The Transmitter Issue 18

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ISSUE 18 JUN 2011

A SOUTH EAST LONDON MAGAZINE www.thetransmitter.co.uk

THE MUSICAL

SUSPECTS

Local musos line up

for our photocall

BOWIE IN BECKENHAM The Dame's early days in the southeast suburb

LOST IN MUSIC Three songwriters dress up and get lost plus DULWICH UKULELES THE BRIT SCHOOL SYDENHAM INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL

THE MUSIC ISSUE Plus

NEWS

FASHION

FOOD

BOOKS

GARDENING

WELCOME TO THE MUSIC ISSUE

GLOBAL EDITOR IN CHIEF

Andy Pontin CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Justine Crow Jonathan Main Hannah McEwen Annette Prosser REGULAR WRITERS

Michael Eyre Howard Male Mary Stamm-Clarke Rachel De Thample Sue Williams GUEST WRITERS

Alexis Bleasdale Mark Dye Alex Fowler Laura Morgan REGULAR PHOTOGRAPHERS

Louise Haywood-Schiefer Andy Pontin Simon Sharville GUEST PHOTOGRAPHERS

HaidĂŠe Augusta James Balston David Bebbington Graeme Dalton

H

appy birthday to us.

It's quite hard for us to believe here at Transmitter Towers that the first issue of The Transmitter hit the streets in June 2008, which makes us three years old this issue and almost out of nappies.

We are celebrating our third birthday with a bumper size music issue to celebrate the volume and diversity of the local music scene. Our ram-jam packed survey of who is making noises in southeast London starts on page 14 and runs all the way to to page 49. Whew! Of course, we have only managed to capture a fleeting glimpse of things musical and you are sure to know someone nearby whom we have failed to even mention. Rest assured it's not because we don't like them, it's just that like all who are not timelords, we eventually run out of time and space.

For a larf, we have two (sort of) musical quizzes for you. So if you like a challenge and think you know your local music history see how many faces you can name in our musical map on page 19, and then turn to page 56 and see if you can spot the musical references in Michael Eyre's wine column.

Have you heard of David Bowie? Well, he was a musician and singer and...OF COURSE YOU HAVE HEARD OF DAVID BOWIE. Well, he's from round here in case you didn't know and you can find out more about that on page 16.

No survey of our manor’s music scene would be complete without mentioning Jim Bob and Fruitbat. There has simply never (in the history of the world) - with titles such as, The Taking of Peckham 123 and 24 Hours from Tulse Hill - been a more southeast London band than Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. Between 1987 and 1997 Carter played almost 800 gigs all over the world, had fourteen Top 40 singles and released seven studio albums, one of which went to Number 1. Read one person's arms length love affair with them on page 38 and then see them this November at the Brixton Academy.

Enjoy the issue!

Ed

PRINTING

The Marstan Press Ltd CONTACT

editor@thetransmitter.co.uk 020 8771 5543 THE TRANSMITTER IS PUBLISHED BY

Cover

Transmission Publications Ltd PO Box 53556, London SE19 2TL

Andy 'Hank Dog' (see page 30) Photo by Louise Haywood-Schiefer

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CONTENTS FEATURES 14 SYDENHAM INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL we talk to Artistic Director and founder Robert Trory

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17 BOWIE IN BECKENHAM The story of The Dame's humble origins in SE London

20 CLASSICAL, JAZZ AND A TOUCH OF BRASS

We sent a brassy blonde to survey the local music scene 22 DULWICH UKULELES

Justine Crow meets the Dulwich Ukulele Club 26 THE MUSICAL SUSPECTS Twelve musicians. One line up. No Coincidence.

Just in case the music wasn't frightening enough already

38 CARTER USM: A MUSICAL LOVE STORY

A totally touching tale 40 BRIT'S GOT TALENT The local school that performs for OFSTED and the world

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42 LOST IN MUSIC Three local singer/songwriters are subjected to a fashion shoot

regulars 4 LOCAL NEWS AND EVENTS We round up all the things we know about and some we don't

50 GARDENING: PALACE PATCH Sue explains why you need to get your hands on a Dicksonia

52 FOOD: RACHEL'S RECIPE

Five knockout summer salad dressings from our knockout foodie 54 RESTAURANT REVIEW: WESTOW HOUSE Justine takes the Bookseller down the pub with her

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56 WINE: SKETCHES OF SPAIN Michael interweaves his wine column with musical references

58 BOOKS: THE BOOKSELLER Jonathan recommends some summer reads for your hols

61 MUSIC: THERE’S A WORLD OUT THERE! Howard Male has been listening to some music from 'the world'

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EMAIL US: EDITOR@THETRANSMITTER.CO.UK

LOCAL NEWS AND EVENTS

STUFF THAT IS HAPPENING AROUND THESE PARTS

The Crystal Palace Overground Festival returns!

The festival is back this year with London Overground as a main sponsor and it aims to be bigger and better than ever.

The main festival day is Saturday 13 August. and will see the Triangle buzzing with a street market and shops, pubs, venues and restaurants staging music, comedy and film events. This year the festival is also extended to Westow Park which will have kid friendly events, music, workshops, food and crafts and also the opening of the new playground (see The Transmitter issue 17).

Local artists and music studios are being invited to have an open day on the main festival day and community groups are invited to put on events on 10 - 12 August as part of the programme.

The festival organisers are running around fundraising as we go to print and they fervently hope that local businesses (other than cash strapped local magazines that is!) will sponsor the event. There is also a fundraising drive online where you can help by donating and even get a perk for your support.

Just go to www.indiegogo.com/ crystalpalaceovergroundfestival It's going to be a great day out so put the date in your diary, donate and spread the word you SE19ers!

For more information please visit crystalpalaceovergroundfestival. com Facebook: Crystal Palace Overground Festival Twitter: @SE19festival To volunteer your help, submit an event etc please contact Noreen at noreen@lemonia.org

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Music festival in Crystal Palace For those of you planning to go festival-bound this summer, now will be just about the time when you are starting to think about cleaning last year’s mud off the tent, locating the heavy-duty waterproofs and wondering exactly how many cases of beer you can squeeze into a Nissan Micra.

Closer to home, we are very pleased to report that this year will host a new addition to the musical calendar, with a one-day dance music festival in Crystal Palace Park.

South London Calling is taking place on Saturday 9 July with an almighty line-up of some of the finest names in house music. This is a dance festival that is aiming to blow your socks off and the organisers have hand-picked some great DJs and acts for your entertainment.

From the familiar faces of the old school to the leaders of the new school, the promoters have teamed up with Kinky Malinki, Toolroom's Leaders of the New School, Raindance and Passion, who will all be hosting arenas on the day.

The event will be advance tickets only, and is an over-18s event.

For more details, including a full line-up and tickets, go to www. southlondoncalling.com

Answer Me This! award Congratulations to the Answer Me This! question and answer gurus (as featured in the last issue of The Transmitter). The podcast, recorded in a front room in Crystal Palace, triumphed at the Sony Radio Academy Awards by winning gold for Best Internet Programme.

Congratulations! http://answermethis.wordpress.com

Elm Wood Summer Fair Elm Wood Primary School will be holding their Summer Fair 'Beside the Seaside' on Saturday 9 July.

The fair will be an enjoyable day out for all the family, in the spirit of a day at the seaside. There will be activities for all ages, including face-painting, art and crafts, a Punch & Judy show, a raffle with some fantastic prizes and plenty of games and stalls to visit. Refreshments will be available, from stalls selling hotdogs and other hot food to ice cream, candy floss and traditional lemonade and ginger beer. A licensed bar will be operating so you can treat yourself to a summer cocktail or a cold beer.

Or just lie back in a deck chair and enjoy a good old-fashioned cup of tea and a delicious homemade cake, while listening to the sounds of a brass band.

Open to all; 12.30pm to 4pm; Elm Wood Primary School, Carnac Street (off Clive Road), West Norwood; ÂŁ1 for adults, free for children.

All proceeds will go towards funding a new climbing frame and play equipment for the school playground

West Norwood Feast The West Norwood Feast is a new people-powered market brought to you by local people and businesses working together. The first one took place on Sunday 3 April, and was a roaring success with a mix of food, gardening, artisan and retro wares all being available to local shoppers.

The next West Norwood Feast will be taking place on Sunday 5 June. If you're local and are interested in performing, playing, or volunteering on the day then get in touch with the organisers at hello@ westnorwoodfeast.com To find out more, visit www. westnorwood.spacemakers.org.uk

'ello Vera

Fancy Dress CARNIVAL Concert IN DULWICH Award winning actress Brenda Blethyn OBE (aka Detective Chief inspector Vera Stanhope in TV drama Vera) performed a reading of Peter and the Wolf to an audience of local children and parents accompanied by the Southwark Concert Band.

The Fancy Dress Carnival Concert for Children was one of the regular events in this year's Dulwich Festival and both the audience and the band were decked out in fancy dress costume (well, most of them were, we spotted Transmitter gardener Sue Williams at the back blowing into a euphonium wearing what might be described by the uncharitable as normal clothing).

As the concert began, conductor Bob Bridges told the assembled children that the first piece of music would be scary and he wasn't kidding. As the band thundered out the first few bars of A Night on Bare Mountain, several small children burst into tears and ran for their parents. Baby Elephant Walk and Chuff Chuff Delight caused less concern and the kids were all happy as Larry to be given percussion instruments to bang along with the orchestra during Jamaican Rumba.

Some parents however seemed to think appropriate parenting here involved allowing your kid to shout incessantly at the orchestra and Brenda Blethyn OBE throughout their performances. Hmmmm.

UNIT news

MINI RALLY 2011

The Upper Norwood Improvement Team (UNIT) is an umbrella organisation that meets four times a year to bring together council officers, councillors from five wards, our Safer Neighbourhood Police Teams with representatives from a wide range of local amenity groups and businesses to discuss a range of subjects focused on how the Upper Norwood area can be improved.

If you missed the minis in Crystal Palace Park on 15 May here's one!

This year UNIT will be initiating, supporting and facilitating a range of projects for the benefit of the local community as the team moves forward. Membership is open to all local amenity groups and businesses. If you would like to know more or get involved then get in touch at se19unit@hotmail.com.

Soul all-dayer Following the continuing success of the Crystal Palace Soul nights at The Alma, another event is planned for Saturday 18 June – but hold onto your hats, because this time it's an all-dayer!

You can expect the usual mix of northern and rare soul, crossover, funk and disco all from original vinyl.

Kicking off at 3pm, the marathon session will run through to 3am.

The beer garden will be open, and to keep you fuelled there will be a barbecue in the afternoon. Free entry as usual.

A very British affair it was too although we spotted a few French flags flying - reckon they should stick to their Renaults. www.london-to-brighton.co.uk

THERE'S STILL LIFE AT THE HORNIMAN MUSEUM The 20th annual art exhibition of The Friends of The Horniman will be held in the beautiful venue of the Conservatory. Admission is free to view paintings, prints and sculptures from South London's artist community. New and established artists will be showing their most recent work in what has become one of South London's largest and most popular art exhibitions.

The Conservatory itself stands in the beautiful landscaped gardens surrounding the Museum which has again been awarded a Green Flag.

Alongside the Conservatory is the popular Museum Cafe offering hot and cold refreshments Saturday 9 July 10am to 5pm and Sunday 10 July 10am to 4.30pm Horniman Museum & Gardens 100 London Road Forest Hill London SE23 www.horniman.ac.uk

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TRADING PLACES IT'S BEEN A FUNNY OLD MONTH FOR THE POSHOMETER

I

t's been a tricky month in Crystal Palace for roving Trading Places reporters taking poshometer readings, what with a sort of pound shop, a new chicken shop and now news of (another) money shop, all opening along the same stretch of Westow Hill SE19.

Things turn out to be not so bad as all that though with reports that the new Pound Stretcher, is really just a Woolies and has loads of useful, welll-priced things for us local bods.

Onwards and upwards!

Calling SE26 drinkers

BAMBINOS GETS A REFURB

Drinking options look set to improve in SE26 with news that the ANTIC group (who currently run Westow House and the East Dulwich Tavern) have bought The Greyhound pub in Sydenham. The Greyhound, which has been quite forlornly boarded-up on Cobbs Corner for some time now, is set to undergo a renovation.

Re-opening is currently scheduled for October 2011.

Longstanding vendor of interesting things Bambinos has recently been expanding its shopfloor area to introduce a whole new room full of tantalising pieces. Triangle traditionalists and Vogue stylists have no fear though, owner Andy Stem has not abandoned his traditional line in objets d'art and leather jackets for Kate Moss to comport herself in.

Soulcialize Cupcakes

Jamie and the Bear

Another new place for those of you who enjoy a little sweet something has opened up on the Triangle.

