were met with counterdemonstrations by thousands of people, some of whom gathered on Clifton Rise to block their route. Violent clashes led to many injuries and 214 arrests.

Will Cenci, public engagement manager at Goldsmiths, said: “Since we initiated a series of 40th anniversary events in 2017, we’ve heard from local residents over and over again that they would like the Battle of Lewisham to be more widely communicated, to be taught in schools, understood and learned from collectively.

“The response to our ongoing project has been incredible and we urge people

Play your cards right

Garden goals Community gardeners working to transform a railway garden in Crofton Park have launched a crowdfunding campaign to help them put the finishing touches to the space.

Cash raised by the green-fingered group will go towards garden furniture, tools and the planting scheme itself, ahead of the grand opening on June 1. Once complete the garden will be a new destination and meeting point for everyone to use and enjoy.

Located next to the railway tracks on Marnock Road, the garden will be open during the daytime from Monday to Saturday, with Sundays reserved for volunteer work days and special events.

There will be four distinct sections to the space, each with its own unique habitat: an edible and social garden, a mini woodland, a grass and wildflower meadow and a lavender garden.

Above: how Crofton Park's community garden will look The new layout and look has been designed by landscaping expert Mark Lane, who presents the award-winning BBC programme Gardeners’ World.

“There is something wonderfully inspiring about these often-overlooked patches of land,” Mark said.

“Transforming these areas makes a real difference to the local community.

They help with isolation and loneliness and are the perfect spot in our busy lives to enjoy nature and the company of others.”

Efforts to regenerate the formerly neglected, bramble-strewn space along the station’s platform one began in 2012, when permission was granted for the site to be used as a community garden.

But the land was plagued by persistent weeds that became uncontrollable and in 2015, the community gardeners signed

an agreement with Govia Thameslink to formalise the commitment to create an attractive green space for the station’s 700,000 annual passengers.

The gardeners have since received grants from the National Lottery, Lewisham Council, the mayor of London and Veolia to carry out their work. Seven skips of buried rubbish and weeds have been removed so far.

The new garden will be maintained by the volunteer gardeners, who are keen to hear from anyone who would like to become a friend of the garden and play an active role in helping them to manage the space going forward.

To get involved in the garden, email croftonrailwaygarden@gmail.com.

Make a pledge to the crowdfunder via tinyurl.com/cpgcampaign

to keep engaging with us by sharing their views and ideas to shape this collaborative design.

“The Battle of Lewisham is a potent reminder of how easily toxic ideas can take hold. After Brexit there’s reportedly been a 40 or 50% increase in hate crime reporting, so it seems a particularly relevant time to remember how the people of Lewisham have long stood firm and united against fascism and racism and will continue to do so.”

Funding for the project has been pledged by Lewisham Council, with the final artwork expected to be installed towards the end of this year.

For full details on the consultation or to share your feedback online, visit explore.gold/artworkconsultation

A local cribbage league is inviting any keen card players to join its ranks.

The South East London Crib League was founded more than 30 years ago and is still going strong.

Its members include women and men of all ages and abilities, who are keen to dispel the myth that cribbage is an “old man’s game”.

If you live in Lewisham or its neighbouring boroughs and are interested in playing or learning to play cribbage on Monday nights, visit the website below and get in touch.

Meet-ups are held at various locations, including the Brockley Social, the Duke of Edinburgh in Lee and The Alfred in Sydenham.

To join the league, please visit southeastlondoncribbage.webs.com PHOTO BY FLORA GUITTON

The South East London Crib League

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Free films for all Free films ranging from comedy to scifi to documentaries will be shown at venues across Deptford and New Cross this spring, as the area’s annual free film festival gets underway.

The action begins with a screening of Spike Lee’s 2018 film BlacKkKlansman at Brick Brewery in Deptford on April 26, followed by environmentally themed sci-fi classic Silent Running at Sanford Housing Co-op, just off Cold Blow Lane on April 27.

Blue plaque at last

Suffragette Emily Davison, who grew up in Blackheath

A screening at last year's festival PHOTO BY @ELECTRICPEDALS

A bike-powered showing of Jack Black comedy Nacho Libre in Telegraph Hill’s upper park, also on April 27, will see Lucha Britannia wrestlers mingling with the audience, a jerk barbecue and prizes for the best-dressed wrestlers.

Other highlights include Stop Making Sense, a concert film on the band Talking Heads, at Deptford Town Hall on April 28. Singers from the London African Gospel Choir will perform.

Step into the surreal world of two reclusive former socialites on April 30,

Emily Davison is to be honoured with an English Heritage blue plaque following a long campaign to recognise her.

The prominent suffragette, who was born and raised in Blackheath, fought tirelessly for votes for women, enduring repeated spells in jail and force-feeding.

In 1913 she stepped in front of the king’s horse at the Epsom Derby and died from her injuries four days later.

Liberal Democrat London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon, who has campaigned for the plaque since 2015, said: “There should have been a blue plaque to honour Emily Davison many decades ago, but I am delighted that the campaign has finally been successful.

“She was born into a comfortable middle-class background and could have chosen an easy life, but instead she put her principles first whatever the consequences for her. She was a remarkable woman whom we should never forget.”

with a screening of 1975 documentary Grey Gardens at Little Nan’s in Deptford.

The strange but beautiful film focuses on a mother and daughter, both named Edith Beale, who are the aunt and cousin of Jackie Onassis but live in a derelict mansion in increasing squalor. The film explores their past, their complex relationship and their everyday routines.

Fabulous headgear and outfits abound.

On May 1 Deptford Lounge is showing Lady Bird, which centres around a highschool senior who longs for adventure and sophistication. It follows her final year in high school, including her first romance and application to college.

A pedal-powered rendition of Star Wars: Rogue One will be aptly screened on May 4 in Folkestone Gardens, and Black Joy – the 1977 film set in Brixton and starring Norman Beaton – will be shown at Hill Station Cafe in Telegraph Hill on April 29.

There will be lots of films for kids too – including The Jungle Book on May 5 at Deptford Park Playclub.

The festival will draw to a close that evening with the comedy Trading Places at Buster Mantis in Deptford, followed by an after-party with DJs and dancing.

The festival was founded by Jacqui Shimidzu, owner of Hill Station Cafe, in collaboration with Electric Pedals.

In previous years audiences have watched films on human rights in the cells of the old Deptford police station; and have lain on the floor to watch The Science of Sleep screened on the ceiling.

One year Ken Loach even did a Q&A at a viewing of his film The Spirit of ’45.

Jacqui said: “We self-organise and shake a bucket for donations at the end of each screening to help cover our costs.

We have had a lot of fun, have made new friends and are all volunteers.”

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The Entourage grows Lewisham-based group The Entourage Band are set to move into bigger circles with the addition of two new members and a livelier rock and pop-based repertoire.

The two founding members, vocalist Kornelia and guitarist Richard Tokarski are set to add Steve Cox on bass and Ashley Mills on drums and are promising an “entertaining performance that will interest both listeners and dancers”.

Deptford-born bass player Steve’s musical background spans soul, blues, jazz and traditional folk as well as rock music. He said: “I’m really looking forward to incorporating the styles into the new line-up.”

Catch the band’s Lewisham debut on April 19 at The Crown in Burnt Ash Hill, Lee, from 8pm. Admission is free.

Curiously Catford

Face-painting at last year's festival

Can Catford change yet stay the same?

That was the question posed by crowdsourced exhibition Catford Curious, which debuted at the Ninth Life pub in March and will go on show again in June, writes Hugh Farmar.

Alongside audio of participants telling their stories and a space for visitors to share theirs, 52 personal objects donated by locals went on display. Each one had a story attached that together painted a true, revealing picture of Catford.

A resident called Pete shared an old flyer for the dog track, which was part of the local fabric for decades until it closed in 2003. There was a Commodores CD from Michael, who recalled Chinese films at the ABC and disco nights at the Black Horse and Harrow in the 1980s.

Another resident, Fergal, displayed the keys to his new flat, built on the former dog track. He said he loved the romance of living in a place of “torn-up stubs of a hundred thousand mugs”.

The final exhibit was a pair of baby shoes belonging to Flora, who recently took her first steps in Catford.

Through the memories and objects on display, the exhibition, curated by local resident Ana Plasencia Ferrer, traced a poignant, heartwarming journey from the Catford of yesteryear to the place we know today.

Brockley Max is back

See the exhibition at Brockley Max in June and follow @CatfordCurious on Twitter for updates

Brockley, Crofton Park, Honor Oak and Ladywell will fill with art and music for the 18th Brockley Max festival.

Films, concerts, installations, theatre, family activities and lots more will make up the varied programme, which will begin with an opening night concert at Brockley Station.

The nine-day festival will feature events like Brockleywood Nights – a showcase for local filmmaking talent at the Rivoli Ballroom; and Hidden Corners, a short stories night at The Talbot pub. The festival will wrap up with Art in the Park on Hilly Fields, with

The festival runs from April 26-May 5 and films are shown on a first come, first served basis. For full listings, visit freefilmfestivals.org/filmfestival/newcross-deptford

food and drink, an art market, a Felix School of Rock stage and a children’s magical marquee.

Moira Tait, festival director, said: “Brockley is such a diverse area and it’s important our festival programme reflects that. We’re offering a huge variety of events this year so we’re confident there’s something to suit all tastes – whether you want to watch comedy, learn the harmonica or take in a theatrical show.”

Brockley Max runs from May 31-June 8. For full listings, visit brockleymax. co.uk

A memory map of Catford

10 BOOK S

n the words of its publisher, Candice Carty-Williams’ debut novel Queenie is “a darkly comic and bitingly subversive take on life, love, race and family”.

