The Transmitter Issue 7

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ISSUE 7 AUG 2009

THE MAGAZINE FOR SE LONDON www.thetransmitter.co.uk

HAPPY BIRTHDAY US! We celebrate our first birthday

SUMMER OF LOVE

We go back to the sixties

The

VINTAGE issue

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ISSUE 2 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008 www.thetransmitter.co.uk

ISSUE33 ISSUE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER2008 2008 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER www.thetransmitter.co.uk www.thetransmitter.co.uk

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ISSUE 5 APRIL 2009

ISSUE 1 JULY/AUGUST 2008 www.thetransmitter.co.uk

RETURN OF THE SUNDAY LUNCH A run down of the best roasts in the area

A RIVER

RUNS UNDER IT Andrew Rumsey’s river music

THE MAGAZINE FOR SE LONDON

ISSUE 6 JUNE 2009

THE MAGAZINE FOR SE LONDON

ISSUE 4 FEB 2009

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BARBIE GIRL

WHITE HOT Valentine’s Jewellery

Celebrity Masterchef Nadia Sawalha gets out the barbie tongs

NO AIR

Tales of scuba diving and girls in wet suits

WEDDING BELLE

RETURN

OF THE

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING

AUTHOR ALEX MILWAY TALKS ABOUT HIS WORLD

GALLOPING GOURMET

Transmitter girl Natasha gets spliced in Dulwich

Nadia Sawalha is back in the kitchen

ART

Local gifts galore!

AT THE DULWICH PICTURE GALLERY

FASHION ON DINO ISLAND

RESTAURATEUR EFUSIO TALKS

BOWLED OVER!

YOU WILL BE!

BY YOUR ALL NEW LOCAL MAGAZINE!

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KIDS COMPETITIONS INSIDE!

Penge, Palace, Paris, Pubs...

GOOD VIBRATIONS

KAREN MCLEOD SHARES HER FANTASIES

KIDS COMPETITION INSIDE!

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KIDS COMPETITION INSIDE!

Who are The Bellydwellers?

YOGA PILATES CYCLING BELLY DANCING

COMPETITIONS INSIDE! Win books! photoshoots!!

BUGS LIFE RADIO 4’S RICHARD JONES TALKS CREEPY CRAWLIES

COOKING

with Celebrity MasterChef Winner Nadia Sawalha

BEESINES PAGES How to make honey in the city

FOOD

With Celebrity MasterChef Winner NADIA SAWALHA

GARDEN GLAMOUR DRESSED TO KILL ON THE ALLOTMENT

THIS SPORTING LIFE FOOTB ALL RUGBY CYCLING SWIMMING MORE FOOTB ALL

SUBSCRIBE TO THE TRANSMITTER Receive a posted copy of the next 6 issues of The Transmitter 3 EASY WAYS TO SUBSCRIBE

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Send your name, address and a cheque for £10 to us at: The Transmitter, PO Box 53556, London SE19 2TL (Please make your cheque payable to Transmission Publications Ltd) You can also pay for your subscription by cash, cheque or credit/debit card at the following participating retailers:

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Bookseller Crow Smash Bang Wallop

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You can also pay for your subscription by credit/debit card online at www.thetransmitter.co.uk

50 Westow Street SE19 85 Church Road SE19

COMING SOON to WESTOW STREET Need something now? www.smashbangwallop.co.uk

ISSUE 7 AUGUST 2009

CONTENTS 10

A SHORT HISTORY OF VINTAGE LIZ CLAMP TAKES A LOOK AT HOW IT ALL STARTED

12 16 20 24

A PASSION FOR FASHION LOC AL VINTAGE CLOTHING AUCTIONEER KERRY TAYLOR

27

SUMMER OF LOVE TRANSMITTER BOYS AND GIRLS TIME TRAVEL B ACK TO THE SIXTIES

34

SO, WHAT'S NOT VINTAGE THESE DAYS? IS THERE ANYTHING THAT'S ACTUALLY NEW AROUND HERE?

38 40 43

PALACE PATCH SUE WILLIAMS IS SIMPLY MARVELLOUS

45

THERE’S A WORLD OUT THERE HOWARD MALE FINDS A WORLD OF MUSIC JUST AROUND THE CORNER

46

THE BOOKSELLER JONATHAN AND MORE GREAT BOOKS WITH LOC AL CONNECTIONS

SHOPPING FOR VINTAGE STUFF OUR GUIDE TO WHERE TO GET YOUR OLD GEAR LOC ALLY ONE MAN'S JUNK...

A MAN WHO'S 'JUNK' KEEPS POPPING UP IN VOGUE MAGAZINE CRYSTAL PALACE GARDEN PARTIES HOWARD MALE LOOKS AT THE HISTORY OF THE CONCERTS IN THE PARK

STILL LUIGI'S JUSTINE CROW VISITS A VINTAGE LOC AL RESTAURANT A VERY GOOD YEAR MICHAEL EYRE CHOOSES SOME VINTAGE WINES WE C AN ALL AFFORD

www.thetransmitter.co.uk 3

WELCOME

ABOUT US Editorial Editing and such Andy Pontin Sub Editing and such

From the Editor(s)

Jonathan Main Annette Prosser Regular Contributors

Welcome to issue Seven! We have been transmitting now for one whole year, and feeling all nostalgic we decided cast our gaze back down the vortex of time and dedicate this issue all things past - to 'vintage'.

Gardening and such Sue Williams Music and such Howard Male

On p10 Liz Clamp gives us a brief intro to the history of buying old togs, p12 sees Annette Prosser talking to ' the doyenne of vintage fashion' who co-ordinates her global operations from our doorstep. On p16 we sweep through the local vintage retail scene and on p20 Jonathan Main talks to a man who has been selling 'vintage' since way back when it was just 'junk'.

Restaurants and such Justine Crow Wine and such Michael Eyre Retail and such Liz Clamp

Crystal Palace Park never again played host to the variety and excitement that victorian Britain had to offer in the days of the big greenhouse, but not long ago world class musical acts would strut their stuff on the stage at events organised by Harvey Goldsmith, or so Howard Male tells us on p24.

Our fashion photoshoot imagines a sixties 'happening' in the park on p27.