Soulcialize Cupcakes specialise in cupcakes free from wheat, gluten, dairy, eggs, and refined white sugar, while still remaining delicious.

Jamie and the Bear trade in front of 44 Church Road SE19 on weekends and are also based in Haynes Lane Market four days a week.

The cupcakes are lovingly baked fesh every day, by Soulcialize’s cupcake mistress in southeast London. Mouthwatering flavours include gingerbread, choco coconut and vanilla.

Soulcialize Cupcakes, 11 Westow Hill SE19. www.soulcialize.co.uk

Bike shop opening A bike shop is set to re-open on Central Hill in Crystal Palace following the sad news that the former bike shop owners had passed away. Blue Door Bicycles will have several brands of bikes including Dawes, Pashley and Electra (for those who want some help getting up the hills!) There will also be a repair and maintenance workshop on site. The new owners are hoping to be open around the time this issue goes to press. www.centralcycle.co.uk Photo: James Balston

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They have a great collection of premium men's jackets and footwear spanning the last 30 years.

Everything is hand picked by Jamie, and they have lots of labels including Paul Smith, Stone Island, Adidas, Nike, Barbour, Diesel, Fred Perry, plus loads of mad one-off labels, vintage rainwear and military garments thrown in for good measure!!

Jamie and the Bear 44 Church Road SE19 2PR

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TRADING PLACES Shou Fang Fashion

D Solo's

Sell It Mama!

Tucked away on Church Road SE19 is Shou Fang Fashion – a tiny gem packed full of specially selected clothes and accessories from Ilha Formosa (or Taiwan, as it is also known).

Fashion outlet D Solo's in Church road SE19 has had a dedicated following for a number of years from fashion conscious South London menfolk. Slightly less well known perhaps for their selection of women's clothes, D Solo's has just opened up another floor above the main shop, dedicated to women's fashion and has also created more changing room areas.

Sell It Mama! will be holding their summer event on Saturday 4 June, with their unique winning formula of making second-hand baby goods accessible to new and growing families and grandparents. The event will be a chance to support local ‘mumpreneurs’ showcasing their products and services, along with free workshop sessions, facepainting, tea, coffee and nibbles.

So ladies, go check it out.

Christ church, Highland Road, Gipsy Hill SE19. Open from 11am to 3pm; £2 entry (children free).

Enquiries to: info@sellitmama.com

Shou Fang personally selects all the pieces in her shop from a network of fashion designers in Taiwan and Japan. As a result the place is a little treasure trove where no two items are the same – whether a top, a pair of shoes, a necklace or a bag.

Shou Fang has a background in interior design, and she obviously values the creativity of each item she sells. It might be a skirt that turns into trousers by way of some clever buttoning along the bottom; or a t-shirt better suited to sexy eveningwear because of a sheer mesh back panel – 'uniqueness' is definitely the watchword here.

Originally from Taiwan, Shou Fang stills spends a fair amount of time travelling away from Crystal Palace – she goes back to South East Asia at least twice a year to buy new stock for winter and summer seasons, so her shop is always upto-date with her latest finds.

All the items in the shop are affordable, and many have unusual and innovative detailing – transforming the clothes into something special. Shou Fang’s aim is to showcase the creativity of her friends, and to sell items that women can enjoy wearing, safe in the knowledge that no-one else will turn up in the same thing.

Shou Fang Fashion is open on weekends, and on other days by appointment.

Shou Fang Fashion 60 Church Road SE19 2EZ www.shoufangfashion.com

Local singer/songwriter Lottie Pendlebury wears hat, dress and jacket from Shou Fang Fashion see more on our 'Lost in Music' photoshoot on page 42.

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ARTS NEWS A NEW arts venue for crystal palace?

Plans are afoot to bring a new live music venue and arts centre to Crystal Palace to help showcase the creative talent in the area.

Jacob Kaye and the team behind Antenna Studios are hoping to transform 22 Westow Hill into a 200 capacity arts centre in the Triangle.

With the site having been empty for more than ten years the idea is to turn the space into a professionally soundproofed music venue compromising two floors.

'It’s going to be in sections,' says Darren Doherty, Manager, Antenna Studios. 'The ground floor is going to be a dedicated music venue for the musicians, the live element, Djs and the like.'

Here, capacity audiences of up to 80 people will soak up the atmosphere created by cutting edge technology that allows musicians to play freely. The idea is then to open the first floor up to everybody so that it can be used for comedy, theatre, piano recitals, exhibitions and community projects.

'As you walk upstairs there will be a stage that could be used for acoustic or small theatre productions with a screen that can come down for film nights, with the walls being used for exhibition space,' adds Doherty.

The upstairs mezzanine, which has a capacity for up to 120 people, will also feature a roof garden and grand piano.

'This is to include the classical element as we have quite a few pianists coming through Antenna at the moment who use it as a rehearsal space purely for the grand we have in the gallery and this kind of emulates that space in 22 Westow Hill,' says Doherty.

Doherty believes that the site is the

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Bainbridge STUDIOS We popped in to see Lucy Bainbridge and some exhibiting artists work at Bainbridge Gallery and Studios in West Norwood. She reminded us that it was almost three years since we last dropped by slapped wrists all round. perfect progression for a hub like Antenna and will provide the launch pad for the many creative elements passing through the studio.

'At the moment we provide space for the whole creative community to come and rehearse and nurture their talents but we never really had a platform to showcase it,' he adds.

'This would give us that option.'

With investment taken care of and the lease on the building about to be agreed, it is hoped that once refurbishment is complete, this centre for creativity will be open for business by September at the latest.

'I think the key to this project is diversity. We’re not just a music venue or bar, it’s a centre for all things creative. That diversity means we can have film nights etc. at the same time because we’ll have two floors running,' says Doherty.

'Our model from the outset will be to act as a focus for local creative elements and to offer a platform for creative and artistic community projects. That’s our model - with a beer!' he adds.

This creative hub offers open access screen printing facilities and studio space for local artists. It is a valuable local resource and we promised to visit more often.

Bainbridge Gallery and Studios 1 Sydenham Place, off Landsdowne Hill, West Norwood SE27 0AP www.bainbridgestudios.co.uk

CINEMA NEWS WE CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN

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the Picture Palace Campaign need your continued support During May the Picture Palace Campaign (PPC) delivered 15,000 leaflets around the Crystal Palace area to update us all on what’s been happening with the campaign. They report that the feedback has been fantastic and would like to say a big Thank You to everyone who volunteered.

City Screen, the company behind Picturehouse Cinemas, is still very keen on bringing a Ritzy-style cinema to the area and we know this has popular support. The company is a fantastic community orientated cinema operator and had wanted to buy 25 Church Road for several years before Gala Bingo sold the former Rialto cinema – from under its feet in a closed bid sale – to Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC) back in July 2009.

Whilst KICC is the legal owner of 25 Church Road, it is not allowed to use the building for the reason it was speculatively purchased – religious worship. The former cinema was purchased to operate as a church

for KICC’s South West Wimbledon congregation and as its South London Headquarters. However, this type of use was refused by Bromley’s planning committee back in December 2009.

KICC has acknowledged that its use of the building would cause serious traffic and parking problems and that were it to be used as a concert hall the impact would be even more damaging. Despite recognising the negative impact that use would have on the surrounding area, it has now revealed a proposed programme of mixed use events including concerts, drama, exhibitions and conferences, to increased capacity audiences, which fall outside the permitted D2 Entertainment Use Class. KICC will now have to apply for a premises licence for large events; the public can object to this.

KICC has already been advised that its latest proposal requires a new ‘change of use’ planning application.

The PPC hopes that once the KICC realises it cannot use the building

for religious events, conferences and concerts, it will agree to sell to a cinema operator and invest the money from the sale to buy a venue somewhere nearer to its congregation which has adequate parking and traffic arrangements.

If you are concerned about KICC’s new plans for the building and want to ensure that it is only used for the permitted D2 Entertainment uses, the PPC urge you to contact your ward councillors, Bromley council and your local MP: all these contact details can be found on PPC's website. They stress how important it is that our representatives know that the community of Crystal Palace will not accept any illegal use of the building.

A local cinema makes sense and the PPC need your continued support.

For regular updates please join up at www.picture-palace.org. You can also find and like the PPC on Facebook (type in 'picture palace') and if you are a twitterer, you can follow them too @picturepalace.

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SPORTS NEWS Team Brazil are coming

Motorsport at the Palace

Local triathlon

Next year’s Olympics certainly seem to be creeping up quickly – especially for those of you waiting to see if you have been awarded any tickets (and wondering if your credit card is about to be divested of some hard-earned cash).

For those of you who enjoy watching things made out of metal moving really quickly round a race track, you probably went to Motorsport at the Palace last bank holiday, 29-30 May.

A new triathlon event will be taking place in Crystal Palace National Sports Centre on Sunday 11 September. Called Tri Together, the event is uniquely designed for disabled and non-disabled people to take part side-by-side.

For many of us living locally, the Olympics will be getting a that little bit closer with the news that Team Brazil will be using the National Sports Centre in Crystal Palace Park, with 200 competitors and officials arriving during the summer for training and preparation ahead of the main event.

Team Brazil will be availing themselves of the local sporting facilities for all their areas of specialism – including volleyball, beach volleyball (there's going to be queues for that - Ed), handball, basketball, taekwondo, boxing, athletics, swimming and diving. We can only hope that the weather won’t be too chilly for those athletes hitting balls around the place in bikinis – it may take a while to acclimatise to the wonderful British summer.

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Back for a second time after the success of last year’s event, there was a over 200 historic, contemporary and thoroughbred racing cars in action as they hurtled around the park.

For more information go to www. motorsportatthepalace.co.uk

The organisers are looking to recruit people to take part or volunteer on the day. It’s a short distance triathlon consisting of a 400m indoor pool swim; a mostly flat 15km cycle through Crystal Palace Park; and a 5km run finishing in the Jubilee Stadium.

You can take part as an individual, or in teams of twos or threes, so it’s suitable for everyone from complete beginner to seasoned triathlete.

For full details of registration and fundraising, or to find out more, visit the website at: www.lcdisability.org/tritogether.

Money raised from the event will help to support a wide variety of support services for disabled people in South London.

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SYDENHAM MUSIC FESTIVAL MARY STAMM-CLARKE TALKS TO ROBERT TRORY, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, CONDUCTOR AND FOUNDER OF THE ANNUAL SYDENHAM INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL

The Festival has been going for quite some time now, how did it all start?

It all happened in stages – a bit of a complicated answer. The inspiration for doing concerts in Sydenham came from Nina, my wife, and me at a church mass. In 1998 a priest came over from Sudan and said how bad the situation was there; we decided to put on a charity concert in the hope of raising some money.

We looked for a suitable venue and came across St Bartholomew’s. The vicar there is a musician so was all for the idea. The charity concert for Sudan packed the place out and we raised a few thousand pounds.

Then, nine months later, there was a natural disaster in Honduras and so we put on another concert. Again it was a great success but we thought, why do we have to wait for a disaster before we have a concert?

We approached the Council for funding and it ended up as a festival as this was economically more efficient, being able to advertise a series of events all in one go. It was met with such terrific enthusiasm and has simply grown and grown.

The festival has a very high reputation in the musical world.

It continues to be funded by Lewisham Council with additional grants including a number of charitable trusts.

Tell us a little bit about the musicians involved A lot of the orchestra are local musicians but not all. A high percentage are from Sydenham or Bromley and southeast London in general, but we don't make that a criterium – we want the best. An awful lot of musicians are from the Royal Opera House, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and others freelancers among all

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Pictures and artists from the 2010 festival. Clockwise from above: Robert Trory and St Bartholomew Festival Orchestra in rehearsal, Robert Trory and Orchestra leader Andrew Haveron, the horn section with principal Huw Evans in the centre, solo cellist Serbian Maja Bogdanovic playing the Elgar Concerto.

Photos: Martin Chamberlain

these orchestras. All of them are top professionals. We have also attracted major names to the festival [last year’s programme included international opera star Susan Bullock performing Wagner, given an ‘outstanding’ review from The Independent on Sunday]. This year we’re proud to be presenting worldrenowned bass-baritone Sir Willard White who’ll be singing a selection of arias. And young Russian Sergey Dogadin, a violinist destined for a big career. Plus the Galliard Wind Quintet and Sydenham festival regulars the Endellion String Quartet. Wonderful names.

Who is the festival aimed at?

It's aimed at the community of Sydenham, Forest Hill, Bromley and the other surrounding areas. A high percentage of tickets are sold within SE26 interestingly enough. We do get people coming from far afield because they've heard how good it is. People buy tickets online, turn up and have a marvellous concert.