Centred on the trials and tribulations of protagonist Queenie Jenkins, a 25-year-old Jamaican-British woman living in London, the novel has already attracted admiring comments from writers including Jojo Moyes and Bernardine Evaristo, as well as some serious industry buzz.

With the book set to be published on April 11, Candice admits that she is finding her new-found status as south London’s latest literary sensation “quite surreal”.

“I don’t take it lightly,” the 29-yearold says. “All the buzz around the book has been amazing but now I’m really looking forward to people reading the story and understanding what it’s about and what I’m trying to say.

“I really want people to find something in the book and in Queenie’s character. I want to give the literary landscape a heroine who is flawed, reckless and different.”

Candice admits the process of getting the book published has been something of a whirlwind from the moment she sent her first draft of Queenie to influential literary agent Jo Unwin.

“Being taken on by an agent to being signed is in my memory but it’s sort of got a really weird haze to it,” she laughs. “The whole thing is a blur.”

Following a fiercely fought bidding war between four publishers, Candice eventually decided to sign with Orion, which acquired the novel for a six-figure sum and is publishing it through its imprint Trapeze.

“When I finally made a decision I just sat sobbing in Jo’s office,” Candice reveals. “It was an amazing feeling but also quite scary, because I knew I was putting my work out there now.”

Throughout our conversation Candice’s charisma and occasionally self-deprecating wit prove charming, but above all else it is her passionate desire to broaden representation within the publishing industry that dazzles.

Refreshingly, this is not an author against whom accusations of egotism or pretension could be levelled.

“I didn’t write Queenie for any sort of glory,” she laughs. “If I see a problem that needs fixing I try and fix it and Queenie stems from the idea of representation.

“A central character like this hasn’t existed before in a ‘big event’ publication like this one has been set up to be.

“We’ve had Bridget Jones types and other ‘mainstream’ female characters, but growing up I never had a character like that for myself.

“When you’ve grown up not really seeing yourself represented, you don’t view yourself as important. For me it was always a case of having to be grateful when I saw a black woman represented as a ‘sassy best friend’ or an exotic sexual conquest.

“That was a problem because I always saw myself as a secondary person. So I thought, ‘I’m going to write something about a young woman who people can see themselves in, and she is going to be black because I’m

i

queen

of the south

Candice Carty-Williams has taken the book world by storm with her first novel Queenie.

The author, who grew up in Lewisham, shares the story behind her dazzling debut WORDS BY LUKE G WILLIAMS n PHOTO BY LIMA CHARLIE

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black and I like to write about what I know.’

“It’s important to show that black women are like everyone else but also different, because we see things through a different lens.”

Candice was born in Croydon but lived in Lewisham from the age of eight to 15 or 16, first in Ladywell and then behind Lewisham Park.

“I loved growing up in Lewisham, it’s a place that will always feel like home,” she says.

“I spent a lot of my formative years in Lewisham Library. I was always amazed by the sign that was made entirely of lightbulbs and made books seem very glamorous.

“I like Lewisham because it’s always been very diverse and inclusive.

Lewisham Hospital and its staff are also incredible. All my memories of Lewisham are of feeling safe and comfortable.”

Despite her happy upbringing, however, Candice admits she lacked confidence in her abilities and creativity as a youngster – a revelation that makes her current success all the more remarkable and laudable.

“Growing up I never felt I could write,” she says. “The secondary school I went to was good but I was in all the lower sets, I didn’t really have much in the way of academic or career aspirations. Writing wasn’t something I thought I could do.

“Even now I sometimes think, ‘Is this all a joke?’ Writing is something I came to really late and I guess I’m still finding my confidence because I never thought it was an attainable career.”

When I remark to Candice that she seems full of confidence and self-assurance, she laughs. “It’s all a

ruse! I’m an introvert mainly. Talking to people and public speaking I find quite hard, but you just have to get on with it I guess.”

Candice’s route into the world of publishing was somewhat circuitous, and speaks volumes for her determination.

After studying for a degree in communication and media studies at the University of Sussex (“I wasn’t allowed to study English – I was always told I wasn’t clever enough”) her eyes were gradually opened to the mechanics of the publishing industry by university friends.

“I hadn’t realised literature was a viable career,” she says. “I remember looking at spines of books and seeing the names of the publisher or imprint and not knowing what they were.”

Post-university a period of anxiety was salved by a book that remains one of her favourites – I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith.

“I’d left university and was no longer part of an institution that told me where to go, what to do and so on.

I was like, ‘What am I doing now?’ I was so acutely anxious that whole time and I couldn’t read anything because I just couldn’t focus.

“I Capture the Castle was the first book I was able to read in a long time.

It completely took me out of myself and I was so grateful. South London is a million miles away from the setting in that book, which is a crumbling castle atop a hill in the middle of nowhere.

“I’ve read a lot since then, but I Capture the Castle will always have a place in my heart. I have a giant castle tattooed on my leg because of that book.”

I wanted to give the literary landscape a heroine who is flawed, reckless and different

Author Candice CartyWilliams' debut novel Queenie, published

by Orion, is out this month

Realising that she wanted to crack the publishing industry, Candice worked her way up through a series of internships.

“Internships are always the answer, unless you have family or friends who work in publishing,” she says. “My first one was at Melville House when I was 23.

“After that I did a two-week internship at 4th Estate, and then got a job as a temporary editorial assistant at Vintage. I did that for six weeks and then 4th estate asked me to come back and be a marketing assistant.

“Marketing really felt like where my heart was at that time; it allowed me to be creative. I did that for two-and-ahalf years and it was great – and then I came back to Vintage but in a different capacity.”

Now senior marketing executive at Vintage, Candice stresses that she focuses her attention on work by “underrepresented authors”.

Indeed, while at 4th Estate, she was responsible for the creation – in 2016 – of the Guardian and 4th Estate BAME short story prize, a highly successful initiative that is still going strong. Previous winners of the prize include Lisa Smith for her story Auld Lang Syne, and Yiming Ma for his work Swimmer of Yangtze.

“I’d been in publishing for less than a year and realised the middle ground to getting your book published was having an agent,” Candice says as she explains the genesis of the initiative.

“I knew that there were loads of people who were really underrepresented in publishing – who didn’t know what agents were or didn’t have access to agents or the publishing industry.

11

“So I asked my boss if we could think about a short story prize so we could see what was out there. I thought if we couldn’t immediately publish some of these writers, then maybe we could help them get agents.

“I went away and I drew up a proposal, which I then had to pitch to the division and to the head of HarperCollins, which was terrifying.

“I think it was the first industry inclusion initiative and it was done on a budget of £48, to create a website so we could collect entries. I did all the sifting, through about 300 stories, and it was a great success.

“One of the stories I read was called Black Flag by Guy Gunaratne, who was just long-listed for the Booker prize. He thanked me in the back of his novel In Our Mad and Furious City.

“It is amazing to see the impact that the prize has had. It’s sad that it has to exist but good that it does, if you see what I mean.”

Having lived in a variety of south London locales, from Ladywell and Lewisham to Brixton, Streatham, Norbury and now leafy Herne Hill, Candice admits there is something in particular she misses about Lewisham.

“If there’s one thing I want to say and get into this interview somewhere, it’s that I love tower blocks,” she says.

“There are three that I love near to Lewisham Hospital, so I’ve worked them into Queenie. I find them really romantic.”

Candice pauses, before adding with a chuckle: “I don’t know how you’re going to work that into the article, but I think it’s important for people to know!”

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LETTER TO LEWIS HAM 13

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atford was chosen as the location for the BBC’s Question Time a few weeks ago and for a short while, it was the talk of

the town.

One Twitter user suggested that Wickes would be having a run on pitchforks. Another declared it “fabulous news!” while a third, a Lewisham resident of 21 years, tweeted as the programme aired: “If that’s an ordinary Lewisham audience made up of average Lewisham people, I’m Betty Grable.”

In Catford, heated conversations are nothing new, and these days they’re being encouraged more than ever before as the long-awaited regeneration plan for the area continues to gain ground.

As the town centre throws off its old chains (people still talk about the sorely missed M&S on the high street) and gains new ones (do we really need two Costas?), Catfordians are growing accustomed to the shock of the new, and they’re arguing about it.

One person’s regeneration is another’s gentrification. Fans of concrete, Brutalist architecture proclaim Milford Towers, somewhat whimsically, as the “Barbican of the south-east” and believe it should be refurbished and extended, while detractors recommend it be razed and rebuilt.

Some long-term residents reminisce mistily about the Catford Dogs, and some fear an influx of turmeric lattefuelled hipsters cluttering up the Broadway. So what is Catford going to be? Will it be pretty, will it be rich?

Will the giant fibreglass cat survive?

Lewisham Council has been talking about a “masterplan for Catford” for years, and last summer it announced the team of architects, public realm specialists and consultants it has chosen to lead the initiative forward.

Among them is Carl Turner Architects, the firm behind Pop Brixton and the Peckham Levels project, which repurposed a multistorey car park just off Rye Lane into a hip and happening destination.

The thought of Catford being touched by such fairydust is, of course, dividing opinion.

The masterplan is a non-statutory document. Nothing is set in stone, or indeed concrete. It is there to be talked about, and it’s the job of Team Catford – Lewisham Council’s on-theground research wing “specialising in engagement, placemaking and meanwhile use” – to orchestrate that.

The team has so far garnered thousands of insights and feedback from this diverse and opinionated community to guide future development in the town centre over the next decade and beyond.

People who know the area well will also know that “something needs to be done about Catford” has been the slightly desperate response to its town centre, bisected by the thundering traffic on the south circular, for more than 20 years. Now, it seems, something is being done, albeit slowly.

When the conversation over Catford’s future began, it was not with a nice cup of tea and a sit-down, but with a supper club and a street cinema.