Design & Production Smash Bang Wallop Simon Sharville Printing AD Print Services Ltd Contact Advertising sales@thetransmitter.co.uk

On p34, our office curmudgeon Howard Male sticks a pin in our vintage balloon and finds that some of it smells a bit of poo. He's a miserable sod.

Listings listings@thetransmitter.co.uk

Meanwhile, Sue Williams gets all literary in her gardening gloves on p38, Justine Crow checks out Luigis, a venerable italian institution in Gipsy Hill on p40, Michael Eyre finds some low cost vintage wines on p43, Howard is back on p45 but now he's cheered up and telling us about some great local music acts and, last but by no means least, on p46 The Bookseller spins a web of local literary connections and unearths a hotbed of socialism.

Editorial editor@thetransmitter.co.uk The Transmitter is published by Transmission Publications Ltd Registered in England 6594132 PO Box 53556, London SE19 2TL

Enjoy!

The way we were....

Cover

The Lovebirds in Crystal Palace Park Clothes and styling: Vintagehart Photography: Smash Bang Wallop

The Transmitter editorial team wrestle with issue #2, way back in 2008

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ISSUE 7 AUG 2009

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THE LOVEBIRDS FREE

ISSUE 7 AUG 2009

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SELL IT MAMA Sell It Mama returns with an alfresco summer event at the Alma Garden Market, Church Road, SE19 on Saturday 1st August from 10am. With prices from 50p -£100 it's another great opportunity for local families to buy quality secondhand baby clothes, toys, books, equipment and maternity wear, so come and grab a bargain! If you’d like to be a vendor, stalls may still be available. Bookings are also open for the Gipsy Hill Mother & Baby Fair in October! rachel@sellitmama.com www.sellitmama.com

ALLOTMENTS Biggin Wood Allotments celebrate National Allotments week with an Open Day on Sunday, August 16, from 12 noon - 4pm. Location: Biggin Hill, Upper Norwood.

See: www.bigginwood.org.uk Come and have a peek at this relaxed community on a hilly site overlooking Surrey. Kids can enjoy facepainting and other activities, while grown ups can purchase plants, seeds and other produce.

For further info call Stephanie on 0208 7644061

PAXTON SCHOOL SPORTS DAY Fresh from rockin Glastonbury 09, This issue's cover stars and beloved local band The Lovebirds (Graeme Dalton, Lucy Wearing and others) are playing some local gigs 25 July Crystal Palace Festival with an acoustic gig during the day at Bambinos and an evening gig at Westow House at 10pm 2 August Splash Festival in Brixton with Alabama 3 7 August 12 Bar in Denmark Street The singer/songwriting duo also have a 7' Vinyl Single Ridden on the Whiskey and The Devil Song coming out with Pushing Pussy Records in early September.

W

ednesday 24th June at the Crystal Palace Stadium marked a new and auspicious date in the national athletics calendar. Paxton Primary School’s Sports Day took place on the very track where, as you read these words, Olympic champions and the world’s elite are competing in the Aviva London Grand Prix before a crowd of 16,000.

the top playground! All this was organised by Miss Christie Speight and the teachers association.

Big thanks to all the mums and dads who helped and attended.

In front of a slightly smaller though no less committed assembly of fans, the children of Paxton, aged from 3 to 11, ran, jumped and threw with all the spirit and determination that you would expect this venue to inspire. Quite a step up from the traditional egg & spoon race in

Stay up to date on their website www.thelovebirds.net Or visit their MySpace www.myspace.com/thelovebirdsuk You can also catch Graeme and Lucy hosting Open Mic at The Alma every other Thursday

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trading places WHAT’S GOING ON AROUND THE CRYSTAL PALACE TRIANGLE?

Built for a purpose. Bring back The Rialto

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n the words of the great Donovan, first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is..... no, we’re not exactly sure what he was getting at either, but it’s seem like a fitting sentiment when we consider the fate of The old Gala Bingo Hall on Church Road which abruptly closed it doors for the last time on an eyes down for a full house in early June.

Many of us in Transmitter-land have had a local cinema at the top of our wish list for the area for a very long time, and what better location for one could there be than the Gala a building purpose built in the art deco style as a cinema in 1928 with an interior by the renowned cinema architect George Coles. It was for many years the Rialto and then became the Granada, back in the days when there were two cinemas in Church Road (why on earth it was never called Cinema Road, we will never understand) and at least one other around the triangle.

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So the news that City Screen, the country’s leading independent cinema operator, whose mission statement is to provide cinemas that serve their communities and who own and run both the Picture house in Clapham and the Brixton Ritzy had put in a substantial bid for the Gala seemed, like a dream come true. Almost every person we have spoken to, and we have spoken to a hell of a lot of people, agrees, this is exactly what the area needs and that the obvious regenerative benefits that it would bring to the triangle and surrounding area would be incalculable.

Simply put, no other single thing could make a bigger difference to the community and the businesses of the area than this.

Unfortunately, City Screen was outbid by one of the wealthiest and fastest growing churches in the country the Kingsway International Christian Centre.

This is not an uncommon occurrence, and there are similar instances of it happening in Wandsworth and in Somerset and a Brazilian church came very close to buying the Brixton Academy when it was up for sale a couple of years ago.

KICC who purchased the freehold on 30th June say that they are looking forward to turning the cinema into a thriving centre for the whole community and have dismissed rumours that thousands will be flocking to its services, saying that they expect congregations of 500 hundred or so.

This is disingenuous on so many levels.

They have apparently bought the church to replace one in Wimbledon, which in itself is a fair old journey to Crystal Palace. The cinema can accommodate

almost 1400 people; is the church going to put a cap on their congregation should it rise above 500 per Sunday service, of which there will be 3.

On their website they talk of 'taking territories', so that seems unlikely. What seems perfectly possible is that around 4,000 people could be making the journey up the hill every Sunday with all that that might entail. It is difficult to see how this will benefit the existing local community, which is, lets face it, not exactly short of a church or two.

However, for the cinema to become a church Bromley council have to approve a change of use from the buildings currently designated D2 planning use.

It is hoped that they will think long and hard about why, regardless of issues of faith, when there is such strong and genuine interest from such a wellrespected company as City Screen, as well as huge and ever-growing local support, for the Gala to revert to a cinema and fulfil the purpose it was originally built for, there is any proven need for this to happen.