We also do a children's concert, so

cater to a very wide age range. From toddlers in pushchairs upwards. In fact, we just said goodbye to our eldest couple in their nineties who have now emigrated abroad.

And is it important to the local community do you think?

Music serves a lot of purpose in the community. It brings the community together and musicians say how nice it is to play just down the road from where they live. It gives them the opportunity to play to their neighbours. Anything that brings the community together gives people focus, it keeps people interested and active which is a very positive thing.

A lot of our audience are used to going to concerts in central London and welcome the opportunity to hear a good concert without the hassle of trekking up to town.

It's also remarkable to be able to bring together a full orchestra. Very few festivals have full orchestras, the only other big ones are those like Brighton and Edinburgh. Having a full orchestra actually sets us apart.

What is the future of the festival?

We want to keep it going, we want it to continue to grow, we don't want it to stop. We’ve just taken on a festival director, a voluntary position that will take over some of the admin so I can concentrate on being purely the artistic director. He is a young chap, is ambitious and able and will bring a new energy to the festival.

All these years we've focused on excellence and excellence is what people want. People want the best and we give the best. Fabulous concerts, fabulous players, nice balanced programs, works people want to hear – and sometimes we challenge them a bit. It's highly, highly professional and all the people that perform at our Sydenham festival are playing all around the world. The ‘International' in our title is true to its name. www.sydenhammusic.net

Mary Stamm-Clarke 15

Bowie performs at Beckenham Arts Lab ("Growth") free festival on 16 August 1969. Photo: David Bebbington

DAVID BECKENHAM

HOWARD MALE LOOKS AT BOWIE'S EARLY DAYS IN A SOUTH EAST LONDON SUBURB

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W

ere David Bowie ever to perform live again it’s hard to imagine what the ticket prices would be. But in June of 1969, if you’d got in touch with the Beckenham Arts Lab, you could have had the man perform solo in your own front room for a not unreasonable £15. Or if you really felt like splashing out, £25 would have gotten you backing musicians and a light show too. Who knows how many takers they had for this very reasonable package deal, but six weeks later, on 20 July, the US lunar module Eagle landed on the moon, and the BBC played Bowie’s new single Space Oddity repeatedly under the footage, apparently oblivious to the fact that the song told the story of a space tragedy rather than victory. But nevertheless the rest – for both Man and his one small step, and Bowie and his inexorable rise to superstardom – is history. But perhaps what’s less known is just how much of that history got forged in the suburban South London.

Bowie (then David Jones) was born a South Londoner, spending the first eight years of his life in a still bomb-ravaged Brixton where he attended Stockwell Infants School.

But then in 1954 the Jones’s settled in Bromley. Curiously enough, given his reputation as a free, independent spirit, Bowie actually didn’t leave his parents small two-up two-down home until he was twenty, when he moved into his manager’s flat in Fitzrovia. But it wasn’t long before his life was once again centred in deepest South London, as the afore mentioned Beckenham Arts Lab, founded by Bowie, began its weekly Sunday sessions in a back room of the Three Tuns in Beckenham High Street, a mock-Tudor building that is now a restaurant.

Of course much of the fun in contemplating this period in Bowie’s life is due to the huge disjuncture between the background one might have imagined one of the 20th century’s most enigmatic and otherworldly rock stars having, and the rather more prosaic truth of a life in the slow lane: ciggies and coffees in the local Wimpy, taking pleasure in buying one of his own records in

David Bowie outside Haddon Hall, his big house on Southend Road Beckenham.

Sadly, the house has been replaced by a block of flats. Photographer Unknown

the local Woolworths, or catching Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange at the ABC in Catford. Incidentally, Bowie’s friend and rival, Marc Bolan, overcame the problem of a drab back-story by inventing an elaborate fiction of, amongst other things, living with a wizard in Paris.

out new material on a small but entranced audience, sometimes playing for as long as two-anda-half hours. One of the last significant projects organised by the lab was the Beckenham Free Festival of August 1969 at which Angie sold hamburgers cooked in a

MOST OF THE MATERIAL FOR THREE OF HIS CLASSIC ALBUMS

THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD, HUNKY DORY, AND ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS WAS WRITTEN IN HADDON HALL, BECKENHAM And yet it’s impossible to overestimate how important this period was for honing both Bowie’s performing and people skills. Most weeks he acted as both compere and performer, testing

wheelbarrow (no, really) and one of the other acts – in true Spinal Tap fashion – was a puppet show. With rose-tinted glasses firmly in place, Bowie managed to produce the ethereal hippy hymn Memory of a

David Bowie at Beckenham Arts Lab in the 'Three Tuns' Photo: Ray Stevenson

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Haddon Hall, Photographer Unknown

Free Festival inspired by the event.

In fact most of the material for three of his classic albums – The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, and Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars – was written in Haddon Hall on Southend Road (now sadly replaced by a block of flats), which David and his future wife, Angie, first moved into that same month.

Bowie, along with Mick Ronson and a shifting core of musicians including the future Spiders from Mars, ended up rehearsing the core group of songs that would eventually make Bowie one of the biggest music stars on the planet, in this spooky Gothic Victorian villa. Even the famous Ziggy protomullet hairstyle was created, with Bowie’s guidance, by a Beckenham hairdresser who worked at Evelyn Paget’s Ladies’ Hairdressers (now Gigante), and the earliest proto-glam costumes (which arguably gave birth to glam rock) were hand-stitched together by David and Angie, presumably sitting cross-legged on some old Turkish rug, looking dreamily into each others eyes.

But by the end of 1973 – after a hectic, life-changing 18 months which would see him become the biggest British music act since the Beatles – Bowie had killed off his fantasy rock star, Ziggy Stardust, simultaneously proclaiming he would never play live again. In October he had left Haddon Hall and Beckenham for good, and befitting his rock star status, he’d found a new home in Chelsea, a stone’s throw from old pal, Mick Jagger.

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Photo: David Bebbington

THE FUTURE SPIDERS FROM MARS, REHEARSED THE SONGS THAT WOULD MAKE BOWIE ONE OF THE BIGGEST MUSIC STARS ON THE PLANET IN THIS SPOOKY GOTHIC VICTORIAN VILLA

It’s suggested in Paul Trynka’s excellent new Bowie biography Starman that the now apparently retired Bowie looks upon this period in South London with some fondness and nostalgia. Rather touchingly he has even renewed contact with a number of old Beckenham friends, calling them up from New York to talk about his nine-year-old daughter, Lexi, or just to chat about old times. It’s almost as if he’s trying to forget the intervening decades and at last gain

some sense of stability and reality (to coin an album title). Or maybe it’s just a case of; you can take the rock star out of South London, but you can never take South London out of the rock star.

Paul Trynka’s Starman and Kevin Cann’s Any Day Now were indispensable in the writing of this article. You can get both from The Bookseller Crow.

Howard Male

MUSICAL MAP QUIZ Never let it be said that southeast London isn’t a hotbed of musical talent – both past and present.

For your perusal and a little bit of pub quiz picture round-inspired fun, we have included this pictorial music map packed full of (mostly) amazing talent who have lived or worked in these parts at some point!

How many can you get right?*

*All mistakes, omissions or inaccurate geographical positioning are entirely the fault of The Transmitter, and are likely to be a result of us naively believing our friends when they told us some old hogwash. Answers on page 24

Can you name all these famous faces who (we are reliably informed) all have connections to the area?

Answers on page 24 19

Classical, Jazz and a touch of Brass

gigs throughout the year. They're playing at Holy Trinity Church, Clapham Common on Saturday 18 June and at the Sanderstead Horticultural Society on 25 June. If you fancy tuning up and turning on that long neglected musical talent contact Margaret Larkin on 020 8653 7537.

Crystal Palace main band is for the more experienced player.

Established in 1901 as the Upper Norwood Temperance Prize Band , this musical ensemble has been under the musical directorship of Mike Gray since 1987. After twenty years in the Scots Guards he took over at the Palace band and arranges loads of their music. The repertoire covers everything from show tunes to marches to classical and they play on bandstands at the seaside, parks and in concert halls.

Marvellous stuff. If you feel the stirrings of brass in your soul they often have vacancies on different parts and Rachael Bleach can be contacted on 020 8776 2520 to give you the whys and wherefores.

There's also www.crystalpalaceband. co.uk for further information and upcoming gigs. Rehearsals take place from 8pm till 10pm on Wednesday nights at the museum.

SUE WILLIAMS SURVEYS THE LOCAL BAND SCENE

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e have a veritable cornucopia of musical groups in the local area for all of you who have stashed the alto sax or B flat cornet on the top shelf of the wardrobe whilst work, family and life in general took over, and who now fancy fanning the flames of long lost musical talents. Take that clarinet down, dust it off, have a run through A Tune a Day and get involved. It's like riding a bike ... once you've learnt an instrument it's just a question of a bit of practice and you're away again.

Being from the North my musical life started in the brass band. It still pulls at the heart strings when I hear the Sally Army playing hymns outside Sainsbury’s. Here in Upper Norwood we have our very own brass band who have

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been performing in and around the Palace for over 100 years. There are myriad photos in the Norwood archives of the band suited and booted at different events, and the National Brass Band Championships were even held at the Crystal Palace ... a huge event as those who have watched Brassed Off will know.

Crystal Palace has two bands: the progress band and the main band.

The progress band is ideal if you're returning to music after a long lay-off as it operates an open door policy and only requires that newcomers can play an octave with the correct fingering. Experienced teacher Dave Howell is the MD and the band meets in the Crystal Palace Museum at the top of Anerley Hill, a pleasing venue for such an historic institution I always think. Rehearsals are on Wednesday evenings between 6.30 and 8pm and the band do a fair few

If swing is your thing and you love the big band sound then South London has its own community jazz orchestra. Founded in 1999, and under the charismatic leadership of Bob Bridges, the South London Jazz Orchestra has no entry criteria and its open door policy has helped to create a relaxed welcoming atmosphere.

The orchestra has a huge range of abilities with some members soaring off into improvised solos while others are happy to learn their craft in the different sections. It is recommended that prospective players should be about Grade 5.

There is a nominal subscription each month and the band undertake a huge variety of gigs each year ... to date in 2011 they have played the 100 club in Oxford Street, the London Marathon and the Rivoli Ballroom (an atmospheric time capsule of a venue hidden away opposite Crofton Park station).

As the band do some paying gigs they are able to fund a fair amount of charitable concerts as well.

The music ranges from Glenn Miller to Stan Kenton to Engelbert himself and the band rehearse on Wednesday evenings in Camberwell from 8pm to 10pm. If you've always hankered after the romance and nostalgia of the big band era then SLJO are well worth seeing.

Rehearsals are at St Matthew's Church, Lilford Road, SE5 9BX and enquiries about gigs and joining up can be made through their website at sljo.org.uk.

Under the same South London community umbrella and Bob Bridge's direction is the Southwark Concert Band. SCB is a wind band which plays a wide repertoire of classical arrangements, popular music, marches and specially arranged modern pieces. There are no auditions and like the South London Jazz Orchestra the Concert Band is welcoming and inclusive.

Rehearsals are on a Thursday between 8pm and 10pm at St. Matthew's Church. They also play a cracking assortment of gigs with Lambeth Palace Gardens coming up on June 25 and Clapham Common Bandstand on 9 July.

There's a comprehensive website at southwarkconcertband.org.uk for details.

A cornucopuia indeed. Whether spectating or participating all three of these bands are worth catching this summer and you'll receive a warm welcome if you fancy kickstarting your musical career by joining one of them.

Sue Williams

ST JOHN'S CHOIR In amongst the residential streets, sitting proud on the corner of Auckland Road and Sylvan Road, is a magnificent church: St John the Evangelist, Upper Norwood.

It always strikes me as an unlikely site for such a grand church (and grand it is; recently it was the venue for the stunning Picture Palace fundraising dinner) but even more unlikely is that nestled between these everyday streets and houses you can attend some really world class concerts.

There are Saturday evening recitals by some of our country's finest organists on what is acknowledged as one of the country’s finest organs, concerts by visiting orchestras, and a great resident church choir singing weekly at the various church services.

And it’s not just classical music on offer. A partnership with Respect Music Limited, that recently saw Jocelyn Brown and the Allstars gigging there to a sell-out audience, promises more exciting names with the aptly titled St John’s Sessions due to take place every quarter.

The musical tradition at St John's dates back to its very beginnings in the 1880s when Alfred James Eyre, renowned composer and organist, was the Master of Music.

He was also the organist at the Crystal Palace at the time.

The current Master of Music, Adrian Adams, joined St John's in 1969 from the Royal School of Church Music and brought with him several members of the choir who still sing there today, 42 years later.