People who bought tickets to the hugely popular Catford Canteen back in 2013, once they’d got past the weirdness of eating a three-

Catford conversations WORDS BY RONNIE HAYDON

A Catford resident of 17 years gives her take on how local people have been involved in the upcoming regeneration – and what she hopes it will achieve course dinner in an empty unit in Catford Shopping Centre, learned how appearances can be deceptive.

Hundreds turned up to watch classic free films, sitting on cushions and wrapped in blankets on the Broadway.

Encouraged by the public’s response to these innovations, and sensing there was a general mistrust of regeneration from on high, and a fear that the whole area was going to be transformed into one big Catford Green – pricey housing with every

Above: the Catford Cornucopia shop on Catford Broadway

trace of Catford quirkiness excised – Team Catford set about making a space for people to have their say.

Catford Cornucopia popped up on the Broadway, and will be popping back down again, once everyone’s opinions are in.

It is a very local shop, in that everything that’s sold is either made or designed by local people or related to the area. It draws people in with rainbow displays of its bestseller: the Catford hoodie, flanked by Catford T-shirts and Catford babygros.

The Cornucopia did very well at Christmas, and continues to be a huge weekend draw. On the shelves and counters are ceramics by Hazel Nicholls and preserves and chutneys

by Big Gay Al, both of whom live just around the corner. There’s also local granola, organic soft drinks, chocolate, teas, soaps and cards.

The local product theme is further celebrated on the last Sunday of every month with a food market that runs the length of the Broadway. Another Team Catford initiative, the market offers a showcase for local businesses, and a tantalising glimpse of what the new retail environment in a regenerated Catford could be.

Team Catford also launched an online interactive map of the area as a further way of gathering feedback. It has received hundreds of comments on what people like about Catford and what needs urgently to be improved.

A lot of people have very real concerns about life in this area. It’s all very well for the gentrified to wax lyrical about the Brutalist charms of Eros House, but its residents have demonstrated outside it about the deterioration inside their homes.

Indeed, only a few months ago, the architect of the building, Owen Luder, now aged 90, called for the plaque bearing his name to be removed from Eros House because he is ashamed

The first moves must be to repair and regenerate the area to benefit those who've hitherto been unheard by the way that the tower – which he designed as an office block but was later converted into 63 flats – has been neglected.

What, ask people in Catford who have been struggling to make do with overcrowded flats in temporary accommodation, will the regeneration do for us?

What the future holds should start to become clearer in late September or October this year, when the first draft of the masterplan framework is expected to be made public. After all the fun of the consultation, Lewisham Council will have the job of instigating many changes to Catford town centre, the civic heart of the borough.

If the plan is to respect the very essence of the place, right down to its fibreglass cat, the first moves must surely be to repair and regenerate the area to benefit those who’ve hitherto been unable to make their voices heard.

If Team Catford’s collection of evidence and opinions can help that happen, the conversations will have effected real change, and their hashtag #catfordandproud will really mean something.

14 LEWI S H AM L EG E N D orn in south-east London almost 65 years ago, Chris Difford was brought up on King George Street on the edge of Greenwich Park.

After attending the local primary school, he moved up to West Greenwich Secondary Boys’ School in Deptford where a few years below, a young Danny Baker was a fellow pupil.

“At school there was a woodwork wing and a metalwork wing so you went in one of the two,” Chris recalls.

“You were kind of being groomed to get a job in a factory – either a biscuit factory or a metalwork factory. I didn’t really want to do either of those.

“My brothers – one of them became an accountant and the other one became a villain. I didn’t really know which way to swing.”

After leaving school, Chris put a card in a shop window in Blackheath advertising for a guitarist to join his band, although he didn’t actually have one at the time.

Luckily for him, a 15-year-old Glenn Tilbrook – who had also recently left school – spotted the ad and was the sole person to get in touch.

“It was really obvious to me as I was growing up, being a loner with my imagination, that what I really wanted to do was write,” Chris says.

“I didn’t know what I was writing until I became an adult. It wasn’t until 1973 that I formed a band with Glenn and then suddenly I was off and running.”

The pair began writing together and recruited Jools Holland on the keyboard and Paul Gunn, an old schoolfriend of Glenn’s, on the drums.

The group performed under various

b

South-east side story Chris Difford from rock band Squeeze spent his early career in and around Deptford, playing at venues like the Oxford Arms and the Albany Empire. The Cool for Cats hitmaker tells us more WORDS BY MARK MCGINLAY n PHOTO BY PAUL STAFFORD

monikers before eventually settling on Squeeze, as a humorous tribute to the Velvet Underground’s universally panned album of the same name.

They started playing gigs towards the end of 1975 and their early career was spent in and around Deptford, where they were part of a thriving music scene.

“When I was growing up, the biggest local band that I knew of was Status Quo,” Chris says. “Dire Straits were from the north-east but they lived in Deptford. Mark [Knopfler] used to live next door to me so I knew them.

“There were lots of bands around that time because the Albany Empire was a place where everybody wanted to play. We cut our teeth playing

in local pubs really, like the Oxford Arms [now The Birds Nest] and the Bricklayers Arms.

“Catford Girls’ School was our first proper gig. What a wonderful thing – I wore makeup especially! We also played at St Dunstan’s [College, also in Catford] in the hall. Steve Nieve, Elvis Costello’s keyboard player was in the audience.”

Squeeze were originally signed up to Deptford Fun City, a label owned by Miles Copeland. Miles was manager of The Police and his brother Stewart played drums for the band.

Squeeze’s first EP – and most of their debut album – was produced

by John Cale, of Velvet Underground fame, for A&M Records. But the album’s two hit singles, Take Me I’m Yours and Bang Bang, were produced by the band themselves, as the label found Cale’s recordings somewhat on the uncommercial side.

Squeeze’s second album, Cool for Cats, followed in 1979 and contained their two highest charting singles in the UK: Cool for Cats and Up The

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Left: Chris Difford Opposite page: Chris and Squeeze bandmate Glenn Tilbrook

Junction, which both reached number two.

Despite the turbulent times, politics wasn’t part of the band’s lyrics, which Chris was mainly responsible for.

“I’m more of a kitchen sink songwriter,” he says. “I’ve tried putting my arm behind my back to write political songs but I don’t think I’ve ever been good at it and I’d like to leave it to the people who know what they’re talking about.

“I actually find politics extremely dull and full of egoistical people, rather like the music business was 20 years ago. It’s about ego rather than feeling. Maybe it’s the hippy in me, but if I was over in the Houses of Parliament I’d give everyone a hug and tell them to grow up.”

Squeeze separated for the first time in 1982 and Chris and Glenn hooked up with John Turner to create a musical, Labelled with Love, using the songs of Squeeze. It was performed at the Albany in Deptford in 1983.

“Glenn and I wrote the music,” Chris says. “It ran for three months and sold out all the time. Tim Rice came down to see it and he enjoyed it very much. It had legs and had the possibility of moving on, but I don’t think we had the oxygen for that at the time. It needed a bit more tweaking from a writing point of view.

“It was all set in a pub and was very south London. I don’t know whether it would be successful today but I’d like to see it work now.”

In 1985 Squeeze reunited and released a new album, Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti. Two years later came Hourglass, the first single from their seventh album, with a video directed by Ade Edmondson and an appearance from their old pal Jools Holland.

“Ade Edmondson directed it but Jools had quite a big role in it,” says Chris. “It featured a lot of his ideas. It got us an award on MTV – that’s what you needed in America in those days to get you from theatres into stadiums and that’s what it did.”

The video was regularly aired on MTV and the heavy promotion of one of their finest songs resulted in the highest charting single Squeeze ever had in the USA, reaching number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 16 back home in the UK. In between stints with Squeeze, Chris continued writing songs with Glenn, and he also wrote lyrics for music composed by artists like Elton John and Elvis Costello.

“Elvis gave me a song to write the lyrics for,” he recalls. “I think it was one of the first times I’d been asked to write the lyrics for somebody other than Glenn. It was kind of weird.”

Chris spent a few years as a solo artist and then went into managing acts including Bryan Ferry and The Strypes. “I loved it,” he says. “It’s not really management; it’s more like mentoring, or just being a mate to somebody.

“When you’re managing you have to be there 24/7. Sunday morning you’d get a phone call because someone’s had a tree fall in their swimming pool and you’d have to be there to fix it.”

Surprisingly, he didn’t miss the buzz of performing. “I was still experiencing that through the person I was working with,” he explains. “I really like being on the side of the

The mistakes I've made have all been part of the jigsaw of who I am today

stage. I love being able to feel the electricity that an artist can give an audience. And to be a bit like the Wizard of Oz I suppose, behind the red curtain.”

In 2015, Chris and Glenn hooked up again to write songs for the BBC Two series Cradle to Grave, a sitcom based on the life of their old friend Danny Baker.

“It gave Glenn and me a focus and a reason to write a record and we needed that after so many years,” Chris says. “We did an incredible job and it was beautifully produced. The songs were really great and I’m really proud of them.

“It was nice to know that Glenn and I could still write a decent song if we worked at it. It felt like a new relationship and I enjoyed that.”

Chris finally wrote his memoir, which was published in the summer of 2017.

“The book really helped me find a new lease of life. Very quickly I realised people aren’t interested in CDs anymore, but books they love. To stand up and do a show and at the end sign books, people love that.

“The year before last I did 98 shows and last year I did 102. I did two weeks in Edinburgh and that really changed things.

“I’m now in the position of having to write the second show and the next book. I’m taking time to figure out what that’s going to be.”

Although still a frequent visitor to London, Chris moved out of the capital some years ago and now lives in East Sussex with his wife, Louise.

“I’ve sold all my guitars and just built a writing room in my garden,” he says.