Get involved and we just might make this miracle happen. To add your voice to the literally thousands of people already supporting the campaign to bring a cinema back to Crystal Palace visit; www.campaign.picture-palace.org

LOCAL MAGAZINE DIES

THE MANAGEMENT

It is with the deepest regret that we have to announce that The Transmitter has had to cease publishing faced with the ongoing indifference from the majority of local businesses that could support us by placing small (relatively) inexpensive advetisements. Yes they all say they will, but in the end they don't.

NEW SHOP Church Road has seen a well established Chinese restaurant morphing into accesories retailer MHs Accessories.

Only Joking!!!!

Don't worry, we wouldn't really deprive you lovely people of the pleasure of reading our little mag, and we have too much fun putting it together to stop.

Wow, imagine if we really did have to rely on support from local businesses!

CHARITY SPOT Claire Daley’s Climb of Mt Kilimanjaro (Oct 2009)

Help Claire raise money so that the girls of Rugambwa Seconday School in Tanzania can have what we take for granted – a purpose built computer room to learn the skills of Information Technology. Rugambwa teaches some of the girls that will go on to become leaders in the community, but like us they need to learn how to use computers. A charity has given the school 35 modern computers, but most can’t be used because the school has no computer room.We’ve already got a promise of £1,000 but we need £6,500 to build the room. Let’s go for it!

To donate on-line go to: www.justgiving.co.uk/clairedaley

WIN A BOOK!

BROKEN CAFE Crystal Palace now has a dedicated District Centre Manager as Amber Rusk returns to her post. Amber says: “I am excited to be returning to my post as a District Centre Manager for Crystal Palace. Crystal Palace is a unique part of South East London playing a part in Croydon’s long term regeneration plans but also claiming status within Lambeth, Bromley, Lewisham and Southwark. There is a very vibrant and dynamic business community here and I am very pleased to be a dedicated manager back in place to support the strategic, operational and daily development the area and work towards its long term prosperity.

Croydon has a great district and central team in place to support businesses through this difficult time. A District Centre Manager's remit is to focus on business related matters for the area working closely with all the involved stakeholders to ensure a coordinated effort can be achieved for the District's long term economic prosperity.”

Win a copy of Croydon Cinemas

by Allen Eyles - a 'lavishly illustrated history of cinemagoing in Croydon' which includes great interior pictures of the Church Road Cinema in it's heyday.

Amber will be part-time in post and can be contacted to discuss business related issues and ideas.

Contact Amber to arrange a meeting at:

For competition details, go to the transmitter website (www. thetransmitter. co.uk) and click on Croydon Cinemas Competition.

020 80909183 or email on amber.rusk@croydonenterprise.com The Croydon Enterprise shop is open for general enquires Thursday and Fridays from 9.30 – 12.30 contact:

Sorry to hear that one of our favourite local cafe's, Braziliana, has had to temporarily shut after a very nasty accident involving a van. Best wishes, we hope you get up and running again soon.

SMASH BANG GONE? Our favourite gift shop and gallery Smash Bang Wallop, have recently shut their shop in Church Road.

DON'T PANIC! The pohoenix will rise in September we are told, over in Westow Street with all your fave goods plus a new line of classic vintage couture...... in the meantime proprietor Liz is still trading online through the summer, so no need to miss out on your goodies!

VICTORY PLACE MARKET Market organiser Lisa York continues her valiant efforts to get a food market established in Victory Place, SE19.Expect markets on the third weeked of every month - cleverly co-ordinated to co-incide with all the various Crystal Palace 'festivals' - Not.

Office Manager - Gina Yiannis Direct Tel: 020 8090 5571 gina.yiannis@croydonenterprise.com

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NEIGHBOURS HOW ARE OUR NEIGHBOURS GETTING ON? PENGE While Crystal Palace continues to struggle to organise a good regular food market, we could in the meantime give some support to Penge, where, since January this year, they have just been getting on with it. Great food every Saturday same time - same place.

SYDENHAM While Crystal Palace continues to struggle to organise a good regular arts festival, we could in the meantime give some support to Sydenham, where, they seem to have all got their act together.

The first ever Sydenham Arts Festival took place from 3 to 12 July 2009 and promised something for everyone.

The ten day festival included drama,

John Hegley

dance, music and poetry performances, filmcscreenings, celebrity book-signings, workshops and family-friendly activities.

More than forty individual events were planned in galleries, schools, shops, churches, community centres, libraries, cafes and parks around Sydenham.

I the words of the organisers: "In addition to encouraging arts groups and organisations to forge new partnerships, the festival provides local residents from all walks of life, backgrounds and ages with the opportunity to celebrate and participate in an exciting and culturally diverse programme."

Seems like a good idea!

Maple Road Market Maple Road, Penge Every Saturday 10am

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free MEAL COMPETITION! WIN A MEAL FOR TWO WITH WINE AT THE MEDITERRANEA RESTAURANT

HOW TO WIN 1.

Be outside the Mediterranea restaurant, Westow Stret SE19 at 12.00 noon sharp on Saturday 25 July with a digital/phone camera

2.

Register for the competition and get a list of objects from Efisio or one of his designated helpers.

3.

Be the first ones to bring back pictures of everything on the list - they will all be somewhere on the Triangle, but they might need a bit of detective work to find....

Fresh, delicious food from a menu that makes you want to try everything...Top eating! www.mediterranealondon.com 21 Westow Street SE19 3RY Tel: 020 8771 7327

Competition Rules • • • •

No cheating No punching No running in the corridors Efisio can't play The dashing Efisio Owner of Mediterranea just so you know who to get your checklist from!

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A SHORT HISTORY OF VINTAGE lIZ CLAMP TAkes a look at how it all started

V

intage - it’s that new word that means old. In the olden days (I’m talking pre-1990s) clothing that was pre-owned was never described as ‘vintage’, only 'secondhand'. The history of second-hand clothing is a subject in itself; until very recent times with the arrival of the value retailer (Ethel Austin, What She Wants and more recently Primark and George) new clothes were, for many, a luxury. Records show second-hand clothing markets thriving in medieval times, and rich folk travelled across Europe to purchase from the Italian markets.

Let’s concentrate here on the history of vintage-buying in the sense of deliberately appropriating clothing from another era in the interests of personal style.