Many other members have also been in the choir for decades rather than years and their sheer choral music experience and familiarity of singing together means they really gel as a musical ensemble and produce a beautiful sound.

The incomparable Bob Bridges Conducts

If you would like to hear the choir at its best the Christian feast of Corpus Christi is on Thursday 23 June. This is one of the holiest days in the church calendar and the 8pm service really is a sight to

behold! In celebration of the body and blood of Christ, members of the congregation transform the church's stone floor into a carpet of fresh flowers and the choir will sing music by Haydn and Mozart.

If church services aren't really your bag, then come along to an organ recital on a Saturday night at 6.30pm. Don't miss Gary Sieling, organist of Bromley Parish Church on 11 June, or Edward Kemp-Luck, concert organist, on 9 July. Later in the year you can also hear organists from Southwark Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. For details of upcoming performances visit www.stjohn-uppernorwood.org.uk If you would like to take part in music at St John's please contact Adrian Adams, Master of Music, on aradams.45@btinternet.com

Kim Townsend

ALL SAINTS’ CONCERT BAND The All Saints’ Concert Band is a friendly and social wind band based in Crystal Palace, South London. The band is a concert band or a symphonic band having both woodwind and brass instruments together with percussion. They rehearse on Monday evenings in the Hall at St John's Church, Auckland Road (7.45pm for 8.00pm start).

So far this year the band has played at a church in Downham, at Hever Castle on Easter Monday and has just returned from a trip to Northern France where it played in a joint concert with a local band in Valenciennes. And for the rest of 2011 the band is set to play at Westerham later this month, at a school fete in West Wickham, the Band Stand in Horsham Town Centre and Eastbourne, and is booked to play Christmas music at Victoria Station in December in aid of the MS Society.

The age of the players ranges from teenagers to those who have reached retirement. For more information go to: www.allsaintsconcertband.co.uk

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DULWICH UKuLELEs

JUSTINE CROW MEETS THE DULWICH UKULELE CLUB

‘U-K-A-L-A-L-Y’ reads the inventively spelled email that Richard Guard is showing me while I open my notebook and start scribbling. ‘I mean, this was from an ad agency offering us money and drink.

Useless.’ Then he grins, whiskers lending credence to the description wolfish, when he sees that I have written it down absolutely correctly.

He slides me a lager and frowns back towards the cracked Mac screen. ‘And we just wish they could get our name right too..’. We pull the tabs off our tins and he shows me the cover of their latest CD London Stone. ‘I mean, does it say band or orchestra anywhere?’

22

The image looks like the label off the kind of bottle of ale that someone cleanin’ winders might have cracked over someone else’s head for a similar slight many years ago.

But this lot don’t do impressions of lampposts. Rich puts on the record and his kitchen fills with a surprisingly eloquent brace of strings bolstered by some very buoyant percussion embracing city life, love, drink... Apparently recorded in one take around a 30s-style mic at the superb new Shrunken Heads studios in downtown Nunhead, it sounds very accomplished indeed.

‘That’ll be Pete,’ smiles Guard. Our man won’t be drawn into a Blur/

Oasis-type barney but what of the famous troop that single-handedly revived the Hawaiian balsa wood industry? ‘I’ve played with George,’ Guard says of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (their provenance also not so far from being of our parish), ‘and unlike us, they are proper musicians. And unlike us, they play fabulously vast covers all over the world. Whereas we write all our own material and do the odd parody when the moment requires it.’

And the orchestra makes a good living? ‘Just about. Well, it’s true to say we ain’t big in Japan..’, Rich chortles into his beer. Yet. But the club members are no slouches

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when it comes to performing – I’ve seen them share the same bills as the likes of Chuck Berry, The Flaming Lips, George Clinton and Madness. ‘Don’t forget the mighty Wurzels,’ admonishes Richard, raising his can to them. So, I ask, how did a bunch of neighbours from a Southwark suburb get to tread the same hallowed boards as those national heroes of the cider-drinking and combine-harvesting circuit?

‘It started round about 2005 when I bought three instruments for us to play at a friend’s wedding because the best man was a bit shy.

We changed the lyrics of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire to say that the bride fell into a burning ring.. And I found I liked it. Yeah, I liked it a lot.’ By Christmas they’d added a drummer and a glockenspiel player (I spelled that correctly too).

The club sealed its reputation for creative exuberance when at the infamous Night of 100 Ukes they taught a hundred strangers to play three songs at Bestival, Isle of Wight, opening for the Beastie Boys in front of a crowd of 25,000. No sleep til Shanklin, then?

!

It seems not. Since then they’ve played with the Manic Street Preachers (this doesn’t impress me) and been asked to perform at the Meltdown festival by the then curator Jarvis Cocker (but this does).

‘We’ve played the Clore Ballroom [at the Royal Festival Hall] four or five times since.’ And they released the headline-grabbing, stand-out World Cup single, There May be Glory, that was way, way better than the ruddy England team deserved.

Having become festival regulars at events such as Camp Bestival and Port Eliot, they comprise a rough – and off the record, certain members have form on the naughty step – twelveish participants, with core attendees Pete (‘the talent’), Zed, Anna, Tim, Julian, Tania, Kit and Richard himself, as well as other floating contributors like Jill – the burning bride in question – and Matt and Nina. This year they can be seen at the Secret Garden Party, Cambs, along with Blondie no less, and at Cornbury which has a creaking trophy cabinet of a lineup including the Faces and Status – blimey – Quo! In August they dig

out their best shirts for the more refined West Dean Festival.

If you were lucky enough to see them at the Dulwich Festival’s May Ball a few weeks ago, you will have witnessed the premiering of new album London Stone. And you may also even have had a debauched fling yourself around the maypole in what Richard promised – with a wink – would be an evening ‘revitalising the fertile tradition of the Lord and Lady of Misrule – as opposed to the usual boring anodyne airy-fairy Victorian skip ..’.

I finish my beer and stop scribbling.

The Dulwich Ukulele Club will never be boring, whichever way you spell it.

For more information on London Stone by the Dulwich Ukulele Club and for the mailing list, email thedulwichukuleleclub@gmail.com See YouTube for World Cup 2010 football song.

Justine Crow

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LADY HAIDEE

Answers to musical map quiz:

Lady Haidee has an eclectic background, having created sound experiments whilst at art school, working with ED DMX and many other underground emerging artists. Describing herself as a 'daydreamer and conjurer' she cites nature, the animal kingdom, dark fairytales, ghost stories and the human spirit as her inspirations.

In 2008 she funded her budget for debut experiment Feral through 300 of her fans. The album Feral features ten raw haunting songs and has a very limited release.

Since making Feral she has gone on to work with producer Paul Reeve (Muse/Beta Band) who co-produced two singles Fashion Slave and Asexual out now.

Feral is available online to download www.myspace.com/ladyhaidee

1. Matt & Luke Goss (Bros - Camberwell) 2. Sid Vicious (The Sex Pistols - Lewisham) 3. Desmond Dekker (Forest Hill) 4. Francis Rossi (Status Quo - Forest Hill) 5. Maxi Priest (Lewisham) 6. Errol Brown (Hot Chocolate - Gipsy Hill) 7. Florence Welch (Crystal Palace) 8. Maxi Jazz (West Norwood) 9. Jim Bob (Carter USM - Crystal Palace) 10. Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones - Penge) 11. David Bowie (Beckenham) 12. Amy Winehouse (BRIT School, Croydon) 13. Adele (BRIT School, Croydon) 14. JB (JLS - Croydon) 15. Kirtsy McColl (Croydon) 16. Kate Nash (BRIT School, Croydon) 17. Leona Lewis (BRIT School, Croydon) 18. Jools Holland (Squeeze - Greenwich) 19. Jack Penate (Blackheath) 20. Kate Bush (Eltham) 21. Siouxsie Sioux (Siouxsie and the Banshees - Chislehurst) 22. Pixie Lott (Bromley)

HO HUM RECORDS It all started in 2007. Alex Pilkington, lead singer of Custom Blue, had been trying to find a label to release an album to no avail: ‘We recognised that the only offers we were getting we could do ourselves really’ he says. ‘So, Mark Tucker and I discussed matters and thought “let’s start a label ourselves”’. The first Ho Hum Records release, a Custom Blue EP, followed in 2008 and they haven’t looked back since. The label’s repertoire of artists has grown considerably in the last three years and includes some pretty big names.

But this is no ordinary label obsessed with sales figures and the next big thing. ‘Coming from the creative rather than business side we ethically look to help, advise, produce and work as hard as we can to promote’, explains Alex. ‘We try to be fair, make quality music and promote well’. This ethic, along with the small size of the record label, means that only artists with real drive and determination are likely to get a deal with Ho Hum. ‘As there are only two of us running the label, we have to make strong decisions here as we simply do not have the time to take on lots of acts. Mainly we have to believe in the music and that the creator believes in it whole-heartedly’.

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There is definitely no shortage of takers for this opportunity – Ho Hum is host to a wide range of acclaimed artists as well as promising newcomers. Crispian Mills is the former front man of Kula Shaker, while Beth Hirsch has collaborated with Air. Sophie Barker is most famous for her work with Zero 7, but is set to release her debut solo album, Seagull, with Ho Hum in May this year. ‘I have loved working with Alex and Mark’ says Sophie, ‘I really like their ethics and artwork and they are a cool independent label’. With her laid-back soothing vocals and DIY spirit, Sophie and Ho Hum seem like a match made in heaven and 2011 is set to be a big year for both.

Sophie Barker CD is available from Bookseller Crow.

Alex Fowler

SINGING CLASSES In Crystal Palace

7:00pm Beginners A fun class for anyone wishing to improve their voice.

8:15pm Improvers Group and solo work for those with a little experience.

Classes take place on Wednesday evenings at The Salvation Army Halls, Westow Street Upper Norwood To find out more or to book a place visit www.kateproudlove.co.uk email kate@kateproudlove.co.uk or telephone 07931 543650

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Josh

Hight

Herb

Phelps

Alba

Andy

Cliff

Simone

Hank Dog

Grant

Franck

Clarke

6'6" 6'0" 5'6" 5'0"

the

Musical Suspects T W E LV E

M USICI A NS. ONE LINE NO COI NCIDENCE.

UP.

Hayley

Lucy

Wearing

Isabella

Summers

Caine

Graeme

Beatrice

Isabelle

Dalton

Mayeras

Dotzauer

6'6" 6'0"

THE STUDIO IN PALACE PRESENT THE MUSICAL SUSPECTS VIDEO GRAEME DALTON (B/W ) LOUISE HAYWOOD-SCHIEFER (COLOUR SHOTS) DIRECTOR NICOLAI AMTER MAKE-UP STYLING WARDROBE

BY LUCY YOUNG

BY HAYLEY CAINE AND SALLY CRAM ASSISTANT HANNAH PONTIN AND

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

PRODUCTION BY TRANSMISSION PUBLICATIONS LTD

www.thetransmitter.co.uk

www.thestudioinpalace.com

http://amter.com

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the

Musical Suspects T W E LV E

M USICI A NS. ONE LINE NO COI NCIDENCE.

1. Josh Hight

6. Simone Clarke

(IRONS)

Singer/Songwriter

Singer/Songwriter, Guitarist http://irons.bandcamp.com

2. Andy Hank Dog (HANK DOGS) www.myspace.com/andyhankdog

7. Lucy Wearing (THE LOVEBIRDS) (THE LIFE THE LOVE & THE GRATEFUL) Singer/Songwriter

(See also page 32 for info)

3. Herb Phelps (HIPSTER RAY) Bass & Guitar www.hipsterray.com

4. Cliff Grant (THE LOVEBIRDS) Drums & Percussion www.thelovebirds.net

9. Isabella Summers (FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE) Keyboardist, Producer Isabella ‘Machine’ Summers has six production credits and five co-write credits on the critically acclaimed, 2010 BRIT Awards winning, multiplatinum, Number 1 album, Lungs.

So there!

8. Graeme Dalton (THE LOVEBIRDS) (THE LIFE THE LOVE & THE GRATEFUL)

www.florenceandthemachine.net

10. Beatrice Mayeras (BEA STILL & THE CROSS GROOVES)

Singer/Songwriter, Guitarist Singer/Songwriter www.thelovebirds.net www.thelifetheloveandthegrateful.com

11. Hayley Caine

5. Franck Alba (PIANO MAGIC)

" ...brilliantly scuzzed-up guitar riffs, finger-clicking beats, and snappy two-part harmonies"

DJ & Stylist.