He currently manages a young artist called Honey, who is signed to Elton John’s record label Rocket.

“She has her first record coming out this summer and she’s extraordinarily talented and I’m really excited about her,” Chris says.

“At the other end of the stick, there’s [tenor and musical theatre star] Alfie Boe, who I also work with. He’s genuinely a very funny man – he’s lovely.”

Chris also spends a fair amount of time running workshops, including a recent session at the Brit School in Croydon. And as for the future, he’s mulling a return to musicals.

“I’m investigating one as we speak,” he says. “Every other week I go and see a musical. I’ve been to see a couple of Stephen Sondheim ones, including Follies. The songs are terrific.

“To be able to write a musical and be in the wings most definitely has appeal. The reality is it probably won’t happen in my lifetime. It takes such a long time to develop these things. For the time being, it’s a hobby.”

I end by asking him if he could go back 50 years, what advice would he give to his teenage self?

“I’d fail to think of anything really,” he says. “The mistakes I’ve made have all been part of the jigsaw of who I am today.

“I feel it would have been nicer to have been more successful perhaps, and shrewder with whatever income I would have had as a younger man, instead of spending it all.”

Chris is touring the UK and Ireland from May. For full details, visit chrisdifford.com/tour

16 LEWI S H AM I N PI CT U R E S

urn right when you alight at Hither Green Station and you’ll find yourself on Staplehurst Road – a spick and span symphony of independent shops, restaurants, takeaways, boozers and barbers.

This diverse, tight-knit little community is united under the FUSS (Friends and Users of Staplehurst Shops) umbrella. Most of the businesses contribute time, stock or money – or all three – to the FUSS cause, which means the planters are blooming and the Christmas street fairs and summer fetes are legendary.

At the forefront of this jewel in the already sparkly Hither Green crown is the all-round gorgeous You Don’t Bring Me Flowers, which opened in 2003. The human dynamo behind this flower-filled cafe is Lynne Norledge.

In March, excitement abounded when the Queen was pictured holding one of the shop’s beautiful bouquets on a visit to the Science Museum – the same day the monarch made her first ever post on Instagram.

Lynne’s shop and cafe was thriving long before any hipsters dreamed of making money out of mismatched crockery and quinoa scones – as were the dreamy, floral textile designs of Donna Read, who runs Crimson & Clover just over the road.

Donna’s long career in antiques and textiles printing, along with her passion for horticulture, making and crafting is evident in this handsome showcase, which hosts regular craft workshops throughout the year.

The street is also home to two barbers, Bill’s and Mems. Bill’s flashing blades have been keeping many a Hither Green barnet and beard in trim over the past 14 years. He’s proud to be a part of the FUSS family, contributing prizes for raffles and helping out where he can.

When it comes to grub, Staplehurst Road is well-served. Popular local pizza van Sapore Vero is soon to open a restaurant in the former minicab office at number 19, next door to buzzing craft beer shop and bar Park Fever (read an interview with owner Adrian Varley on page 20). The tiny Blue Marlin Fish Bar on the corner is also a big draw.

This page, clockwise from top: getting a haircut at Bill's Barbers; Lynne Norledge from You Don't Bring Me Flowers; Mems Barbers; behind the scenes at new restaurant Fera

t

Atilla Galip’s two-year-old business has taken the area by storm, with locals waxing lyrical about the batter’s crunch, the freshness of the cod, the chicken’s flavour and the tasty chips.

Blue Marlin shuts at 10pm, but for dirty stop-outs tumbling out of the Station Hotel pub a little later, the only way is H-2-U, a much-loved Chinese and Thai takeaway, oft-praised for the friendliness of its long-suffering staff.

They’re generous with their free mini spring rolls in here.

The latest addition to the happy Staplehurst family is Fera, a restaurant where you can sit down, shake out a napkin and linger over generous meze platters to share, followed by Turkish and Mediterranean stalwarts such as shish and kofte, as well as shakshouka and kavurma.

The family business has been open just six months and unsurprisingly, locals have been making a big fuss of their new arrival.

Staplehurst Road is a spick and span symphony of independent restaurants, shops, boozers and barbers

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From top: fish and chip shop Blue Marlin; beautiful blooms at You Don't Bring Me Flowers; and Donna Read from Crimson & Clover with her dog Tulip

WORDS BY RONNIE HAYDON PHOTOS BY PAUL STAFFORD

What’s all the

fuss

about?

18 H IT H E R GRE E N SPECI A L

n 2014, Dane Baptiste made comedy history as the first black British act to be nominated for a comedy award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Since then, Dane’s star has been on the rise, with his debut standup show Citizen Dane and subsequent solo tours, TV appearances on the likes of Live at the Apollo and Tonight at the London Palladium, as well as writing and starring in his own BBC sitcom, Sunny D. Dane grew up in Hither Green, where he hung out in Manor House Gardens as a child and later at Honor Oak Youth Club. He went to school at Haberdashers’ Aske’s in New Cross.

Coming from quite a strict, traditional family – his mum was a youth worker at St Mary’s in Ladywell, so he couldn’t get away with bad behaviour – meant that places like school and youth clubs were a bit of an outlet for him, somewhere he could be a different version of himself.

“At home I had to be very quiet and well behaved, so school was a good place for me,” he says. Did that sow the seeds for a career in comedy?

“Oh completely, completely,” he says. “I guess I was the class clown, saying stuff for attention to pass the time. But it was also a way of questioning the establishment and institutions.”

It also meant he was exposed to people different to himself. Attending the youth club was “a bit of a culture shock”, he says. “I grew up in Hither Green, with people like me from a similar background.”

This background is one familiar to many children of parents who have moved to a new country – one of tradition, hard work and an expectation to embrace education.

It’s one that Dane doesn’t see reflected very much in public discourse. He talks about people expecting a certain story from him and his comedy, lazy stereotypes about young black men only ever coming from single parent households, or growing up on estates.

“In my family the idea of not working is like... never,” he explains.

“And I’ve never lived on an estate, but people assume I have – all the time. It’s fine to find comedy in that story but that’s not my reality.”

Sunny D – Dane’s BBC Three sitcom – is much closer to his own life. In the show, described as “dizzyingly hilarious” by the Guardian, he plays a 30-something man living with his parents and a sister he doesn’t get along with, in a job he hates and in a less-than-perfect relationship with his fiancée.

Families might be something we’re used to seeing on screen, but this is not your average sitcom. Sunny D makes ingenious use of dynamic cutaways – split-screens, flashbacks and forwards, reality-TV diary-room chats, music video spoofs, Tinder screens being swiped – and wry, knowing turns-to-camera.

A key part of the show’s appeal is its honesty, based semiautobiographically on a period of time before Dane moved into comedy. “I wanted it to reflect an experience that doesn’t typify what people expect to be the quintessential experience for a black heterosexual male,” Dane says.

“It was definitely about smashing those stereotypes.”

i

People could watch Sunny D anywhere in the world and know what it's about

CITIZENDANE

Standup comedian and writer Dane Baptiste talks growing up in Hither Green, elitism within the industry and taking his hilarious BBC sitcom Sunny D stateside WORDS BY EMMA FINAMORE

He’s concerned that platforms like social media give young people a warped sense of the world and encourage a materialistic approach to life. “People are under the impression that we’re in a moment of unprecedented prosperity and everyone has money. If we were to open Instagram I’d be like, ‘The ’hood is awash with wealth!’”

US music finds its way into much of his work, reflecting a teenhood spent

looking to the States for something that he didn’t find at home in the UK, whether it was the different style of entertainment – The Simpsons, early WWF – or seeing greater representation on screen in sitcoms like Different Strokes.

“There wasn’t anyone in the UK who represented that [the black experience] other than The Real McCoy and later on Richard Blackwood,” Dane says.

In addition to writing and starring in his own sitcom, Dane is also a popular podcaster

“Lenny Henry was a bit before my time. But there were no real big profiles to speak of, not when you juxtapose it with the likes of Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock.

And I just didn’t see a lot of sketch comedy that spoke to my experience.”

Dane’s sitcom that was – in part – inspired by American television, has now caught the attention of people in the US. Sunny D has been optioned, which means it could get remade for a US audience and broadcast over there.

It’s an exciting development but no stroke of luck – Dane always had this outcome in mind, even creating the show with an ambiguous, transatlantic look and feel.

“I wrote it so people could watch it from anywhere in the world,” he explains. “I didn’t want it to be a ‘BBC thing’. People can watch it anywhere and know what it’s about. And that’s why the music is American. Not just for American audiences but also because for my generation [Dane is 37], the generation that didn’t have anything here – that 20 years where the BBC didn’t make any good sitcoms – that’s where we looked.”

Speaking about his Edinburgh Festival Fringe nomination, he says: “It changed a large part of my life, a big part of my career, and allowed the transition from ‘aspiring’ to professional comedian.”

He’s also not surprised that it took this long for a black British comedian to get recognised in this way in the mainstream, and talks about how comedians of colour operate on the fringes of the industry. For many comics, entering competitions is prohibitive – those from less affluent backgrounds can’t afford to.

“Elitism has been a big part of the problem,” says Dane. “And Britain is very reluctant to even acknowledge the diaspora, to acknowledge that there are black people here. Unless it’s the more ‘palatable’ black person like Frank Bruno or Kris Akabusi.”

Dane refuses to let this hold him back. As well as making comedy, he is a prolific podcaster: his Dane Baptiste Questions Everything podcast sees him team up with producer Howard Cohen and a special guest each episode, discussing everything from science to society, Brexit to knife crime, to whether it’s OK to spread butter and peanut butter on your toast (Dane thinks it’s fine to have both).

He talks about how people in music and entertainment should use their positions of celebrity and influence to effect positive change – in the same way people like broadcaster, writer and civil liberties campaigner Darcus Howe and singer-turned-politicalactivist Paul Robeson did.