Deadbeat dandys So when did vintage become trendy? When did youths first start to desire clothing from another era? In the 1950s the teddy boys wore Edwardian-style jackets. This look and image was far removed from the ‘Grease-ification’ of fifties culture . We are talking gritty, working class culture. Young men did not want to look like their dads - most new clothing was dreary and produced under the CC41 label ('Civilian Clothing 1941' - when clothes rationing began and new government-approved 'austerity'

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clothing carried this label). These boys wanted a world where this austere living was on hold.

In 1948 the combined factors of the arrival in London of West Indians sporting zoot suits and Savile Row's launch of the Edwardian style, a look began to emerge. Of course Savile Row was out of reach for most, however genuine second-hand Edwardian suits could be found in junk shops, secondhand markets and pawn shops. It should be said that whilst the look was appropriated, this was largely vintage-buying out of necessity.

The early Sixties was not a good time for vintage. Cool young things raised in penny pinching times (clothing rationing didn’t stop until 1956) suddenly had disposable incomes and were being rewarded.

Clothing for the young suddenly started to appear with designers like Mary Quant leading the way.

This look was widely copied by the new high street with the emergence of Top Shop, Chelsea Girl and Miss Selfridge. Having been held back for so long, these Sixties children did not want old things, they sought new shapes and fabrics.

Out with the new in with the old However, second -hand clothing did find its way to the fashionable young of the late Sixties. Two very different styles were worn by the early hippies: the 'military look' enabled shops such as Laurence Corner to become British institutions - they provided the inspiration for the Sgt Pepper album. Simultaneously a fashion for olde worlde glamour returned in the form of a Thirties revival.

Shops such as Biba not only gained much of their inspiration

and glamour from the 1930s but also sold the occasional ‘real deal’.

Stalls at Portobello market were also selling to this new customer, prompting a new type of shop - a second-hand clothes shop that catered specifically to the young.

The Antique Clothing Shop and Cornucopia were among the early purveyors of the new 'Vintage'.

Tribes and tribulations By the late Seventies and early Eighties second-hand shops were kept busy supplying the tribes of the time: Rockabillies, Mod Revivalists, New Romantics and many others. These shops supplied the necessary look that definitely wasn’t high street and importantly these were looks that, unlike today, were worn equally by both sexes. New markets sprung up such as Greenwich Market and in Manchester a whole warehouse known as Affleck’s Palace. Great sources of design, these places flourished particularly in towns and cities with large student populations. This was all part of a subculture that didn’t want to be ‘Next-ified’. They were a group that didn’t want the norm and probably the last to seriously revolt against the system – the cold war generation.

...this country wants nostalgia. They want to go back as far as they can even if it’s only as far as last week Gil Scott Heron - 'B' Movie

Wall Street wardrobes In the mid-Eighties the designer became king and second-hand was associated with the Seventies and hard times. However new money also required old things. They had vintage cars and vintage wine, in order to appeal to this new investment market second-hand clothing became ‘Vintage’.

Upmarket establishments including Steinberg & Tolkein and A Sign of the Times began to sell vintage couture and shops appeared on the international market. Not unlike the teddy boys people were accessing a look that was ‘not of their class’. Anyone can (with the right amount of money) buy a new

piece of couture, but to track down a labelled and numbered Dior New Look classic takes connections.

Full circles Vintage is, now as never before, available at many levels. It ticks all the boxes: it’s eco-friendly, it’s an investment, it’s a one-off. There are high-end buyers laying down couture as if it were a bottle of vintage wine, ready to produce it at the right time; there are retailers such as Rellik who specialise in the latest trend in vintage (currently Eighties) for their high-earner customers and celebrities; through to the independent shops (see our local round-up) who, like those

in the Eighties, have established themselves to provide something unusual, something quirky, something affordable, in short a proper shopping experience.

And finally the high street has cottoned on: Liberty has its vintage department, even Top Shop - the place established to be all brand spanking new! Vintage is being bought and sought by all age groups.

In the words of the great Gil Scott Heron in the Eighties, it’s all about nostalgia: ‘The idea concerns the fact that this country wants nostalgia. They want to go back as far as they can even if it’s only as far as last week.’

As they say nothing is new.

Liz Clamp 11

A PASSION FOR FASHION

ANNETTE FROM VINTAGEHART TALKS TO LOCAL AUCTIONEER

KERRY TAYLOR

Vintage Balmain dress

D

iscovering that the doyenne of vintage fashion has her headquarters minutes from Crystal Palace was, I admit, a bit of a thrill. Vintagelovers can often find themselves surreptitiously googling ‘1960s turquoise suit’ or ‘vintage velvet cape’ when they’re supposed to be working, and this is how I first came upon the wonderful world of Kerry Taylor Auctions. Based in an unexpected whitewashed art deco building in residential Martell Road in West Dulwich, this auction house has been at the hub of the international vintage clothes and textiles market for the last six years, dealing in anything from 18th-century slippers to Seditionaries t-shirts. Kerry Taylor has over 20 years experience and frequently appears extolling the virtues of vintage in print (see July’s Vogue for her thoughts on vintage dressing for the older woman) or on screen, including the BBC’s Style on Trial earlier this year, where she faultlessly defended the 1950s as the most stylish decade.

Before moving to this workspace Kerry had been at Sotheby’s, originally in Chester from the age of 19, where she set up a fastgrowing collector’s department.

Was it love at first sight, I ask, witnessing her first auction?

Her heartfelt ‘yes’ suggests she remembers the moment well, ‘I was an auctioneer by the time I was 20, and got a gavel for my 21st birthday’. Kerry was then recruited to the big city as her impressive sales figures up North were raising a few eyebrows. ‘I told them I’d only come to London if they set up a fashion department, which they did,’ Kerry tells me, clearly relishing the memory. ‘I became very high profile, organising all the celebrity sales, auctioneering all the time’.

A sudden decision by Sotheby’s to devote themselves to the top end of the fine art market and close their collectables division came as a shock. But Kerry, who describes herself as ‘always something of a maverick’, finding herself with no income and two boys to support, dared to set up on her own, close to their home in Dulwich. Life at Park Hall Trading Estate had begun.

I had a very glamorous big sister who looked like Brigitte Bardot

We talk in a huge room on the 2nd floor of a square industrial 1930’s building, surrounded by overflowing rails, boxes and bags. Before finding out more about how the auctions work, it’s difficult not to spend a bit of time talking frocks.