Singer/Songwriter, Guitarist

The Metro

Musician

12. Isabelle Dotzauer

www.piano-magic.co.uk Photo shoot fashion stockists D Solo's 23 Church Road, Crystal Palace SE19 2ET 020 8653 7585 fortyseven 47a Westow Street, Crystal Palace SE19 3RW 020 8771 7170 www.fortysevenhair.co.uk Frankie and Lola 16 Westow Street, Crystal Palace SE19 3AH 020 8771 7719 www.frankieandlola.co.uk Grand Bay boutique 23 Westow Street, Crystal Palace SE19 3RY 020 8653 9347 www.grandbayboutique.co.uk Next Address 76 Westow Street, Crystal Palace SE19 3AF 020 8771 1884 Shou Fang Fashion 60 Church Road SE19 2EZ www.shoufangfashion.com Smash Bang Wallop 40 Westow Street, Crystal Palace SE19 3AH 020 8771 5517 www.smashbangwallop.co.uk South of the River 56 Westow Street, Crystal Palace SE19 3AF 020 8653 1669 www.southoftheriver.biz

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The Palace is make a perfectly small perfectlyshoots quaint photographic studio in the heart Crystal Palace (run by for Studio styling,Inhair and up and location with great local amenities andoflots of interesting Graeme Dalton and Lucy Wearing) that is great for Fashion, Editorial, Advertorial, Portrait and Small Product shoots and backdrops in Crystal Palace from Sphinx's and ruins to urban graffiti and junk shops. is just around the corner from Antenna Studios. A great base for styling, hair and make up and location shoots with great local amenities and day lots of interesting backdrops Crystal Palace from Sphinx's andVisit ruins to urban graffiti and Available for full hire from 10:30 -5:30 in from ÂŁ110 seven days a week. our new website forjunk shops. further details or follow us on Twitter for special offers and studio news.

Available for full day hire from 10:30 -5:30 from ÂŁ110 seven days a week. Visit our new website for further details or follow us on Twitter for special offers and studio news.

Website: www.thestudioinpalace.com

Website: Twitter: www.twitter.com/studioinpalace Twitter:www.thestudioinpalace.com @studioinpalace

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HANK DOGS It’s not easy to make Crystal Palace feel like the mid-west but that’s exactly what local band Hank Dogs achieve with their unique brand of laid-back country folk music. Their music feels like it would be more at home in the 60s surrounded by hippies on a field somewhere in California, but in fact they’re from right here in South London. Truly a family affair, the band consists of Andy Allen (pictured) who once played saxophone for The Sex Pistols, his ex-wife Piano and his daughter Lily.

They have been playing together for an astonishing 20 years and have released two albums, Bareback in 1999 and Half Smile in 2002, but have mostly flown under the radar.

In fact, they seem to have more of a cult following in the States than they do here, mainly due to the fact that the band spent a few years recording out there in the 90s. These days, however, the band appears happy to dedicate their time pioneering for the local music scene, organising and hosting the Easycome acoustic club night in

Peckham for the last 10 years. The night is a favourite with the locals, and always draws a big crowd.

Regulars at the club will get the opportunity to witness performances from a wide range of folk, country and blues artists but the main attraction is always Hank Dogs. Piano’s soothing vocals ooze over Andy’s intricate guitar work effortlessly. There’s a real wistful beauty to the music, so simple yet so effective. Melancholy lyrics accompany the dulcet tones

and add depth to the yarns this family troupe spins: a real slice of Americana right here in suburban South London.

If you want to hear some of the band’s music, check out www. myspace.com/andyhankdog or head to one of their shows. They play every Wednesday night at the Old Nun’s Head in Peckham. Their albums are kind of hard to get hold of but are available from some online retailers.

Alex Fowler

31

BEATRICE MAYERAS Beatrice is a singer/songwriter and member of Bea Still & The Cross Grooves Beatrice wears own raincoat with Neon Satchel from Cambridge Satchel Company at Smash Bang Wallop

32

OLIVER LEAKE Oliver has been DJing and collecting music since the age of 13. As a teenager his fondness for drum & bass and hip hop led him to explore classic funk and motown tunes, and eventually to enjoy rummaging through every charity shop vinyl stack he could find – buying anything that seemed familiar or had a cool cover. ‘The Junkshop DJ’ was born.

During Oliver’s Junkshop DJ sets he’s like a human jukebox – playing everything from classic funk and soul, through 70s rock and 80s synth, to 90s hip hop and pop – but without trying to be too ironic or kitsch. It’s music that makes everyone smile and sing along.

Oliver’s great love, though, is for music production and technology, and house music is where he really gets to flex his DJ muscles. He is now playing this type of music regularly in Crystal Palace, and performing totally digitally he is able to bring sexy melodic tribal House rhythms alive.

Oliver has started a monthly night at The Basement underneath Patrick’s Bar on Westow Hill, SE19.

It’s a great venue which lends itself perfectly to some late night dance music. So if you aren’t ready to go home once the pub bell has rung, get yourself down there and onto the dance floor.

Ollie wears his own clothes. Bad boy.

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THE SLIDES SLIDES are a four piece psychpop band hailing from Crystal Palace. The band describe their sound as an attempt to create ‘dream music’, songs that nestle in the subconscious, drenched in atmospheric soundscapes, haunting melodies and big beats.

Slides debut EP Dead Letter Box was recorded in Trevor Horn's west London studio over Christmas 2010 and will be available from 30 May as a FREE download from slides.bandcamp.com. Gig info can be found at facebook.com/ slidesmusic and twitter.com/ slidesmusic

Louis Doyle (The Slides) wears own shirt (we tried!)

Daniel Moyler (The Slides) wears Denim Shirt ÂŁ65, Dream & Glitter at D Solo's

PESTANO & ROSE Singing for Wellbeing: Katie Rose & Catherine Pestano run an uplifting daytime sound and voice group at Antenna Studios - Sing your heart out Catherine (right) also runs two local evening groups : call 07981 298541 or email catherine@naturalvoice.net for more details.

Katie (left) performs and offers singing sessions for groups and individuals.

Check out www.therosewindow.org

Katie (left) wears White Top ÂŁ18, Beaded Necklace ÂŁ58, all at Fortyseven

THE PERYLS Mat Snelling and Kate Proudlove of The Peryls... responsible for three EPs and the Extraordinarium shows.

Their brand new album, A Man He Was, To All The Country Dear will be out this summer.

For music and show dates visit www.myspace.com/theperyls

Kate Proudlove wears corsages from Smash Bang Wallop.

Mat Snelling wears Pearly King Checked Shirt ÂŁ65 from D Solo's

37

The average and unique: a love story

BY LAURA MORGAN

I

can vividly remember the first time I heard Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine.

I was fourteen years old, it was late July, or maybe early August, and I was in a field in Wales. I was at a church camp (I’m Jew-ish, but it’s complicated) where every minute of every day was filled with activity, but for some reason there was nowhere we had to be just then; and somebody – probably Marsha, who would go on to make a career out of introducing people to new music, but maybe her impossibly cool older brother – had smuggled in a cassette player, and into the hazy afternoon sun snaked the crashing chords of Prince In A Pauper’s Grave. My tiny mind was blown. It was the most exciting song I’d ever heard.

I worked the morning shift. One day I was early, so I hung around listening to my walkman while I waited for Pam and Martin to arrive.

When their beaten-up old van lumbered up, I took my headphones off. Martin got out of the van.

So when I got home I taped someone’s copy of 30 Something and listened to it obsessively until the following year, when 1992: The Love Album came out at almost exactly the time I met my first ever boyfriend. By the time the relationship ended three months and four days later, I knew all the words to every song. It was a heady time.

It’s not a him, it’s a them, I wanted to say, but I didn’t. They play guitars as well as machines, I nearly said, but I didn’t. What’s wrong with making music on a machine? I should have said, but I didn’t.

That autumn I got a Saturday job at the hippie stall. The hippie stall probably had another name for trading purposes, but I never heard anyone call it anything else. It was run by Pam and Martin, a proper hippie couple, and they hired a series of schoolgirls attracted by the subversiveness of selling candles and incense in the middle of Bromley, where everybody else sold curtains and lampshades.

38

'What are you listening to?'

I hesitated. Martin could be witheringly sarcastic, in a way that was breathlessly funny if you weren’t the target, but less so when you were.

by Blur and Pulp and David Bowie and the Rolling Stones. And I do like them all. But I didn’t find them for myself, and I bought their albums because it was something people did. Carter will always hold a special place in my heart because for a little while they were only mine. (Secretly, I still think they are.)

Which is mad. Everybody should listen to them. They are brilliant. The tunes are brilliant, the arrangements are brilliant, the energy is brilliant,

'Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine.'

CRYSTAL PALACE FOOTBALL CLUB IS THE

ONLY ENTITY I’VE LOVED FOR LONGER, NOT COUNTING ACTUAL PEOPLE...

'Oh yes, I’ve heard him. Very good at playing his…machine, isn’t he?'

I expect I just shrugged, not realising then that casual dismissal of something I thought heartstoppingly good was to be a standard reaction from other people for years to come. When I went to HMV in Bromley to queue up to meet Johnny Rotten and have him sign a copy of No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, I was careful not to mention it to Martin. I knew his limits.

Nobody ever liked the music I liked, so in later years I learned to like the music other people liked, and my CD rack grew heavy with albums

the words, especially, are brilliant: witty, biting statements against the world interspersed with moments of melancholy and occasional whimsy, firmly set in an all too recognisable South London, and sung in a rough diamond, devil-may-care voice that you recognise in an instant.

I was an orderly, list-making sort of a teenager. 1992 was the best album. Prince in a Pauper’s Grave was the best song. Suppose You Gave a Funeral And Nobody Came was the best song title. The best lyric, from My Second To Last Will And Testament, was perfect in its simplicity: Give my body to medical science If medical science’ll have me They can take my lungs and kidneys But my heart belongs to Daphne (No wonder Jim Bob is a writer now.)

The genius of their lyrics was always in taking the banal and the familiar and twisting it into something new.

Rubbish contained a reference to Elmers End. I lived in Elmers End. Nobody lived in Elmers End: it was tiny, and people from five miles away had never heard of it, but this band, my band, had made it famous.

I learned to draw the red-and-white band logo, and I traced it carefully across my bedroom wall, over the back pages of notebooks; on to the canvas flap of my school bag.

The hardest part was making sure the words 'The Unstoppable Sex Machine' were centre-aligned in relation to 'Carter'. You had to start with the 'Unstoppable', halfway across the 'A', and work outwards from there.

(Other logos I have obsessively drawn: the grafitti spray of BAD from the Michael Jackson album; the clenched fist of the Socialist Worker Student Society.)

But nobody liked the music I liked, so I never went to see them play live, because I could never find anybody to come with me. And they’ve played a few reunion gigs over the years but I’ve somehow missed them all, and when they announced 'big news' a couple of weeks ago I knew they were going to be back again, but the London show is on our wedding day, and we’re getting married in Dublin, and even if we were getting married at home I don’t think I could get away with leaving the reception to go to a gig.

(Could I?)

So maybe I’ll never get to see them, and although that breaks my heart a little bit, it also lets me persevere with the delusion that their music belongs to only me. So I’ll keep listening to them through headphones and squirming with secret delight at every delicious angry joke. I might tell people I’m listening to Radio 4, if they ask.

Should you happen to be charged with choosing music for my funeral, however, I have a suggestion. You needn’t go with it, because I’ll be dead so I won’t care, but at sixteen I decided that I wanted to be waved off to the sound of the last two songs from 1992; Skywest and Crooked and The Impossible Dream (they always did cover versions better than anyone else, better than

the originals), and I’ve never found a reason to change my mind.

This summer will mark the twentieth anniversary of that day in a field in Wales. Crystal Palace Football Club is the only entity I’ve loved for longer, not counting actual people, but football’s different because it causes at least as much pain as joy, especially if you support Palace. When you find a band you love, though, your life gets uncomplicatedly better, which is why music is better than football.

Now, excuse me while I go and turn up the stereo really loud.

Laura Morgan blogs as Elsie_em at http://gladallover.net. She lives in Herne Hill.

39

BRIT's GOT TALENT

JUSTINE CROW ON A LOCAL SCHOOL THAT DOESN'T PERFORM JUST FOR OFSTED

I

f you are a fan of Kate Melua or Adele (and their colossal sales figures indicate that you are) the influence of The Brit School in our own back yard would not have escaped you. If you have tapped your toes to the Noisettes, slid into introspection with Athlete, morphed into lad-mode to The Feeling, done some sewing with Kate Nash in a festival craft tent (my hand’s up, where’s yours?) or voted for Leona Lewis on telly (my hand is down), you may also be aware of the tremendous part this place played in their musical education. What will surprise you, however, is how modest the college is.