With his work taking him to an international stage, get ready to hear a whole lot more from Dane Baptiste.

20 H IT H E R GRE E N SPECI A L

nyone wandering through the stretch of Catford and Hither Green known as the Corbett Estate might remark upon the strange dearth of pubs in the area – although few people who don’t live locally will know the main reason why.

To fully understand the history of drinking (or lack of it) in this early Edwardian enclave, it is imperative to look to the life and times of a remarkable man who has largely been forgotten.

His name is Archibald Cameron Corbett, a Scottish Liberal party and Liberal Unionist MP who can be credited with developing the social and architectural fabric of several swathes of south-east London.

Corbett was born in Glasgow in 1856, the son of a wealthy merchant whose penchant for philanthropy rubbed off on his young charge.

After inheriting his father’s property business in 1880, Corbett’s passion for development, allied with his social conscience, saw him build housing estates in Catford and Hither Green, Eltham, Forest Gate and Ilford.

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THE HOSTELRIES OF

Hither green From the Edwardian estate where pubs were prohibited to craft beer hotspot Park Fever, we look at how the drinking scene in Hither Green has evolved over the years WORDS BY LUKE G WILLIAMS n PHOTO BY LIMA CHARLIE

Constructed on a large area of farmland that Corbett purchased from the Earl of St Germans in 1896, the Corbett Estate, originally known as the St Germans Estate, is the largest of the seven that Corbett built, with about 3,200 houses across a near 300acre site in SE6 and SE13.

One consequence of Corbett’s desire to inspire social improvement

was the fact that many of the houses on the estate were sold at cost price, in order to encourage home ownership among the working and lower-middle classes.

Corbett envisioned the estate as a “modern Hygeia”, in which healthy living and healthy minds were to be actively encouraged.

Schools, shopping parades, churches,

Top left: former pub The Sir David Brewster Top right: The Station Hotel, which is now owned by Young's

recreation grounds, generous front and rear gardens and wide streets were the order of the day.

Alcohol, however, was a no go.

Corbett was a staunch Presbyterian and devotee of the temperance movement and as such insisted in the estate’s paperwork that there was a covenant banning the sale of alcohol on the estate, while deeds for the properties within the estate contain clauses stating that their occupants must not sell alcohol on the premises.

A group of Methodists who moved to the estate noted approvingly that “liquor traffic” had “no habitation throughout the whole estate”, while social reformer and researcher Charles Booth pronounced the St Germans Estate to be “a new Garden of Eden, with young married people and no public houses” in his celebrated Life and Labour of the People in London.

The shadow of Corbett’s alcohol embargo has loomed large over the years, with the result that there has never been a pub within the boundaries of the land originally purchased by Corbett.

Until now that is. Well, almost…

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Left: Adrian Varley serves a customer in Park Fever Below: bygone boozer The Spotted Cow

After a two-year wait while planning issues, objections and other logistical details have been worked through, Lee resident Math Morrison and his partner Emma Cole are set to open a micropub at 88 Springbank Road, within the environs of the original Corbett Estate, in a property formerly occupied by a minicab office.

Math’s blog, mathbrew.com, has charted the ups and downs of his long and sometimes turbulent journey towards his dream of opening a pub.

The name of the business is set to be announced soon, and Math hopes the premises will finally be open for business later in the year, probably in May or June.

“The area is completely untapped in terms of a community pub,” he says of the Corbett Estate. “Our business will give people somewhere to meet up, to talk and to socialise. The amount of support we’ve had from the wider community has been incredible.”

Aware of the potential sensitivity of opening the first ever pub on the Corbett Estate, Math thought it was important to present his ideas to the Archibald Corbett Society, an organisation devoted to preserving and regenerating the legacy of Archibald across his seven estates.

“Emma and I gave a speech to the Corbett Society AGM in 2017,” Math says. “We received a unanimous vote of confidence in our plans. We thought it was important that we met them.”

If we leave the Corbett Estate now and head through Hither Green Station to the other side of the tracks, we will find the pioneer of SE13’s fledgling micropub movement – Adrian Varley’s acclaimed Park Fever.

A craft beer bar and chocolate shop on Staplehurst Road, the space – named after the Victorian Park Fever hospital that once stood in Hither Green – offers a stunning selection of

craft beers to take home or drink in the relaxed and welcoming premises.

“I used to be a retail manager in fine chocolate,” says Adrian, explaining the genesis of his unique beer and chocolate offering.

“Then I decided I wanted to work for myself. I wanted a USP for the business and wanted to attract people who care about the provenance of what they are buying.

“Whether it’s beer or chocolate, people like things that are local and we have also branched out into wine and cider and other things as well.”

Before opening Park Fever, Adrian studied the local area carefully. “I used to sit outside the shop when it was empty for many months, watching which way people went and what the local demographics were.

“I just thought Hither Green was the right area for the business, which I think has been proven correct. We had our two-year birthday recently and business has been very good.”

Adrian points out that a key component of Park Fever’s ethos is that it is integrated into the local area.

“The community is important to me.

I have rotating art on the walls from local artists. We support a local charity that recycles cans in aid of a mission in Chad.

“Before we moved in, this unit had been empty for eight-and-a-half years.

To have some vibrancy and something going on in the high street is also good for the community.

“Lots of people have gotten to know each other and become friends since Park Fever opened. I think you could say there is a Park Fever community now.”

Just a stone’s throw from Park Fever is the last remaining member of the old guard of Hither Green’s traditional pubs – the Station Hotel, operated

by Young and Co’s Brewery, which is

still very popular with many locals.

It has twice been named Time Out magazine’s “best pub in Lewisham” in the Love London Awards.

The rest of Hither Green’s traditional pubs, however, have gradually evaporated over the past two decades. They include Hansbury’s – formerly named the Sir David Brewster after the Scottish scientist who invented the kaleidoscope – on Courthill Road, and The Queen’s Arms, also on Courthill Road.

The Spotted Cow on Hither Green Lane, The Holly Tree on Dermody Road and The Sir John Morden on Campshill Road have all called last orders too, with the majority of these historic buildings now turned into flats.

Lots of people have gotten to know each other through Park Fever

This wave of closures is in line with a general nationwide trend that has – staggeringly – seen more than 25% of Britain’s pubs close since the beginning of the new millennium.

At the same time, the decline of the British high street has also accelerated, with a number of major chains going bust and the Centre for Retail Research predicting that a further 10,000 shops will close across the UK in 2019.

Micropubs and beer shops such as Park Fever, however, seem to be bucking these national trends – and Adrian has a theory about what some have labelled the “craft beer phenomenon”.

“These days people are very interested in where they buy things from, in provenance, and people like to support small independent shops with real people in them rather than shopping via the internet,” he says.

“My staff and I give a very personal service, recommending things and chatting to customers.

“What we offer is also the antithesis of what many traditional pubs offer.

There’s no television, there’s nice relaxing left-of-centre music.

“Many people bring their babies to Park Fever because they don’t want to go in a pub that’s too loud. I’ve seen children grow up over the last couple of years. Whatever your gender, sexuality or ethnicity, we’re a very welcoming space.”

Another new drinking establishment on the Hither Green social scene is Bobby Mizen’s Drink at Bob’s on Hither Green Lane. It’s located next door to the Good Hope Cafe, which was launched by the Mizen family after Bobby’s brother Jimmy Mizen was tragically murdered aged just 16.

Speaking ahead of its grand opening on March 22, Bobby told The Lewisham Ledger: “My dream has always been to open a pub in the heart of the neighbourhood. It will have a great range of drinks, at a price point that is accessible to all.

“We have a kitchen built, so we will be serving some great classic pub dishes – including roasts on a Sunday.

The kitchen is due to open at the end of April.

“I don’t think what I am doing is necessarily breaking new barriers, but I’m trying to bring back a night-time economy for this part of Hither Green.

There used to be a few pubs heading down to Lewisham, but they have all sadly gone now.

“I think it’s an exciting time to open a new venture in the area. Customers will always be greeted by a warm welcome and a friendly smile.

“It’s taken us a while to get it open, but we are finally there and ready to serve the good people of Hither Green some lovely beers, a well-put-together wine list and some fantastic cocktails too.”

As far as Adrian is concerned, the arrival of Drink at Bob’s and Math’s new place is a welcome development.

“It shows there’s not that many drinking options and there is a need in the Hither Green environment for more,” he says.

“I see both of these additions as fantastic for the area. In the future perhaps people will be able to go for a little Hither Green night out, instead of going over to Deptford or the West End.”

22 H IT H E R GRE E N SPECI A L Left: Alina Yilmaz in her zero-waste shop Mission Green on Hither Green Lane

ticking piles of packaging in the green bin rather than the black one might go some way to assuaging our conscience about the amount of rubbish our shopping habits generate every week, but waste is waste, however we choose to process it.

Alina Yilmaz, of Mission Green on Hither Green Lane, fully agrees.

That’s why she decided to do something about it. As a mother of three children under five, she was ordering her groceries online and becoming increasingly despondent about the amount of plastic wrapping dominating her kitchen.

“Take a simple packet of pasta,” she explains. “It’s something most parents rely on as a standby. So you keep buying more, because you can’t remember whether you’ve got enough in the open packet, or you forget about the open packet, then you’re cluttering up the kitchen with endless half-bags of different pasta shapes.”

I’m chatting to Alina in her handsome zero-waste food shop. All around are big jars and self-service containers of every store-cupboard essential: flour, pasta, rice, beans of every hue, muesli, granola, loose teas, quinoa, couscous, nuts, dried fruit, oils and sugars in brown, white and coconut form.