Did Kerry grow up in a household where fashion was important? ‘I had a very glamorous big sister who looked like Brigitte Bardot’ she smiles, and recalls a childhood diet of Busby Berkeley movies and Fred & Ginger. ‘At about 12 or 13 I bought a 1930s sequinned capelet from a charity shop for £15 – a fortune then – but I just had to have it. I wanted that glamour.’

If I am honest, although I do lust after exquisite tailoring and gorgeous satin couture confections (naturally), at heart I love my vintage by St Michael, maybe in crimplene, floral and fun. Ms Taylor has much more sophisticated taste, having viewed, touched and dressed in the best that’s out there.

Who would her absolute favourite vintage names be? Unsurprisingly, it’s a killer top three: Madeleine Vionnet (‘her construction is so clever, her clothes are engineering works of art’);

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The auctions are a great laugh and such good fun

Elsa Schiaparelli (‘a combination of clothes with art, surrealism and humour, great wit. It’s never just a dress with her’); and Christian Dior (‘he brought romance back to fashion. His clothes are masterful’).

Just thinking about it all makes your mouth water.

But it’s not all kitten heels in Kerry’s world. It’s hard work and long hours that have put her in the position she is in today. The job of the auction house is to make as much money for the seller as possible, which means that every single item is checked thoroughly and catalogued carefully. A boxed hotchpotch of crumpled 1920s lingerie might make only £100, but once the intricate details have been investigated (Kerry examines ‘forensically’) and each item described fully in the auction catalogue, the same box could fetch ten times as much.

Vintage Fortuny dress

Kerry offers an amazing service to both buyers and sellers with her regular Passion for Fashion and general vintage fashion and textile auctions. Lots of people want to sell their vintage, from 90-year-old ladies (‘some have been selling with me for years, they’re like old

friends’) to princesses. ‘It can be quite surreal with all the chauffeurdriven cars parked outside’ laughs Kerry, remembering past auctions with buyers from LA and New York. Her customers range from ‘billionaires with their own private jets, buying to wear, investing in haute couture - they spend tens of thousands’ to collectors museums and fashion houses hungry for inspiration for future lines.Vintage dealers too come to buy up selected lots, knowing themselves what their own customers want.

CHECK YOUR ATTIC FOR THESE TREASURES...

Anyone can participate at one of Kerry’s auctions. Despite being internationally-renowned for selling the crème de la crème, she also offers anything from pyjama suits to fascinators to anyone who wants to bid, with lots often going under the hammer for less than £100. She and colleague, Kate Mitchell, who has a Masters degree in History and Culture of Fashion, receive hundreds of emails and digital photographs a week from people like you and me wondering if any of their vintage finds or personallyowned items are worth including.

‘And the auctions are a great laugh’, beams Kerry, ‘such good fun, with all shapes and sizes, and naked flesh as far as the eye can see.’ (Some clothes may be tried on, but don’t expect changing rooms.)

AN IMPRESSIVE CV

Kerry’s website not only has all the auction details you need, including pictures of everything available at each current sale, it is also a stunning cornucopia of fashion facts, providing an excellent resource for those interested in learning more about vintage styles. And for some of us, it simply provides a died-andgone-to-heaven hour as, although we really should be working, instead we gaze adoringly at the nipped-in waist of an antique riding habit or the top-stitched patch pocket of a 1970’s Courreges monochrome coat. Pure bliss. web: www.kerrytaylorauctions.com tel: 020 8676 4600

Annette Prosser

• • • •

1930s Chanel and Schiaparelli Dior from the 1940s & 1950s Balmain and Balenciaga from the 1950s, and 1960s 1970s Saint-Laurent.

Things Kerry is nOt interested in...

•

“please don’t bring me any 1990s Jaeger …”

Kerry’s past auctions include the wardrobes of Daphne Guinness, Princess Lilian of Belgium, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor

KERRY’S GREATEST HITS Most expensive item auctioned: the wedding suit of King James I, sold to the V&A for £200,000

Unearthed treasure: late 18th century English chintz banyan, found in a trunk in the attic of a country house, sold for £6000

Royal connections : Catherine Walker fuchsia pink dress owned by Diana, Princess of Wales, sold for £61,200

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SHOPPING FOR FROM BIJOU boutiques to covered markets Bambino

OWNER Andy Stem

BEST FOR

Curios,Vintage Leather Jackets (as worn by Kate Moss in June Vogue!)

STAR BUY

Victorian brass microscope £90

Glitter & Twisted

OWNER

Vintagehart

OWNER

Mandy 'Mouse' Raven

Annette Prosser & Dawn Wilson

BEST FOR

BEST FOR

Genuine vintage pieces, traditional toys, unusual & quirky gift ideas.

STAR BUY

Excellent condition, great value vintage - colourful and quirky, to mix'n'match with your wardrobe

STAR BUY

Giant rubber duck (above) £16.50

1960s cotton maxi wrap skirt £18

When you go to buy stuff, buy from the heart.

Afternoon tea? Vintage plates can be recycled & transformed into gorgeous 2,3 &4 tier cake stands.

TOP TIP

1960s cotton maxi wrap skirt £18 Floaty 70s: more wearable than you think. Sleek 80s: think Debbie Harry not Lady Di.

CONTACTS

CONTACTS

CONTACTS

Thursday - Saturday 12pm-6pm Sunday - sometimes!

Monday - Thursday 10am-6pm Friday 10am-7pm Sunday 11-5pm

Thursday - Sunday 12pm-6pm Friday 12pm-8pm 1st Tuesday of month 8pm-10pm

32 Church Road Crystal Palace SE19 2ET

25 Westow Street Crystal Palace SE19 3RY

96 Church Road Crystal Palace SE19 2EZ

020 8653 9250

020 8771 9493

07949 552926/07982 184657 www.vintagehart.co.uk

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andy.bambino@yahoo.co.uk

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TOP TIP

VINTAGE STUFF

we sought out the best and here it is....

Crystal Palace Antiques

Vien

OWNER

OWNER

BEST FOR

BEST FOR

David Ruper (14 dealers operate)

Georgian, Victorian, Art Deco, Modern Danish, British Industrial Design.