On approach, it looks about as showbizzy as a railway siding. As a matter of fact, there is one of those close-by. Situated just beyond a scrubby playground, in the shadow of Selhurst Park football stadium, amid the hotchpotch working class architecture that characterises the post-war city suburbs where bombs took out house numbers like teeth, it seems impossible that such modesty could spawn a beehive like Amy W’s.

control though it is the only free performing arts college in the country. It’s hard to imagine certain Tory stereotypes approving of all that free dancing and singing (‘The Kooks?

Are they a popular beat combo?’) but, contrary to sneery reports, it selects all sorts of children – especially local ones – from all kinds of backgrounds on the basis of their skills and not on their ability to pay.

Furthermore, the Brit isn’t there as a fame vending machine, pop in a sequin and out comes a steaming hot celebrity; to merely reduce its achievements down to a list of starry alumni would not only be crass but also an insult to all the pupils who go there to study all the other walks of the creative industries. It prides itself in its vocational opportunities for those who want to work as producers and editors, writers and designers as well as people who go on to succeed in management and in the technical aspects of stage and broadcast such as lighting, props, costume, sound, plus there’s the business side.

buildings from a now defunct secondary in, it is fair to say, not the most glamorous of locations – my old dad went to that defunct school and one of his mates had turf in the hallway to exercise the greyhounds – the fabulously equipped studio and workshop facilities available to hone all those industry skills are an incredibly valuable resource for a neighbourhood that isn’t synonymous with professionalism.

Unless you are a scaffolder.

Laura Dockrill, writer, storyteller, performer and one of the many successful artists to emerge over the years from the very same cool school theatre where I sit now waiting to be enlightened and entertained says: ‘The Brit School is a brilliant hub of brightness; feeding young minds and preparing them, not only for a creative career but also for adulthood. I miss it every day.’ No government education department could ask for more than that. www.brit.croydon.sch.uk

Justine Crow

‘THE BRIT SCHOOL IS A BRILLIANT HUB OF BRIGHTNESS; FEEDING YOUNG MINDS AND PREPARING THEM, NOT ONLY FOR A CREATIVE CAREER BUT ALSO FOR ADULTHOOD. I MISS IT EVERY DAY.’ But on the day I visit, with students spilling out into the afternoon, the show-stopping lines, ‘One, singular sensation…’ from A Chorus Line is being sung en masse in pitch perfect harmony behind the breeze-block walls of an old classroom and I am reminded that this is no ordinary school, though there are no sparkly top hats to be seen anywhere.

Established in 1991 as part of the then Conservative government’s city technology college scheme, it is independent from local authority

40

Sitting in the unpretentious Obie Theatre watching the culmination of one of the weekend drama initiatives – students directing the audience, adjusting lighting, limbering up – it is easy to forget that amid all this imagination and innovation, the national curriculum looms effectively large with the usual raft of qualifications on offer (with a smart pass rate and outstanding OFSTED judgement).

This is a state school after all. And although the college borrows

Obie Theatre - music gig set

Obie Theatre - 'grand hotel' set

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43

WHEN YOU HEAR LOCAL SINGER

LOTTIE PENDLEBURY SONGWRITER

PERFORMING ONE OF HER SELF-PENNED SONGS YOU IMMEDIATELY GET WHY RECORD COMPANY EXECS HAVE BEEN KNOCKING AT HER (PARENTS') DOOR LATELY. THEY JUST NEED HER TO FINISH SCHOOL FIRST.

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LAUNCHED HER DEBUT EP

THANK YOU AT WESTOW HOUSE IN APRIL. IT IS AVAILABLE AT all THE USUAL ONLINE STORES INCLUDING ITUNES, AMAZON

NIGHT WITH SOME VERY SPECIAL GUESTS. for a TASTER OF WHAT TO EXPECT AT the LIVE SHOWs, CHECK OUT the VIDEOS ON WEISAN'S WEBSITE: WWW.WEISANMUSIC.COM where

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LOCAL singer songwriter

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Savannah Dumetz

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49

A taste of the rainforest for the Lon

BY SUE WILLIAMS

B

efore the last two winters wrought their dastardly damage on our gardens, we London horticulturalists had become used to being able to overwinter our tropical and Mediterranean plants outside in the garden. Mild wishy-washy winter followed mild wishy-washy winter and phormiums and cordylines were left unfleeced and unfettered to survive into the spring. Even dahlias could be left in the ground under a good layer of mulch. All that has changed. Proper winters seem to have returned to the South. I've just had to dig up three established phormiums as they had turned brown and keeled over, and all the purple cordylines seem to have bitten the dust. It seems that in future any plant of a delicate persuasion will need to be well protected or brought in.

So I thought in this issue of the Patch we may as well go the whole hog and grow some really stunning if delicate plants. As it's now June and we have four glorious frost-free months ahead of us, there's time to plant out some real humdingers that can do their glorious best this summer before returning under cover for winter.

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Strelitzia, or Bird of Paradise, is not delicate in itself but is frost tender. For such an exotic looking specimen it is surprisingly easy to grow and is surprisingly robust.

The plant hails from South Africa and is a clump-forming evergreen perennial. It has long upright stems of tough green flesh with oblong lance-shaped leaves. Atop these grow the most dramatic blooms for which the Bird of Paradise name is justly deserved. These exotic blooms usually appear twice a year and emerge from stiff boat-shaped 'beaks' . The flowers are up to four inches long in flaming orange with an inner whorl of bluey-purple flowers. Anyway it ends up looking like a bird's head. When grown outdoors the Strelitzia requires a fertile but well drained soil preferably in a wind sheltered spot. In the winter the plant will live happily in the conservatory or greenhouse so long as the temperature does not drop too low. It will need a top dressing annually and a repot every second year. When I repotted mine I was nothing less than astounded at the root system which is made up of loads of long fleshy tubers.

Crazy looking things. This plant is a good reliable doer which will reward

you with its tropical foliage and wondrous flowers.

The Dicksonia seems to have become a bit of a must-have plant over recent years in the trendier gardens. Rightly so really. It's a taste of the rainforest for the London garden and has earned itself an Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society. It is found in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia and South America and is evergreen in milder climates.

The more common name for the Dicksonia is the Soft Tree Fern and it can reach up to 20 feet in its native habitat. Dicksonia antarctica is the type most commonly found in England as it's a good hardy plant and can survive the winter outside if it is given some protection.

The tree fern resembles a tree although the trunk is actually an erect rhizome covered in a thick mass of roots. The foliage appears in the spring from the top of the trunk and unfurls from the centre to form large, rich green, fern-like fronds; as the fronds age they grow darker. Marvellous. The usual height in England is about seven or eight feet and Dicksonia like plenty of moisture. They are happiest in dappled shade with slightly acidic

ndon garden

soil and must be given a supply of water if the weather stays as dry as it has recently. In the winter the plant must be protected by wrapping the crown in straw or fleece.

For an injection of vibrant showy colour into the borders the Canna, or Indian shot plant, is the showiest of the show. It is commonly known as the Canna lily but it is in fact more closely related to the Zingiberales family which includes bananas, gingers and the good old Strelitzia. These plants again give off a tropical feel with their broad flat leaves which unfurl from the stem in a long narrow roll. The leaves can be solid green, variegated or brownish maroon. The flowers

The Dicksonia seems to have become a bit of a must-have plant over recent years in the trendier gardens

extend from the foliage in pairs on showy fleshy stems. There are hundreds of variations now available although the most common colours are red, green and yellow. Canna “Rosemond Coles” is a wonderful example with translucent green leaves and vivid red flowers edged with yellow. For a more sultry look the “Assaut” has dark purple foliage with wonderful scarlet orange flowers. The Cannas need to be lifted before the first frost and the rhizomes stored in barely moist peat. I used to mulch my Cannas well and leave them in the ground but one tough frost and they are likely to rot.

Happy exotic gardening

Sue Williams

51

five knockout salad dressings

BY RACHEL DE THAMPLE

Dijon vinaigrette

Summer herb vinaigrette

This is delicious over a simple salad of crunchy leaves, with maybe some crunchy raw peas and radishes thrown in. You can also use it to dress warm green beans.

Lovely with summer courgettes cut into ribbons, radishes, crunchy lettuce leaves, green beans, and more.

Serves 4–6 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar 75ml olive oil (or try it with hazelnut oil – even better!)

Place all the ingredients in a jam jar. Shake and store in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Serves 4–6 a large handful of fresh, soft green herbs (eg basil, coriander, mint, tarragon, chives), finely chopped 100ml olive oil 3 tablespoons cider or white wine vinegar zest of 1 lemon 1 teaspoon honey sea salt and black pepper

Chilli balsamic vinaigrette Stunning with beetroot, drizzled over steamed or grilled asparagus or pan-fried or raw courgette.

Serves 4–6 4 tablespoons olive oil 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 2 tablespoons lime or orange juice 1 tablespoon honey 1 teaspoon soy sauce 1 chilli, halved and deseeded Place all the ingredients in a jam jar. Shake and store in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Place all the ingredients in a jam jar. Shake and store in the fridge for 1–2 days.

Sesame ginger lime This is lovely on a salad of crunchy leaves with hunks of sweet mango, freshly grated coconut, toasted cashew or macadamia nuts and fresh coriander leaves. You can also use it to dress warm carrots, beans or peas.

Serves 4–6 125ml sesame oil 4 tablespoons lime juice 1 tablespoon honey 1 tablespoon soy sauce

Honey mustard thyme Gorgeous with a simple salad of grated carrots or crunchy leaves.

Serves 4–6 4 tablespoons olive oil 3 tablespoons grainy or Dijon mustard 2 tablespoons honey ½ garlic clove, finely minced 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves sea salt and black pepper Place all the ingredients in a jam jar. Whisk to fully mix in the honey. Store in the fridge for up to 1 week.

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3cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped Place all the ingredients in a jam jar. Shake and store in the fridge for up to 1 week.

photograph by Peter Cassidy from Rachel’s book, Less Meat More Veg, published by Kyle Cathie

WESTOW HOUSE

JUSTINE CROW EATS SOMEWHERE THAT ROCKS FOR OUR MUSIC ISSUE

A

s everyone knows, it is my life’s ambition to eat my way around the Triangle. Lord knows, I am hungry enough. However, it hadn’t occurred to me to try the old battle cruiser marking the unlovely junction at the Parade. Even though all through yet another icy winter, its sandwich board cheered me up, chalked with a simple message and two arrows – one pointing to the street which read COLD and the other in the opposite direction, inside, saying WARM. Then our sometime bookshop fairy Jo, food-lover extraordinaire, began raving about the cooking there and when it was decided that this issue was to be musical (give it a shake and you can hear bells), we really had no option but to do our duty on behalf of all of you and give their menu a bashing. It’s a tough job etc…

We had been warned that the DJ was on at 9pm and decided to bag ourselves an early table so it was with the weather somewhat more clement than in past months that the bookseller and I politely elbowed our way through the

54

post-work crowd outside limbering up for a thumping Friday night. I’d already checked myself for any double-denim fashion faux pas and made sure the bookseller had his baseball cap on the right way round but I needn’t have worried, the pub was packed with the perfect South East London demographic – every shape, age and colour under the rare sun.

We found ourselves in a quietish corner, surrounded by, er, books.

Tantalisingly out of reach, it was the bookseller’s worst anxiety dream where dog-eared Star Wars novels rubbed shoulders haphazardly with biographies of John Gielgud and the Kennedy women. Luckily he was distracted by a much smarter menu than anticipated. Featuring a mix as eclectic as the crowd on the terrace with everything from hand-made gnocchi, new season lamb and steamed mussels to roast chicken and quinoa salad, the bookseller eloquently remarked that at least it wasn’t too up its own bum to have burgers too. And neither were we.

As we weren’t asked how we wanted them cooked, we were

intrigued to see how they came.

With aplomb it seems, and in generous dimensions – the lightly spiced meat was pinkish and very, very juicy. If we’d have wanted them any other way, we could have spoken up, but here we noted with the smugness of those whose dinner had arrived and it tasted as sweet and sultry as the evening, is a chef you can trust, which ain’t bad for a boozer with the lights down low. There were happy hand-cut chips on the side, the service was deft despite the increasing bodies to negotiate, the beers came cold and quick. Sadly some of us had a shop to open early the next day so with it was with an unexpected pang of regret as the lasers began strobing the drinkers at the bar, we agreed to let the night get on down without us and toe-shuffled away with the dry ice swirling around our ankles.