I look at the large array of herbs and spices on display and consider the two drawers full of old and stale spices in my kitchen: tiny expensive jars of obscure flavourings that you buy for one recipe and soon forget.

“I read loads of articles about buying loose foods in bulk, and shops that have a no-packaging ethos,” Alina says.

“I found an online forum for those who’d started their own zero-waste shop. There was a business in Devon that was incredibly helpful. The woman who runs the shop there has been so supportive.

“I learned as much as I could about buying and selling loose groceries and became pretty enthusiastic about opening a place of my own.”

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On a mission WORDS BY RONNIE HAYDON

PHOTOS BY PAUL STAFFORD

At zero-waste shop Mission Green, customers fill their own reusable containers with food and cleaning products and only buy the amount they need. Owner Alina Yilmaz tells us more

We like to see jam jars, takeaway cartons – anything that would otherwise be chucked

Hither Green Lane was the obvious location. Alina’s husband runs a barber shop here, they both know the community and were as confident as they could be that people would be supportive of this alternative style of shopping.

When her husband decided to move into new, larger premises a little way up the lane, and number 182 became vacant with two years left on the lease, Alina took a deep breath and plunged in.

Her shop opened last October and continues to cause quite a stir as word gets round. More and more people are eschewing the multinational supermarkets and turning up at Mission Green with large bags rattling with jam jars.

Customers bring in their containers to fill with food. If they forget, Alina and her colleague Ramdevi have a stash of jars and bottles that can be used. They weigh the empty container, the customer goes to fill it, the container is weighed again and the price of goods is calculated.

“People think they have to bring nice kilner jars to fill up, but we like to see clean, washed jam or pickle jars, takeaway cartons, anything put to use that would otherwise have been chucked in the wheelie bin,” Alina says.

There’s something delightfully old-fashioned about walking up to a shopkeeper, explaining what you want and buying it in any quantity you like.

You may need only a handful of toasted hazelnuts for a cake, for example. Buying them at Mission Green ensures they’ll be super fresh.

Everything has a use-by date, which means Alina has to keep a careful eye on bestsellers and less popular foodstuffs, so she can adjust her bulk orders accordingly.

Some items are sold in organic and non-organic forms (“some organic options are just too expensive”), but many people are pleasantly surprised at the competitive prices.

When you consider how much supermarkets charge for a tiny, plasticwrapped pack of quinoa, and realise you can buy a whole big jarful of the trendy grain for the same price here, that’s a win-win.

As well as the food, Alina stocks a range of household cleaning products by the admirable social enterprise SESI (Sustainable Ethical Supplies Initiative).

SESI is fully circular. It means that the big containers of cruelty free, biodegradable laundry and washingup liquids and other cleaning products are taken away, cleaned and reused, rather than dumped in recycling bins to go who-knows-where. They work out very cheap if you bring your own bottle and refill with SESI stuff, which incidentally doesn’t get right up your nose with its sneezy synthetic perfume.

Alina and Ramdevi have noticed that many people are becoming disillusioned with the toxic chemicals we’ve been told we have to use to keep our homes “hygienically clean” – making the connection between our polluted seas and the stuff we’re swilling down our U-bends.

Both women can tell you how to make a “toilet bomb” out of sodium bicarbonate and citric acid to clean the lav. In fact, Alina’s planning to run workshops in the near future about making your own cleaning materials.

Another planned workshop will address the problem of disposable nappies. Or nappies, as most people call them, not realising there’s an alternative. “All the disposable nappies that have ever been used are still with us, in landfill,” says Alina.

“It’s a huge problem, and as the mother of three children, who’ve all had their time in diapers [the youngest is still in them] it concerns me greatly.

“I would like to demonstrate how far washable nappies have come and invite experts in the subject to visit, showcase them and demonstrate how best to use them. People are daunted by the very idea, thinking about the old towelling ones with pins, but there are some really good systems now.”

Alina is full of ideas for the coming year at Mission Green. She’s planning a non-dairy milk and butter ordering service, so customers can put in an order for fresh oat or nut milks and spreads whizzed up on the premises, bringing their own washable containers along for their daily, 21st century pinta.

She’s also minded to grow herbs in her Brockley garden, to lend an even more verdant hue to her project.

She’s a woman on a green mission for Hither Green, and she’d love you to wash out those jam jars and join her.

24 H IT H E R GRE E N SPECI A L art of the joy of living in a diverse city is the choice of small, independent restaurants. These treasured local gems rise to any occasion, be it a slap-up birthday celebration, a quick midweek meal or a solo lunch on a whim, serving satisfying food at an affordable price point.

This not-so-secret formula for the dependable neighbourhood haunt has been harnessed to great effect by two Hither Green favourites, Vietnamese restaurants Saigon Streat and Cafe Green. I caught up with their owners, Minh Chu and Tam Thi Doan, to find out more.

Saigon Streat is a roving Vietnamese pop-up that “finds amazing spaces in your neighbourhood and pops up in them”. Currently, that space is Arlo & Moe cafe on Springbank Road, which clears away the coffee cups and pastries to make way for Minh’s summer rolls and noodle soups on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings.

Minh had no intention of starting a restaurant when he founded his business, which originally was all about his mum’s Vietnamese dipping sauce.

“She makes a really, really good dipping sauce with the perfect balance of sweet, salty and sour and it goes with almost all foods,” he enthuses.

“I literally drench my fish and chips in it. Saigon Streat was originally about bottling it up and getting it on the shelves of supermarkets.”

But after a month of hosting dinner parties to showcase the sauce and gain feedback, Minh realised he was heading in the wrong direction.

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VIETNAMESEVENTURES Hither Green is spoilt for choice when it comes to Vietnamese food, with two neighbourhood restaurants serving delicious summer rolls, pho, noodle soups and other classic dishes WORDS BY HELEN GRAVES n PHOTOS BY LIMA CHARLIE AND PAUL STAFFORD

“What I truly enjoyed and was passionate about was serving people great food and creating a good time,” he explains.

“I’ve always loved getting a bunch of friends and family together over delicious food, so it sort of all came together without me even noticing it really. I ran my first pop-up in Greenwich and its popularity blew me away.”

It could have been a very different path for Minh, who grew up in southeast London and went on to Warwick university after school to study maths.

“I then did what most people did from my degree course and joined a global bank. Of course I was grateful for all the opportunities I had, but I just did not find it personally rewarding,” he says.

“I challenged myself to search for a career path that would allow me to use my creative and entrepreneurial skills but at the same time be really passionate about what I do. I found it in food.”

Since that first successful pop-up in Greenwich, Minh has enjoyed “long residencies” in Lee, Catford, Brockley, Forest Hill and now Hither Green. “In fact there was a time when you could find Saigon Streat in all those locations each week,” he says.

“However, with the birth of my first, just over one-and-a-half years ago, I scaled back Saigon Streat pop-up operations to Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights in Hither Green. I’m now looking to expand once again.”

The food at Saigon Streat is, of course, based on his mother’s fantastic

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“I remember every morning she gave me a warm bowl of heartfelt pho,” she says. “In every slurp I could remember the meaty, sweet taste of liquorice, star anise and bones infused in the broth, with a woody fragrance of cinnamon and punches of red chillies and black pepper.

“It was topped with thin slices of chicken breast and thighs and embellished with fresh green Vietnamese basil and saw-leaf herbs.

“The recipe was passed down to my mother and she taught me the techniques, using fresh produce and livestock. Our recipe today is a combination of the [recipe] passed down infused with my personal finesse.”

When Tam took over the space five years ago, it was a very different offering. “In 2014 we took on the challenge of opening our own restaurant, taking over a cafe that was serving an English breakfast menu,” she says.

“Starting out we did not immediately change the original menu to one serving Vietnamese food, so it was a journey for us until about 2016, when we took the risk and decided to serve the comfort food that we grew up with.

“We were surprised by how well received this was, and with this we

I remember my grandma's heartfelt pho and the meaty, sweet taste of every slurp cooking but his father has also influenced his style.

“My mum has that fresh and fragrant approach to Asian cooking that the Vietnamese have, and my dad was born in Vietnam but had Chinese parents, so he was raised to cook proper Chinese food,” Minh explains.

As a result the menu is primarily Vietnamese but has strong Chinese influences, which has “served us really well”, he says.

“Not only do we offer the fragrant herb salads and delicate broths that my mum is so good at, we also have the aromatic flavours and diversity of Chinese cuisine too, from steamed pork dumplings to a five-spiced chillisalted squid.”

Minh’s parents have also instilled a certain work ethic. “My parents’ recipes have great influence on me, but as people they inspire me too. They are of retirement age, but they work just as hard as I do, to help make my dreams come true. Our passion, our desire and hard work comes through in our dishes.”

The menu at Saigon Streat is short but varied, offering a range of different flavours and textures. Its size allows Minh to have greater control “over stock and sourcing ingredients, therefore always offering customers the best available”.

He does have some star dishes that have proved such a hit with customers that they can never leave the menu, such as the curries and the slowcooked pork belly.

“There are some people – they know who they are! – who would only order these certain dishes. From day

Above: Minh Chu, owner of Saigon Streat Right and opposite page: Tam Thi Doan in her kitchen at Cafe Green

one to now, five years later, every week they come and I’ve never seen them try something else.”

And what is his favourite dish on the menu? “It really depends what mood I am in or what physical state, but I never get tired of our rice paper rolls,” he says.

“It’s my go-to food after a restaurant shift, because it’s a tasty, healthy snack that can turn into quite a filling meal after five to six rolls.”

Just a five-minute walk away at Cafe Green on Ennersdale Road, proprietor and chef Tam Thi Doan is also inspired by fond childhood memories of food, particularly her grandma’s pho.

managed to change our opening hours from just doing lunch service to doing both lunch and dinner.”