Vivienne Bartholemew

Cenci

OWNER

Dede and Massimo

BEST FOR

Recycled, remade vintage using gorgeous limited edition prints

Original fashions for men, women and children; 1930s to 1980s Handbags, cases, dresses, men's suits

STAR BUY

STAR BUY

STAR BUY

TOP TIP

TOP TIP

Blend vintage and high street for your own unique look

Shop with time and an open mind (i.e. like what fits in the colour it comes in)

CONTACTS

CONTACTS

CONTACTS

Monday - Saturday 11am - 6pm Sunday 11am - 5pm

Tuesday - Friday 10.30am - 5pm Saturday 10.30am - 6pm Sunday 11am - 5pm

Monday - Saturday 11am - 6pm 1st Sunday of month 11am - 6pm

Jasper Road Crystal Palace SE19 1SJ

79 Church Road Crystal Palace SE19 2TA

4 Nettlefold Place West Norwood SE27 OJW

020 8480 7042 www.crystalpalaceantiques.com

020 8653 6943 www.vienvintage.co.uk shop@vienvintage.co.uk

020 8766 8564 www.cenci.co.uk info@cenci.co.uk

Murano Chandelier (above) £600

Come into the shop on a Friday, when dealers stock up for weekend.

Gold sequinned 1970s Jacket £39

American 1950s straw bags £35

TOP TIP

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Haynes Lane Market

STALL HOLDERS Many different stall holders but the following are all trading names: T'ease (girly stuff), Fondant (50's - 70's furniture) Wishful Thinking (kitsch and cool) and Va Vintage! (lots of different stuff)

BEST FOR

Furniture, Clothing, Kitchenware, Haberdashery, Fabrics, Decorative Ornaments and almost every sort of collectable including; toys, coins, stamps, cards & photos, cameras and buttons

STAR BUYS Solid teak Danish sideboard £350 1978 Philips Discovery TV £90 60s and 70s table lamps £30

TOP TIPs

Vintage furnishing fabrics, give your curtains / cushions a reason to live!

Can't see what you're after? Ask!

CONTACTS Tuesdays 11am-5pm Fridays 11am-5pm Saturdays 11am-6pm Sundays 11am-5pm Haynes Lane Crystal Palace SE19 3AN www.hayneslanemarket.com Fondant; rachael@mac1.net Tel: 07899 808492 Va Vintage; info@vavintage.com Tel: 07961 578486

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VINTAGE guitar man WE VISIT A MAN WHO BRINGS GUITARS BACK FROM THE DEAD

lying on the workbenches. The room is also filled with a slightly heady mix of live piano music from next door, the amiable banter of co-workers and the smell of Doji Dylan's paint spray cans. The local artist and skateboard guru has popped up from the downstairs shop to make some teeshirts.

Jon and his team make and repair amplifiers as well as guitars and they produce their own range of both. The guitars are 'Frankenstein' pieces; a lovingly crafted combination of metallic surfaces and old bones from guitar graveyards. They look and sound great, as do the shiny metallic amps.

1964 GUILD D40

b

ack in 2000, Jon Dickinson was working in San Francisco, in a guitar repair workshop. On a shelf in the storeroom was a 1964 Guild D40 guitar, smashed to bits.

Jon bought the guitar from his boss and for the next three months he went to work an hour early and painstakingly pieced the vintage

guitar back together. 'It's a beautiful guitar' says Jon, 'It was well worth spending all that time on'.

Jon's workshop, next to the 'Gallery' piano room at Antenna studios, is filled with the undead guitars in various states of repair - dangling from the high ceiling and

If you want to know more: Jon Dickinson Instrument Repair Dickinson Amplification Antenna Studios Crystal Palace SE19 3AY. 020 8653 5285 jonnydickinson@hotmail.com

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ONE MAN'S JUNK...

JONATHAN MAIN TALKS TO ANDY STEM

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T

he trouble with Crystal Palace, said a member of the great and good (touring the area recently with a councillor in tow) as they passed Bambino, is that there are too many junk shops in the area.

Or so owner Andy Stem, known to one and all as Andy Bambino, tells me with a grin. I ask him if he minds his shop being identified as such when anybody with eyes, once past the door, can see that what he sells is the exact opposite of junk. ‘No’, he laughs, I ask him how he would describe it.

‘I just sell good shit, that’s all,’ he says as a matter of fact. I look around at the mountains and mountains of good shit sitting

on shelves, on the floor, hanging from the ceiling. After a moment of acclimatization your brain becomes accustomed to the shop’s very singular approach to visual merchandising - three or four racks of vintage motorcycle clothing.

On the counter, a beautiful wooden and glass companion to the shelves that line the back wall and which were, until recently, the fittings for a dispensing chemist shop on Camberwell Green (Andy outbid all and sundry to buy them, ‘ I just paid what they were worth,’ is how he puts it), sits a copy of the July 2009 edition of Vogue magazine. I open it and turn the pages until I find a photo spread of Dree Hemingway, daughter of Mariel Hemingway and therefore

great granddaughter of Ernest, and described by Whowhatwear.com as ‘the female equivalent of a speeding bullet’. She is wearing (and wearing, really is the word) a leather motorbike jacket supplied by Andy.

He brings it up from a secret store and I touch it and realise that I will never get any closer to the genes of Papa Hem, or for that matter, by association, a closer proximity to Woody Allen. This is not a one-off; many and various fashion stylists and designers are acquainted with Bambino. A couple of months previously, again in Vogue, it was Kate Moss photographed by Mario Testino. I ask Andy if he has that jacket to show me, but he tells me that it’s not at the shop. I suspect it’s at home under lock and key, or more probably, under his pillow.

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In his window is a large and very complicated mixing desk that he thinks, although is not yet certain, once belonged to Alvin Stardust. ‘I bought it’, he explains, ‘because I thought it would look good in the window, I probably won’t make much money on it when I eventually sell it on, but I just thought it was interesting’. And it looks good in his window.

Andy came to Crystal Palace seventeen years ago, having previously worked on Portobello market, which had followed ten years as a technical magazine editor.

I ask him how come his shop is named after the Italian for baby. He explains that when he moved to Crystal Palace he took over a shop that had been a children’s clothes shop called Bambino and he didn’t bother to change the sign. By the time he wanted to change it, it had already become his by proxy surname. When he moved further along the street to a bigger premises the name had to come with him. I am still unclear though, I tell him, if it is Bambino, or Bambino’s. So am I, he tells me.