But reader, we went back for lunch soon after. In the interests of thorough scientific research, naturally. With the weather still miraculous, we entered the vintage grandeur of this enormous Victorian corner at noon and sat in the cool

while brave fag-smokers sweated outside. Daylight revealed an upright piano, LP covers on the walls, etchings and knick-knacks and a row of lopsided ruched lampshades over the bar like Southern belles vying for attention. The beers were showing off too – the marvellous selection at the pumps included Horsham Best bitter and St Austell. The bookseller had a golden Purity Mad Goose ale and was secretly chuffed when it was poured into a dimpled glass.

Bathed by a little light funk on the stereo – while we reacquainted ourselves with a menu that was every bit as diverse as we remembered – smartly prepped open focaccia sandwiches loaded with mozzarella and tomatoes passed over our heads on their way to join the large portions of battered coley and lamb sausages that were already being polished off by the clever punters who had known all along where the best pub lunch in town was.

I chose the copious artichoke, courgette and aubergine salad on a bed of spinach, which was warm and plump and grilled for

a summer flavour, doused in a decent balsamic. The bookseller’s charcuterie platter was stacked with oiled bread and various vivid cold meats on wood. The last time, he mused, that he’d been presented by something so rustic was at the peeling Hotel de Biards where the jambon came with an ominously opaque jar of pickles that had been already dipped by countless unknown Normandy farmers’ fingers. But we knew the provenance of these gherkins and cured cuts because with ingenious gastronomic syncopation, the latest culinary addition to our gourmet triangle (eat your heart out Hackney), the Good Taste deli had been name-checked on the menu.

Westow House 79 Westow Hill London SE19 020 8670 0654 Lunch 12-3pm, mains all day, supper from 5pm. Sunday Roasts for all the family until 6pm.

For Funk Nights, live music and events see www.westowhouse.com

Justine Crow

But there was no hurrying the bookseller, so I ordered us a Knickerbocker Glory to share and as the afternoon shimmered on, we tapped our toes, long-spooned banana ice-cream and Chantilly sprinkled with chocolate vermicelli and observed a girl in fishnets pull out a chair for a guy with a Stanley Gibbons carrier bag. How very rock and roll.

55

Sketches of Spain

MICHAEL EYRE WITH A LITTLE SPANISH VINO DEL MUSO

La Copa Rose 2009 13.5%vol.

Campo de Borja. La Mancha £7.95 from Magma wines, Whitstable; Les Olives, Northampton.

Straightways we can see the fabbo deep ruby red colour through the clear glass bottle of this stonking rose. This changes not one jot in the glass. The nose is big and all embracing, heaving with soft and unctuous watermelon and raspberry notes. The palate continues this theme as strawberries mix in with the rest of the soft summer fruits, blending with a delightful acidity that keeps this drink vibrant and joyous. Inducing one to say out loud ‘Oh what a pearl, what a well made world’ possibly. As per, the finish is suitably long and rewarding. My feeling is that there will be much of this drunk over the coming months.

Food? Robustness all round (poss some puds too). Indoors or out.

Baigorri Crianza 2006 14%vol.

Rioja £15.95 from Magma wines, Whitstable; Oxford wines, Oxfordshire; Cooden Cellars, Hastings & Eastbourne.

Are we not men? Well if not now we certainly will be after a glass or two of this devastating piece of work (except for the frails, obvs).

I have waxed mighty lyrical about this lot before (look out there’s a monster coming) and here is the Crianza. The colour just says ‘drink me now’. Deep garnet and mirror sharp, folding effortlessly into a sumptuous and all enveloping palate of dark, smoky fruits with a hint of vanilla and forest floor, right where it should be. An impeccable tannic structure supports a long spicy, fruity and flavoursome finish.

Food? Where’s to go wrong with a juicy steak? Chop off the horns n’ away you go.

Goya Muscatel Vino Dulce 15%vol

ALL MY BLONDE AND TWILIGHT DREAMS, ALL THOSE STRANGLED FUTURE SCHEMES, ALL THOSE GLASSES DRAINED OF WINE, ALL THIS CRAZY GIFT OF TIME.

Montecristo Blanco 2010 13%vol.

Navarra £8.95 from Magma wines, Whitstable; Wine & the Vine, Radlett, Herts; Direct wine importers, Guernsey.

Navarra £8.95 (37.5cl) from Magma wines, Whitstable; Power Wine Merchants, Dublin; North Coast Wine, Bude, Cornwall.

Bright, crisp and truly lovely. A clean clear vivacious pale yellow green in colour reminding me of all my blonde and twilight dreams, all those strangled future schemes, all those glasses drained of wine, all this crazy gift of time. The nose is perfumed with a musky orange scent typical of a dry Muscat (of which this is 100%) moving into a palate of lean but rounded musky fruit resting on a sturdy but subtle acidic structure.

The finish is of a reasonable length, more than enough to pour another glass. An excellent little sipper with the odd olive or smoked almond.

A colour of dark burnished amber sets the scene for this one, in no uncertain fashion. The inevitability of a nose redolent of deep orange, coffee and a backbite of newly laid tarmac, just makes you realise that at some point we will indeed be putting grapes back on the vine. Settling back into a palate of comfortable raisiny sweetness with just that sparky edge to lift it out of glopulousness, this sits equally well as a summer pudding wine (can take a mild chilling, with consummate ease) as it would if it were a winter wine always blowing,

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blowing in my mind. In short a great drink at any time whether it maybe the time of year or maybe the time of man. Food? All things puddingy or possibly cheese type stuff.

All these wines are shipped by Moreno Wines and great gear they are too.

That should do it, I think.

Be seeing you Michael

Michael Eyre Music references: Miles Davis; America; The Field Mice; Wire; Kevin Ayers; Devo; Brian Eno; Caravan; Crosby Stills Nash & Young.

Drifting around the various areas of Spain on a horse with no name we shall be imbibing a selection of tip top drinks from the likes of Rioja, Navarra and La Mancha. With this mind whilst tilting at windmills with no further ado we start with:

A very small garden

by economycustard.co.uk

Š simon sharville 2011

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The Bookseller

JONATHAN MAIN RAMBLES ON EXTREMELY WELL ABOUT STUFF TO READ THIS SUMMER

A

told in the form of a PowerPoint presentation) meditation on time, fame, the vagaries of life and the music business recently won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. If you were ever in a band, post-punk or otherwise, this is the book for you.

And if you were lucky enough to have bought one of the first editions that we imported back in July, then it is already worth four times what you paid for it. We also stock her, very good, earlier books, again, currently only available on import.

nybody with any taste knows that predictability is the woodworm of joy.

So says Mark Thomas in the introduction to his new book Extreme Rambling in which the ever joyful, unpredictable soul gives us his account of walking the length of the Israeli barrier that surrounds the West Bank territories and Palestinian population. When complete the barrier will be 723 kilometres and yet the boundary of the West Bank is only 315 kilometres – the barrier snakes in and out of the West Bank, all the while taking in Palestinian land.

Adrian Tomine is one of my favourite graphic novelists – how could he not be, if for nothing

When told that this was the plan, his friend, and ours, Mark Steel sighed and said, why don’t you just write a joke, go on stage and do it!?

Some time ago Mark T’s mother still lived locally and was a customer of ours – she has since moved to Bournemouth where, we are told, she reads the Daily Mail and keeps her thermostat two degrees below care-home level. When, after several weeks of ordering books for her son, Joy (our extra-special bookshop pixie) asked her by way of conversation what her son did, if he was, for example, a student, his mother replied with an exasperated sigh, well… he calls himself a comedian…

His account of his walk is very funny

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... and all the time, he tells us, his mother is sitting at home writing her appeal for his hostage release and looking forward to meeting Terry Waite.

The Guardian calls him John Pilger with laughs.

A quote from Booklist on the jacket of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad calls it ‘a piercingly beautiful mosaic of a novel.’

And so it is. Originally published in the US in July last year and only published in Britain in January this year, this playful (one chapter is

more than his famous recent, beautifully drawn, New Yorker cover: a bookshop proprietor is opening up his shop on a New York street whilst next door his neighbour is receiving a book-shaped package from Amaz*n. His stories remind me a little of Woody Allen from the days of Annie Hall and his new book Scenes from an Impending Marriage – a prenuptial memoir (Faber £7.99) is the story of the preparations for his own marriage, originally produced as a personal keepsake for his and his wife’s wedding guests. It’s very funny and includes dance lessons learned, eyebrow tweezing (his) and a dénouement involving week old, bad takeaway food.

As I’ve said many times before and will no doubt say again, I like a book with a bird on the cover, and Lady of the Loch by Helen Armitage (Constable £7.99) has a splendid one. Subtitled The Incredible Story of Britain’s Oldest Osprey it is the story of a bird that has migrated three thousand miles from Africa to the same Scottish loch and nest for the past twenty years. In spring 2010, she produced eggs for a recordbreaking twentieth time.

A new book from Alan Bennett is always welcome and whilst Smut – two unseemly stories (Faber £12.00) doesn’t have a bird on the cover

it does have a couple of old bats inside: Mrs Donaldson, whom sex takes by surprise and Mrs Forbes who is not surprised at all. A cheeky little number then – all the more so because it is completely impossible to read without Bennett’s slightly bemused, Yorkshire voice in your head.

And then we were hungry. This time last year we were all about Mexican Food Made Simple with Thomasina Miers (Hodder £20.00 and still delicious). I’ve lost count of the number of times we have made the smoky stuffed peppers (mango and goats cheese with chilli stuffing) or the smoked mackerel tostadas. This year I’m tempted by mussels with sherry, celeriac and tarragon, hot smoked trout salad, and Norwegian meatballs all from Scandilicious by Signe Johansen (Salt Yard £20.00).

A perfect complement to all of that Scandinavian crime we’ve been watching and reading about.

start out tiny, but then you grow big and have to go out into the world. This is the fate of the seven hamsters in Alexis Deacon’s A Place Called Home, a fantastic new children’s picture book illustrated by old shop friend Viviane Schwarz (Walker £11.99). This journey involves fear, insecurity, team work and the rescuing of a brother from a beast, before finally reaching sanctuary.

Feel free to draw your own parallels with the book at the beginning of this page.

Jonathan Main

I might also like to try making my own Bombay Mix, or even popcorn with lime and chipotle sauce followed by an aubergine and pea curry all from Supper Club : Recipes and Notes from The Underground Restaurant by Kerstin Rodgers (Collins £25.00), the book of the underground restaurant and blog.

Doctor Freud look away now. You grow up in a small dark hole, you

59

Eight ales on handpump and two ales on gravity plus real ciders.

SE London Pub of the Year 2011.

A shop full of books that you might want to read

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THERE’S A WORLD OUT THERE! THERE’S A SURPRISING NUMBER OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN MUSICIANS THIS TIME AROUND IN HOWARD MALE’S PICK OF THE BEST GLOBAL MUSIC

T

wo albums from America and two involving London musicians? Yes, I know; not what you’ve come to expect from your global music columnist, but bear with me. I’ve not finally been won over by – or to be more accurate, lured back to – the overblown cliché-ridden music of the decadent West. It’s more the case that musicians in the West seem to finally be exploring – rather than simply appropriating – influences from other parts of the world with a lot more ingenuity and sensitivity.

Oakland, California’s Merrill Garbus goes under the name TuneYards and on her second album whokill (4AD) she makes a right old racket that is somehow also rather beautiful. Songs eventually fight their way out of the mesh of off-beat beats, clamorous sax, playful ukulele and found sounds.

And once a key melody of snippet of lyric gets lodged in your head that’s it; it’s with you for the rest of the day (‘Never move to my hood, cause danger is crawling out the wood!’) But apart from the sometimes almost Broadway musical-style of the melodies, and the warped cubist arrangements, there’s also Garbus’s voice: a versatile instrument that she employs one moment to create a background loop of pseudooperatic notes, the next to emote like an impassioned jazz diva or blues veteran. I could go on about

this remarkable album for ever – it feels as new and innovative to me as Bowie did in the early 1970s (see page 16), but I can see the bottom of the page looming, so moving swiftly on…

My second honorary world music artist is Jim White. When I saw him live at the Jazz Café a few weeks ago, he rather undersold Sound of the Americans (Loose Music), describing it as a side project; tunes for a transient theatre production

by Sam Shepard which the South American singer-songwriter then decided to record. Perhaps because he saw this as a minor venture, rather than a proper new album, he wasn’t as fastidious and precious about the end result, and so what we’ve ended up with has a refreshing lightness of touch and spontaneity about it. Speeding Motorcycle sounds like a Jonathan Richmond demo tape (in a good way), Keep it Meaningful You All has the same faux-naivety and sinister nursery-rhyme charm as the Velvet Underground’s I’m Sticking With You and Suckerz Promises is a cheekily accurate pastiche of Rain Dogsera Tom Waits (let’s hope the old curmudgeon doesn’t sue, as he’s apt to when others appropriate his style). Yes, it’s patchy – and there are several spoken-word pieces which are sure to wear thin after a few plays – but it’s charming and quirky enough for me to forgive it its shortcomings.