Now, the most popular dishes on the menu are the bún cha cá, a seafood noodle soup with a light, sweet, citrus flavour and a kick of heat, which originates from Tam’s hometown of Quy Nhon, and the classic oxtail pho.

The broth is “dense with beefy flavour, cooked with many parts of the cow”, explains Tam. “It’s hearty and rich with a beefy, gelatinous flavour.”

Other dishes include the bò lá lot – grilled beef wrapped in betel leaf and served with cucumber, spring onion and peanuts; the cánh gà, or lime spicy chicken wings; the bánh bèo, which are savoury steamed rice cakes; a variety of noodle salads and a refreshing homemade coconut ice cream for dessert.

For Tam, cooking Vietnamese food offers a chance to spread a passion for healthy eating while also celebrating her culinary roots. She has lived in the area with her mother for 27 years, and loves the “friendly locals” and “supportive community”.

Minh agrees: “I love south-east London. There is great community spirit here. People have really supported us and we’re always grateful for that.

“Our customers know where we’ve started from and they can appreciate how we’ve evolved, but there’s more to come from us and on a personal level, that’s what keeps it interesting and exciting.

“Every dish carries fond memories for me, and I love the idea of sharing that with my customers.”

26 C OM M U N I T Y wice a month the seats in the wood-panelled council chamber of the Lewisham civic suite fill with people waiting to take part in a citizenship ceremony as classical music plays in the background.

Under the inscrutable gaze of Queen Elizabeth II, her portrait temporarily installed to oversee proceedings that include a pledge of loyalty to the crown, a short-lived ensemble of people from every corner of the world come together to receive their citizenship before disbanding back into their daily lives.

For some it’s a day to celebrate the hard-won prize of a British passport and the perceived benefits that brings.

Others are relieved that a long and expensive process is coming to an end. All have had to pass the British citizenship test to reach this point, and will agree to defend the right to live in freedom and uphold democratic values.

The ceremony is opened by a local dignitary, who gives an address.

The new citizens then receive their naturalisation certificates and Union Jack badges with a firm handshake and photo opportunity.

After singing the national anthem, each citizen is asked to turn to the person next to them to shake their hand as the ceremony draws to a close.

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Vijay Chauhan I have lived in the UK for about seven years. I was in Belfast for a year before moving to London and I learned a lot about various UK cultures, like pub culture: it’s midday so you go for lunch and a drink.

London is the centre of the world; it’s a hub for culture from the US, Europe, Africa, India and Australia. In every country, you need to respect the culture, but you also bring your own culture and flavour to it. People ask me what I have brought, and of course I say curry, and also the family values that we have in India.

Life will be way easier for me now.

Rather than spending an hour in the immigration line when I come in, that will change. Day-to-day life doesn’t change much, but being part of Britain and British society is really good.

I was always on the road growing up. My dad was in the Air Force so we had to move every three or four years.

England is somewhere I’ve just stuck, and now I’m married.

My favourite thing about British life is socialising with people and appreciating other cultures. People don’t care what your background is, it’s just quite welcoming and that’s what I appreciate and acknowledge most about Britain. People ask me, “What made you stay here?” For me, it’s the multiculturalism.

Abigail Bainbridge In the end, this is going to cost about £10,000 in total. Every year the fees go up astronomically.

Today feels like a huge relief to not have to worry about it anymore, and when I come back into the country to be able to go back through the British line with the rest of the family and have it not be 20 questions about what I’m doing here, which is how it is for people coming into the States [where Abigail is originally from] too.

I don’t feel any more British, it just means we have a place where we can all live together. It’ll be nice to say, “I live here”, and that’s it.

I took the citizenship test, but some of the stuff we had to learn in the book wasn’t 100% correct. It wasn’t that it

Clockwise from right: Nurul Hidayati, Christian Rodriguez, Damaris Hammerli-Hess, Vijay Chauhan, Dimitra Manta

NOTES ON A SMALL ISLAND

One of the best things about living in Lewisham is its incredible diversity. Here, seven residents of the borough discuss the highs and lows of becoming a British citizen AS TOLD TO ROSIE PARKYN n PHOTOS BY PAUL STAFFORD

was wrong per se, but the language used was not clear to a foreign person.

It was clearly written by British people who didn’t think how it might sound.

Very subtle things, but things that would have made me get questions wrong if I wasn’t married to a British person who could explain it to me.

What I found the most unexpected about living here was that the cultural differences are so big given the fact that we have the same language.

It’s little things like going to the supermarket and not being able to find something because it’s stored in a different place than it would be at home, or it’s called a different thing. It hits you that you’re foreign again.

Christian Rodriguez I came to the UK when I was 18. I was supposed to stay for six months

and then go back to Colombia, but those six months hit me in the heart, so I decided to stay longer, finish my studies and learn more English.

I felt welcome here – I was getting to know the whole world in one city.

It opens your heart and your mind to different cultures and types of people, and it makes you a better person to live with people who are different from you. Where I come from, we are the majority in that country. When you come to a country that is very diverse, you start to understand different points of view.

The English are very polite. You can’t just go into their home without telling them you’re coming, small things like that. You learn as you go.

And when I came across Cockney, it was like another level of the English language.

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Jolani Retiza Chwalek It’s not easy to become a British citizen. Preparation is key. I was brought up in the Philippines where we say, “Pray while you are working and work while you are praying”, so when I had exams I needed to prepare and I needed to pray. And I made it!

It’s my seventh year here, I married a British man. There are big differences between British culture and Filipino culture. The freedom is so wide that sometimes I can say I’m confused.

For example, the garbage problem.

In my country, I lived in the number one cleanest city in the Philippines.

So even if you throw a single piece of gum, you will be fined. I don’t mind that because it helps keep the area good and clean and you don’t have to worry about getting your high heel stuck in the gum. But I feel safe and I feel happy here.

My favourite thing about Lewisham is that I can quickly blend in with the community. It is so diverse, I can find Asians and Africans and I can find my own kind of food, even in Sainsbury’s.

This is such a huge achievement for me. Back home my family is really proud and happy. It’s what I’ve wanted for a long time. It will release good things in the future. All this time I have spent in England has made me who I am, and I am proud of that.

People in other countries struggle to get the smallest things, but here you don’t even think about it. People who are British-born don’t realise the value of the passport they have: you can travel throughout the whole world.

People like us struggle just to get out of the country.

Dimitra Manta There are many steps you need to follow when applying for citizenship, and it’s very important to ensure that you aren’t making a mistake along the way.

A colleague of mine did make a mistake; he didn’t get the residency application right as part of the first step, and he had to pay the fee again.

Once you get it all right, the process is very fast.

I have lived in Britain for over 20 years. I’m so embedded in British life and it wasn’t very different from the way I grew up [in Greece] so there was never any clash of values or principles.

The top priority for me now is I have no more worries about Brexit. I will open the champagne today.

Damaris Hammerli-Hess I was a teenager when I came here in 1992. It was my mother’s choice to bring me. This is home, this has always been home: I go [back] to Switzerland and I feel like a foreigner.

I should have done this a long time ago – it’s been on the to-do list

People ask what made me stay here.

For me, it's the multiculturalism

forever. It gives me the freedom to go wherever, but voting is the main benefit for me. I was so upset that I couldn’t vote in the referendum. Livid.

We had fun dinnertime conversations about the Life in the UK test – none of my British friends could answer any of the questions.

The oath of allegiance to the crown is a strange one. I told my friends and they said, “What? I wouldn’t do that!”

But I subscribe to British values like democracy, and of course if someone gives you a home, you’re always going to feel loyalty towards that country.

Nurul Hidayati A British passport is a very good thing to have. I’ve lived here for six years and have tried to understand British culture.

British people are very warm and kind, but in Indonesia everyone is outside talking to each other. Here everyone is at home, especially in the winter when every house is closed.

My favourite thing about Lewisham is the market on the street next to the shopping centre, because I can see so many different people and cultures there.

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his is Blackheath. What do you see? Grass, undoubtedly. The heath is 275 acres in extent; so there’s a lot of grass. You might also spot outbursts of gorse here and there, and some decorative ponds.

Roads and paths criss-cross the place, but there’s only one major highway, the Dover Road, which sweeps up Blackheath Hill, thunders along the route of an ancient trackway and disappears over Shooter’s Hill.

Some houses can be seen at the margins, but on the heath proper there are few human encroachments: just the church, the army drill hall and the small sunken settlement, complete with primary school, which nestles in an old sandpit. At first glance, Blackheath is little more than a flat, open plain with a heart of grass. But there’s so much more to it than that.

I grew up on the edge of Blackheath.

I love it now as I loved it then. It was my childhood playground. I fished for minnows and sticklebacks in Whitefield Pond. I hurled myself and my bicycle on a wild ride down the steep slopes of the long-abandoned gravel quarry that we locals called The Dip. Somehow, along the way, I learned all sorts of stories about the place: tales of armed rebellions, royal revels, highway robberies and mass graves. And almost all of it is true.

Blackheath occupies a commanding position, close to and high above the city. It is an excellent place to gather and plan an assault on the metropolis below. Wat Tyler’s Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, Jack Cade’s Kentish rebellion of 1450 and the Cornish rebellion of 1497 all made their last stand here, before being cruelly cut down by the king’s men.

At the same time, Blackheath has afforded monarchs and their representatives an ideal location for welcoming visiting dignitaries and showing off. In 1540, King Henry VIII held his first official meeting with Anne of Cleves, his soon-tobe fourth wife, on the heath, before leading her downhill, with great pomp and ceremony, to Greenwich Palace.

Downhill was also the way their relationship went not long afterwards.

It wasn’t until the 19th century, and particularly with the arrival of the railways in 1848, that the development of Blackheath as a desirable place to live really began in earnest. Before then, there were several grand houses hereabouts, but little other permanent habitation.