Jonathan Main

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23

garden parties A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO THE CRYSTAL PALACE GARDEN PARTIES 1971 TO 1980 - an unforgettable decade of deadly dry ice, inflatable dinosaurs and massive music legends

Three years ago when I first saw the curious structure that now stands where the Crystal Palace Bowl used to stand, I wasn’t sure what it was.

Ian Richie’s post-modern minimalist concert platform seems to bridge the gap between sculpture and architecture. Even in the relatively short time span of just over a decade, its colour has gone from shiny metallic grey to a deep red rust, as Richie intended; the idea was always that the natural process of oxidisation would gradually make the stage harmonise better with the landscape around it. To either side of the stage stand the twin speaker towers with their complementary rust finish, and the whole area has the air of abandonment about it.

laddish pub rock of Rod Stewart and the Faces, with the art school psychedelic rock of Pink Floyd. The latter treated the spaced-out crowd to quadraphonic sound via speakers dotted around the area, and the previously mentioned killer dry ice.

The line-up of the September gig included a pre-hits Elton John, as well as Fairport Convention, Rory Gallagher, and Yes.Yes,Yes: apparently, according to eyewitness reports,Yes were the stars of the show, and poor young Elton bored the loons off the largely hippy crowd.

But we’ll come to that later.

As I walked around the small lake (or is it a large pond?) in front of this deserted stage, I found myself meditating upon the yellow-flowered lilies that carpet its almost opaque grey-green surface. I imagined what this pond would have looked like with Rick Wakemen’s huge inflatable dinosaurs lolling about in it. Or how shocking it must have been to see shoals of dead fish float to its surface having been poisoned by Pink Floyd’s excessive use of dry ice.

Or how amusing it would have been to have witnessed the perfect cutprice-James-Bond moment when a maniacally goggle-eyed Keith Moon steered his mini-hovercraft down the hill into it, presumably to the cheers and whoops of the hirsute and beflared crowd. I could even imagine being up to my waist in water, looking up at the godlike Bob Marley as he performed his last ever UK concert.

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These are just a few snapshot memories gleaned from the numerous anecdotes that can be found on websites such as ukrockfestivals.com which are trying to piece together all the precious ephemera that exists around events like these. Because, between 1971 and 1980, the Crystal Palace Bowl hosted the kind of mindblowingly eclectic musical line-ups that no promoter today would even consider putting on. In fact the whole history of 1960’s and ’70’s rock and pop graced this modest stage during these summers of love, rain, thunder and feedback.

Rather surprisingly, in the very first year, the now world famous Harvey Goldsmith actually put on two shows: one in May and one in September. In May, for the princely sum of £1.25, the very first bill juxtaposed the

The next party took place in June ’72 and featured another eclectic line-up which included The Beach Boys, Joe Cocker, Richie Havens and Melanie. But unfortunately the party wasn’t blessed with Beach Boys-style weather, and it rained for most of the time. There was even a heavenly light show provided by a perfectly timed lightning bolt during Joe Cocker’s set, according to one blissfully stoned eyewitness.

By the time we get to the 4th party in July of ’72, ticket prices had rocketed to £1.80, the weather had decided to behave itself, glam rock had flowered, and Roxy Music were one of the featured acts. The following year, one of glam rock’s shadier practitioners, Lou Reed, disappointed the crowd by behaving like... well, Lou Reed.

But despite being grumpy, rude and uncommunicative, he did perform Walk on the Wild Side. But once again one can only marvel at the cavalier approach to festival organising that resulted in the acerbic all-in-black New Yorker, Mr Reed, being directly

Elvis Costello and The Attractions, Crystal Palace © Chalkie Davies NME 17.9.1977

followed by the introspective, lumberjack shirt-wearing Bostonian, James Taylor.

To look at the wider picture for one moment, the mid-Seventies were quite a dead period for music - a kind of hinterland between glam rock and punk - and this was reflected by the 1974 party line-up which included the now official ‘Grumpy Old Man’ Rick Wakemen as well as the grumpy old ex Celebrity Big Brother contestant, Leo Sayer. The former performed one of his interminable concept albums, Journey to the Centre of the Earth,

complete with a full orchestra and choir and those inflatable dinosaurs.

And the latter yelped his way through his novelty hit One Man Band. Also performing were Wally (who?), The Winkies (who?), and Gryphon (who, once again.)

The mid-Seventies malaise continued with the 1975 line-up of Jack Bruce, Carla Bely, Billy Cobham, Steve Harley and Steeleye Span, and we can also swiftly pass over the Eric Clapton and Guests event of 1976 too (sorry, Clapton fans), to arrive at the point at which ticket prices reached £4.00, and

- yippee! - punk had arrived.

Crystal Palace never had anything resembling a punk royal visit, from, say, the likes of the Sex Pistols or The Clash, but it did get a young and skinny Elvis Costello, although first-hand reports suggest we didn’t deserve him. Poor Mr Costello, playing before his biggest audience to date, and introducing them to his as-yet-to-be-released classic Watching the Detectives, received only a smattering of applause but plenty of jeers. Music journalist Roy Carr wrote at the time that

Rick wakeman plus inflatable dinos in 1974

Image © Hubertus Duwensee

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Costello, ‘gave the distinct impression that he was performing with repressed anger.’ Obviously Mr Carr hadn’t at that point become aware that repressed anger was every punk rock musician’s default setting.

Fortunately we can end this brief overview of an amazing decade of local concerts on an up-note. Because the final event, The Summer of 80 Garden Party, was a real humdinger!

Ticket prices may have rocketed to £7.50, but what a day it must have been. The sun shone, a marijuana joint could be bought as easily as an ice cream cone, and Bob Marley performed his last ever UK concert (he was to die just over a year later.)

Also performing were New Wave cool dude Joe Jackson and Scottish disco funksters, The Average White Band. But obviously it's Bob we have to talk about. There’s a great photo (see below) which shows the really keen fans, up to their waists in water, gazing up at the Jamaican superstar.

The whole scene is bathed in a flame and gold light, almost giving the impression that our stagnant

little pond is the River Ganges and that the Great God Marley is about to bless the faithful in some kind of Rastafarian water-based ritual.

There aren’t as many on-the-spot reports for this party as for some of the others, but that might just be due to the fact that, backstage before they performed, the Wailers passed Wailer-sized spliffs through the mesh fence to anyone who was interested. So one can only imagine (wistfully) that the most influential decade in pop music - as experienced by the punters attending the Crystal Palace Garden Parties - ended happily and hazily in a pungent cloud of tetrahydrocannabino-rich smoke.