Meanwhile, back in London, one of the first and still best global fusion groups have a new one out.

Transglobal Underground’s The Stone Turntable (Mule Satellite Recordings) is as good as anything they’ve done. There’s more of a hip-hop influence than on previous efforts, but that’s hip-hop in a good way (sonic and lyrical inventiveness) rather than a bad way (sexism, egotism, tunelessness), and there’s still 60s psychedelia, bangra, ska, and countless other genres in there too, assimilated and then re-released back into the wild as pure TGU. Finally, some other London boys who took up an invitation to fly out to Nairobi, Kenya to see how they gelled with local musicians and rappers. And they gelled pretty good.

In fact I’d go as far as to say The Owiny Sigoma Band (Brownswood Recordings) is responsible for one of the most naturalistic collaborations of its kind I’ve ever heard. The album has a great live, organic feel that’s seductive enough to make you imagine you can hear the distant chattering of monkeys in the trees that overshadow the yard you can picture them jamming in. This is a case of the London musicians going with the flow, rather than dictating it, just adding a great bottom-end, some nice retro-synth sounds, and only a couple of English-language tunes with more of an Indie rock vibe.

Howard Male 61

COMEDY The HOB Comedy 7 Devonshire Road Forest Hill, SE23 3HE 020 8855 0496 www.edcomedy.com

Saturday 4 June Stand Up Comedy Paul T Eyres mc, Jeremy O’Donnell, Liam Mullone and Steve Best 9pm £9/£6concs Late bar

Sunday 5 June Edinburgh Festival Previews A double bill of comedy from Carey Marx and Nathan Caton - 7.30pm £8/£5

Thursday 9 June Celebrity Pub Quiz A different comedian as host each week Cash prizes and drinks to be won 9pm £2

Sat 11 June Stand Up Comedy Susan Murray, Martin Coyote, Sol Bernstein and mc - 9pm £9/£6concs Late bar

Sunday 12 June Edinburgh Festival Previews A double bill of comedy from Andrew Bird and Andi Osho

Wednesday 15 June So You Think You’re Funny The longest running best comedy newcomer award in the UK. London heats - 8.30pm £5

Thursday 16 June Celebrity Pub Quiz Comedian Paul T Eyres as host this week Cash prizes and drinks to be won 9pm £2

Saturday 18 June Stand Up Comedy Johnny Kats, Debra Jane Appleby and Dan Antopolski 9pm £9 (£6concs) Late bar

Sunday 19 June Edinburgh Festival Previews A double bill of comedy from Kerry Godliman and Sheeps 7.30pm £8 (£5concs)

Thursday 23 June Celebrity Pub Quiz A different comedian as host each week Cash prizes and drinks to be won 9pm £2

Saturday 25 June Stand Up Comedy Guest mc, Ninia Benjamin, Ray Peacock and Addy van der Borgh 9pm £9/£6concs Late bar

Sunday 19 June Edinburgh Festival Previews A double bill of comedy from Addy van der Borgh and Terry Alderton 7.30pm £8 (£5 concs)

Thursday 30 June Celebrity Pub Quiz A different comedian as host each week Cash prizes and drinks to be won 9pm £2

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FILM Gallery Film Dulwich Picture Gallery Gallery Road, Dulwich SE21 7AD All films begin 7.45pm Bar from 7.15pm £8, £6 Friends All tickets available from the Friends 020 8299 8750 10-12 noon or e-mail friendsticketing@dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk

Monday 20 June Manhattan (1979) Cert 15, 92 minutes Directed by Woody Allen, starring Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep. Manhattan is the 'only truly great American movie of the 1970’s' says American critic Andrew Sarris. This is Allen’s most romantic and poignant film, accompanied by the lush score of George Gershwin and the shimmering photography of his beloved New York.

Free food and wine & raffle prize

Italian Film Festival Free food and drink

Sunday 10 July Cinema Paradiso (1989) Cert 15, 117 minutes Note time 6.15 for 6.45pm Bafta and Academy Award winner directed by Guiseppe Tornatore. Toto is a restless boy who escapes from the humdrum of rural life by visiting his friend, the gruff but amiable Alfredo, projectionist at the Cinema Paradiso.

Monday 11 July Journey to Italy (1953) Cert PG, 80 minutes 7.15 for 7.45pm Directed by Roberto Rossellini, starring Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders. This is considered Rossellini’s greatest film and one of the key works of modern cinema, a deliberate break with Hollywood style.

Tuesday 12 July I Am Love (2009) Cert 15, 110 minutes 7.15 for 7.45pm Directed by Luca Guadagnino, starring Tilda Swinton. This is a love story between the wife of a powerful industrialist and a chef, a friend of her son, which explores themes of tradition, family, love and betrayal.

WHAt's ON

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MUSIC The Grape & Grain

KIDS AND FAMILY Horniman Museum

Anerley Hill, London SE19 2AA Tel: 0208 778 4109

Every Sunday

100 London Road Forest Hill SE23 3PQ 020 8699 1872 www.horniman.ac.uk Overground train: Forest Hill Bus routes: 176, 185, 312, 356, P4

Live Jazz - 2pm -4pm

Saturday 4 June

Sunday 5 June

Family Storytelling – Tales from the Galleries Hands On Base 2.15–3pm and 3.30–4.15pm

Saturday 11 June - 8.30pm Jack Valentine sings Sinatra

Christian Vaughan & Anna Wawrsynak - 2pm -4pm

Sunday 12 June Zena James duo - 2pm -4pm

Sunday 19 June Jane Parker duo - 2pm -4pm

Sunday 26 June

The Stanley Halls

Every Sunday - 5pm- 8pm

South Norwood Hill SE25 6AB BOX OFFICE: 020 8659 7850 OR 07801 556713 www.smplayers.co.uk

Every Monday - 8pm

Gallery Road, Dulwich SE21 7AD

Friday 17 June Italian Opera Evening 6.30 pm Champagne Reception – included in ticket price 7.15 pm Performance in the Gallery Long interval for “Glyndebourne”-style picnics. Wet weather arrangements!

Award winning pianist William Vann returns once more with four rising young opera singers to provide an enthralling story out of the best of Bel Canto: great arias by Bellini, Donizetti, Puccini, Rossini and Verdi will be performed. £40, £35 Friends includes champagne reception

Every Weds until 25 June, 10.30am, 11.15am and 12pm Free admission. For Under-5s and carers.

Alex Carter duo - 2pm -4pm The Hugo Simmonds Trio

MUSIC Dulwich Picture Gallery

Busy Bees

The Big Beer Band A seventeen piece Swing band bringing the best of big band music to Crystal Palace

Last Wednesday of every month Open Mic Night - 8.30pm all abilities welcome instruments provided

First Wednesday of every month The R.P.M. Club - 8pm Bring along your favourite tracks to play or simply bring yourself to this night for vinyl lovers. Drink, discuss, enjoy.

JUNE 17 & 18 2011 Alex In Wonderland Summer pantomime St. Mark’s Players’ have written a special summer panto with a difference: think Spamalot meets Hans Christian Anderson - plus great songs with everything from ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf’ to Queen’s ‘Another One Bites The Dust’.

Friday 17 June @ 7.30pm and Saturday 18 June @ 2.30pm & 7.30pm. Tickets £7.00 (group discounts). Licensed Bar, refreshments and wheelchair access.

Thursday 7 July French Café Supper with Jazz Caravan Swing Quartet 7 for 7.30pm Enjoy an evening in the Gallery Café of delicious French food and foot-tapping jazz from the era of Django Reinhardt.

Tickets £10 each, plus £15 for two course or £19 for three course supper

Two St. Mark’s Players ready to play

63

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Creative Movement and Dance with Emma Leech

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…don’t compromise on legal advice When your employer is ending your employment, you need specialist advice to protect your rights and maximise your entitlements.

CHRISTOPHER OSBORNE UKCP MRSS 0776 539 5109 osborne162@btinternet.com www.bodymindpsychotherapy.com

At Bennett Welch Solicitors we have extensive experience of advising on the termination of employment, including redundancy, and on Compromise Agreements, whether simple or complex.

We provide a fast and efficient service and can normally see you within 24 hours of receiving your call.

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OUT AND ABOUT WITH KIDS IN CRYSTAL PALACE Alexis Bleasdale takes us on a whistle stop tour of local spots to wear out your little tykes.

I

moved to CP from the East End almost four years ago, shortly before the birth of my first child. At the time I lamented the loss of Victoria Park and Hackney City Farm. Four years on, having acquired a dog (Doris), another child (I didn’t buy him, actually) and with another child on the way, I am endlessly surprised by the parks, playgrounds and outdoor activities that are available for us to enjoy, for free, every day.

When I first came here, I explored Crystal Palace Park. I don’t think my three year old can quite get his head around the park being a single entity, so in our family we say that we are headed to either: Where the swings are – the playground, much improved with the addition of sandpit and buried dinosaur bones, but I wish there were a decent coffee kiosk outside it (preferably serving healthy childrens snacks too) so I could sit and hold the dog whilst keeping an eye on the kids Where the dogs are – from the maze past the stage and up to the old Crystal Palace terraces, excellent for scootering and dog walking, plus a short hike to the child- and dog-friendly Westow House for our respective post-walk beer/apple juices/dog biscuits Where the dinosaurs are – including the fallen down log (which often boasts some real sun-basking terrapins) and of course the nearby Crystal Palace Park Farm which is open 12-4pm every day and completely free.

After a surprising length of time, I discovered that I had a fantastic park practically on my doorstep.

South Norwood Lake, off Auckland

66

Road, is now a firm favourite for a spot of duck feeding. My three year old is also a big fan of a particular tree near the playground with low hanging branches perfect for climbing. The zip wire in the playground is excellent, but my 1 year old has to be watched quite carefully on some of the apparatus – there’s a high open-sided drop off one of the climbing frames.

If I’m up for an extended dog walk, I’ll head through the wooded part of the lake’s grounds to Auckland Road, then through Stambourne Woods to Church Road. For a small wood it feels very secluded and peaceful, and the children love picking up pine cones and exploring the smaller paths and fox holes.

zip wire) and beautifully tended gardens. Sydenham Hill Wood is home to five species of bat, and you can download seasonal activity trails from wildlondon. org.uk. South Norwood Country Park, whose main entrance is off Albert Road, is a 116 acre Local Nature Reserve with wetlands and ponds. My children love the spaceship in the playground, and I’d imagine this park is great if you have older children who like to ride bikes for longer distances.

Grangewood Park, a remnant of the Great North Wood, was an unexpected treat on a hot day, as its wooded canopy kept Doris and the children nice and cool, and allowed some fun exploration of

GRANGEWOOD PARK,

A REMNANT OF THE GREAT NORTH WOOD, WAS AN UNEXPECTED TREAT ON A HOT DAY Westow Park, growing ever more luscious due to its volunteer gardeners, also contains a rather popular climbing tree, and children will love putting their ear to the manhole covers to hear the underground stream that runs beneath. Nearby, and worth a visit with little ones, is the Heshima Centre on Coxwell Road behind Sainsbury’s, with its regular free Stay and Play sessions. Their outdoor play area is a great place to sit and chat with other parents while children run safely amok (no dogs though, sorry Doris).

More recently, we have discovered some gems on the outskirts of Crystal Palace. Sydenham Wells Park has two play areas (one more suited for little children, and one containing a water play area and

fallen trees, much squirrel-chasing and hiding in the cow parsley. My most recent discovery though?

Norwood Park. An exceptionally good wooden fortress, sandpit complete with streams, water pumps, and a fountain children can control by rocking a metal bridge.

Next to that, on Salters Hill, is the Lambeth One O’Clock Club, which is completely free and open every weekday afternoon. Further afield, why not check out Horniman Triangle Gardens for the sandpit (Horniman Museum Gardens also a great spot for a picnic), Dulwich Park (great café!) and Kesley Park in Beckenham for the wildfowl. East End? Pah. I’ve never looked back.

Read Alexis' blog about family life: motherporridge.wordpress.com

We are a professional firm of Chartered Accountants and Business Advisers based in Crystal Palace with over 30 years experience in providing quality, value for money and excellent customer service.

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streets ahead

MOWBRAY ROAD, SE19

£299,995

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VICTORIAN CONVERSION

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SHARE OF FREEHOLD

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IMMACULATE CONDITION

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PRIME ROAD

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2 BEDROOMS

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RAIL & TUBE 0.42 MILES AWAY

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CLIVE ROAD, SE27

OIRO £468,000

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GIPSY HILL STATION 0.44 MILES AWAY

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3 BEROOMS

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