The heath could be a bleak and forbidding place and, at night, downright dangerous. Highwaymen (and some highwaywomen) lurked in every shadow. The terror they inspired is graphically evoked by Charles

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Of THE

history heath On the Lewisham and Greenwich border sits one of London's best-loved green spaces. From rogues to royals to revolutionaries, our writer delves into its intriguing past WORDS BY COLIN RICHARDSON

Dickens in the early pages of A Tale of Two Cities, where a mail coach toils up Shooter’s Hill in the dark, pursued by an unseen horseman.

So much of what I now know about Blackheath is down to one man – the heath’s preeminent historian and president of the Blackheath Society, Neil Rhind. Thanks to the books he has written, the walks he has led and the talks he has given, Neil has helped to keep the history of the heath alive.

Neil’s memory is prodigious. Ask him anything about Blackheath and he is sure to know the answer. I’ve always wondered, for example, whether the valley in which Blackheath Village sits is natural or manmade – another

PHOTO BY MARTIN DEUTSCH

of the former quarries and gravel pits that scar the face of the heath. Did a river ever run through it? Oh, yes, says Neil; the Upper Kid Brook. But when the railways came, it was diverted underground.

“It’s still there, in a humble brick pipe,” he says. “I’ve seen it. In the 1970s, they had to dig up the station yard, and they opened up the brick pipe, the conduit which took the water of the Kid Brook. It was jolly nice, it was chugging along. Beautiful brickwork too.”

The Blackheath Society aims to “preserve and improve” Blackheath and its amenities. It holds an extensive historical archive, which includes tens of thousands of documents and images.

It was the driving force behind the installation of seven storyboards at points of interest across the heath.

But perhaps the bulk of its work concerns the monitoring of planning applications submitted to the two councils that administer Blackheath: Lewisham and Greenwich.

“We try to monitor them all,” says John Bartram, the society’s publicity and publications officer, “but there are hundreds. The reason for doing this is not because we like to interfere; it’s to try and make sure from the point of view of residents and local people that it stays a nice area to live in.”

Below left: a traveller is held up at gunpoint by highwaymen.

From Discovering Highwaymen: A gallery of rogues, by Russell Ash

The heath could be a forbidding place, where highwaymen lurked in every shadow

The society’s greatest battle to date commenced in 1962, when plans to drive a six-lane highway through Blackheath Village were announced by the London County Council. An early and influential opponent of the scheme was the future prime minister and sometime local resident, James Callaghan, then a backbench Labour MP. With his support, the Blackheath Society eventually saw off the plan.

One of the most hotly contested facts about Blackheath is how it got its name. Perhaps the best-known theory is that Blackheath is so-called because beneath its soil lie countless corpses, the bodily remains of those poor souls who perished during the Black Death.

“Not so,” says Neil Rhind. “There’s no evidence of plague pits or anything like that. Blackheath already had its name in the 11th century. The Black Death was in 1349, much later than when we have recorded evidence of the name.”

That also puts paid to another pet theory, that the name derives from infamous deeds of the aforementioned highwaymen. Disappointingly, it seems they’re not even responsible for the naming of Shooter’s Hill.

So where did Blackheath acquire its name? “The general view,” says Neil, “is that it looked black when it had been rained on.” That may be correct – though we’ll probably never know for sure – but it doesn’t seem quite right to me. The heath’s soil is grey rather than black, even when it’s wet. A soggy heath is still a green heath.

I prefer the more romantic explanation propounded by some, which Neil thinks is “stretching it a bit” – that is to say, wrong. Here goes anyway. There is an old Anglo-Saxon word, “blæc”, meaning “shining”. And, the story goes, when the gorse is in bloom, with a million bright yellow flowers lighting the place up, the heath appears to shine.

Anyhow, do visit the Blackheath Society website and trawl its archive.

Find out what it’s up to now and join in. You won’t regret it. And you’ll learn so much that you might even come to love Blackheath as much as I do.

The Blackheath Society’s website is at blackheath.org. View the archive via blackheatharchive.org

30 LEWI S H AM L E I SU R E

SOMETHING TO EAT pat’s double chocolate and raspberry cake This cake from You Don’t Bring Me Flowers in SE13 looks too good to eat... almost WORDS BY LYNNE NORLEDGE PHOTO BY MARTIN COCERES

off so patently on my mum and myself, with my love of Crimplene and line-dancing, and my mum’s cake-baking talents.

My mum was a working mum, so it wasn’t until she retired and had more time on her hands that her baking skills blossomed.

CROSSWORD NO. 6 ACROSS 1 Edible bivalve (7) 5 Drive backwards (7) 9 Group of three (5) 10 Eater of scraps (9) 11 See introduction 16 Be dressed in (4) 18 Cereal crop (3) 19 Part of a country (8) 20 Inborn (6) 21 Rare (6) 22 Essay, written work (8) 23 Zero (3) 24 Town next to Brighton (4) 26 Fundamental nature (7) 32 Unreadable (9) 34 Wait on (5) 35 Tread on roughly (7) 36 Deep-fried Japanese dish (7) DOWN 1 Location (4) 2 Farewell (5)

3 Sill (5) 4 Italian staple food (5) 5 Harvest (4) 6 Compete (3) 7 Rascal (5) 8 Mistake (5) 11 Biblical city with huge walls (7) 12 Marital break-up (7) 13 Gentle, not strict (7) 14 Grapple (7) 15 Woman who inherits (7) 16 Churchill's first name (7) 17 Performer (7) 24 Lift, raise (5) 25 Roman house (5) 27 Aroma (5) 28 Derby Day race venue (5) 29 Holiday island off north-west Greece (5) 30 Woodwind instrument (4) 31 Second Greek letter (4) 33 Space, interval (3)

SOLUTION

Pat’s cakes are renowned by my customers, and she is incapable of making a sponge that is not both enormous in size and totally knockout in flavour.

She wows our customers time and time again, brushing their praise off with a

modest, “Oh, anyone could do it!”

Here is Pat’s recipe for double chocolate and raspberry cake.

Give it a try at home – and if it doesn’t work out for you, and my mum truly just has magic fingers, then you can always come and buy one from us and

BY ALDHELM

11 Across is a famous one-time resident of Hither Green.

pretend you made it yourself.

Ingredients For the sponge 12oz butter 12oz caster sugar 6 eggs 2oz cocoa powder, mixed with water until stiff

14oz self-raising flour 2 tsp baking powder 100g dark chocolate, chopped 350g frozen raspberries, defrosted or fresh For the butter icing 8oz butter, softened 16oz icing sugar

Method 1 To make the sponge, beat together the butter, sugar, eggs and cocoa mixture.

Gradually and gently fold in the flour and baking powder.

2 Stir in the dark chocolate and threequarters of the raspberries.

3 Divide the mixture into two 12-inch cake tins that have been greased with butter and lined with flour or greaseproof paper.

Bake for about 40 minutes at 180°C in a fan oven. Test the cakes are cooked, then cool.

4 To make the butter icing, cream together the butter and icing sugar and add a little juice from the raspberry sauce (below) when cooled.

5 To make the raspberry sauce, place the rest of the raspberries in cold water with two tablespoons of caster sugar and gradually heat up until cooked.

Pass through a sieve, then return to the heat and boil until it starts to set but can still be drizzled.

6 Drizzle the sauce over the top of the cake.

A lewisham LOCAL Gladys Cooper Born on Ennersdale Road in Hither Green in 1888, Dame Gladys Cooper was a threetime Academy Award nominee who spent seven decades acting in plays, films and on TV. Starting out in musical comedy and pantomime as a teenager, she went on to tread the boards in the West End, where she managed the Playhouse Theatre for 16 years before moving to Hollywood in 1940.

She appeared in films including Rebecca and Madame Bovary, and won an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Mrs Higgins in My Fair Lady, which starred Audrey Hepburn.

In the 1950s and 60s she appeared on TV

ILLUSTRATION BY PETER RHODES

You Don’t Bring Me Flowers, my flower and cake shop in Hither Green, was set up more than 16 years ago as a family business.

At the time I didn’t appreciate how much the women who brought me up had informed my choices, or how much they would support me in the future.

My mum Pat has been baking incredible cakes weekly for my shop since the very beginning, and I’ve chosen one of her delicious recipes to share with readers of The Lewisham Ledger for this month’s food column.

When I was a child, visiting my mum’s mum, Nanny Con, was a joy. There were always at least two newly baked cakes and a tin of flapjacks in the cupboard waiting for us as a parting gift.

She wore Crimplene dress suits often and a nylon housecoat for cleaning, and before we left we would dance a line-dance to her namesake Connie Francis.

Little did I know then that her style and talents would rub

shows including The Twilight Zone, as an old lady besieged by late-night phone calls.

She also played the matriarch of a crime family in The Rogues with David Niven.

She died in 1971 in Henley-on-Thames, aged 82.

ACROSS: 1 Scallop, 5 Reverse, 9 Triad, 10 Scavenger, 11 Jude Law, 16 Wear, 18 Rye, 19 Province, 20 Innate, 21 Scarce, 22 Treatise, 23 Nil, 24 Hove, 26 Essence, 32 Illegible, 34 Serve, 35 Trample, 36 Tempura. DOWN: 1 Site, 2 Adieu, 3 Ledge, 4 Pasta, 5 Reap, 6 Vie, 7 Rogue, 8 Error, 11 Jericho, 12 Divorce, 13 Lenient, 14 Wrestle, 15 Heiress, 16 Winston, 17 Artiste, 24 Hoist, 25 Villa, 27 Scent, 28 Epsom, 29 Corfu, 30 Oboe, 31 Beta, 33 Gap.