And so we reluctantly return to the present day, and the fact that The Bowl is no longer a bowl, it’s a.... well, since 1996, it’s been the postindustrial sculpture that I mentioned in my opening paragraph. Since the 1970s only occasionally have pop concerts sprung up, such as the antiheroin event in 1985 which - perhaps unintentionally keeping up the

Vera Lynn and Lemmy in 1985 - that's showbiz!

tradition of juxtaposing unlikely acts featured the unlikely (to say the least) combination of Hawkwind and Dame Vera Lynn, who appeared together, with all the other acts, in a finale including White Cliffs of Dover.

Recent years have seen the space being utilised for an annual local bands show, but now even that has fizzled out. There is local talk of an attempt resurrect the site as a happening music space.

If someone could put on a summer line-up even half as good as some of the ones mentioned above, I for one would be more than happy to pay £7.50 - or even more - to be there.

Howard Male

Bob Marley and The Wailers, The Summer of '80 Garden Party, Crystal Palace Concert Bowl

used under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license , courtesy and © of Tankfield

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summer of love Photography by Smash Bang Wallop

Styling by Liz Clamp Clothes by Vintagehart Facepainting by Jaqueline Rice

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Fashion

S

o we pitched up one balmy summer evening in Crystal Palace

Park 'bowl' and we had ourselves our own little party in the park.

Everyone danced to 'Nutbush City Limits' on Dave's mobile phone (we

Open Thursday-Sunday 12-6pm (Fridays 12-8pm) The White Hart, 96 Church Road, Crystal Palace, SE19 2EZ Annette 07949 552926 | Dawn 07982 184657

forgot to bring a sound system) and the sun stayed out and it didn't seem such a silly idea after all.

Why shouldn't we have a photoshoot just like them proper magazines?

Peace and Love

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SO, whAT'S NOT vintage TH Howard Male tries to discover something now about now

W

alking round the Triangle these days it’s hard not to notice the number of shops trying to sell the past to us in one form or another, from the incidental selling of old stuff at Cancer Research UK, to the deliberate kitsch displayed in the window of Glitter & Twisted where a 1970’s orange Spacehopper grins gormlessly out at passers-by.

It’s all yesterday’s tack reborn as today’s ironically coveted treasures.

The ugly-then and still-ugly-now Spacehopper shares window space with Beatles coffee mugs, fake Victorian spinning tops, and boldly patterned crockery representing, I should imagine, every decade of the last century. Then across the road there’s Frankie and Lola where, according to their website, clothes aren’t ‘second-hand’ they’re ‘previously worn.’ And they’re not chucked out, they’re ‘pre-loved.’ So if you want your second-hand gear already style-checked, rather than having to go through rack after rack of unfiltered, charity shop throwouts, this is the place for you.

skip, strut and pose their way up the steps into the Big Brother house, it became apparent that even the apparel of the young (and youngish) is hardly cutting-edge 21st-century. The only item of clothing that seemed representative of the Noughties were the trousers slipping off one young kid’s skinny arse in a manner guaranteed to irritate every adult in the land (surely a primary function of fashion). But other than those silly-beyond-words trousers, this supposedly trendy and outrageous bunch of twentysomethings were dressed in a dizzying ragbag of vintage clothes: there was a Russian ex-pop singer dressed as an Edwardian magician, complete with top hat and cane; a butch lesbian with a pink 1970’s Mohican.

And an Iranian nouveau-hippy who appeared to have raided the fancy dress box of an Arabian prince, and so on.

Vintagehart (attached to the White Hart pub) also promises clothes that aren’t merely second-hand.

'Gorgeous clothes for girls from the 1950s to the 1990s’ is their bold and confident claim, and being a mere bloke, who am I to dispute them? But I will say one thing: at least if you buy your clothes second-hand (sorry, I mean preloved) you are much more likely almost guaranteed - to end up with your own idiosyncratic look.

But what choice do these kids have but to go retro? Once trendy or coolly fashionable items of clothing (such as trainers, jeans or baseball caps) are now worn by everyone from the local tramp, to your parents, to the Prime Minister.

Trainers have become as ubiquitous as grey socks; jeans are simply the trousers you put on when you’re not going to the office, and baseball caps (which, incidentally, are rarely worn by baseball players) are bizarrely thought to project eternal youth by the middle-aged men who don them to conceal retreating hairlines.

As I watched the hopeless and hapless new Big Brother contestants

But for the impoverished student (or the impoverished any-one-of-

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us these days) style has become a by-product of necessity, and an Original Look is sometimes just an accident dependent on what clothes were delivered to Oxfam over the weekend.

Further round the Triangle is Bambino: in the window at the moment is an ET torso, some helmets, an old stereogram that’s bigger than Henry VIII’s coffin (note to collectors: it was allegedly a bespoke creation made for Alvin Stardust) and a small plate with a New York scene featuring the twin towers. Regarding the latter, it’s hard to imagine what kind of person would want to eat their lunch off such an object, or even hang it on the wall. But part of the appeal of retro can sometimes be a certain subliminal morbidity: think of how the price of Princess Dianarelated memorabilia rocketed following her death. Then there’s the Bigger Picture Gallery which features wall-to-wall paintings that could have been painted at any time in the past 50 years but were probably painted anytime in the past 18 months; those American abstract expressionists have a lot to answer for.

Now that I was fully tuned in to the retro wavelength I started to notice other things. For example a couple of new local hairdressers are no longer called hairdressers, they’ve now gone back to being called barbers and they offer ‘hot towel shaves’ with a cut-throat razor. So, gentlemen, if you suddenly decide you’d like your stubbly chin to appreciate what it was like for Al Capone when he visited the barbers, book a seat now.

HESE DAYS?

Personally I’m sticking with my late 20th-century Bic disposable.

And so it goes on. Kitsch crockery, sci-fi TV-tie-ins, distressed furniture... and eventually, distressed me. Can all this retro be good for us? We’re nearly a decade into a new century yet, more than ever, seem to be being pulled inexorably back into the previous one.

So what is 21st-century about the 21st Century? Very little, as far as I can see. Computer-based technologies are continuing to increase in their power, flexibility and versatility at a rate which even techno-geeks find it hard to keep

up with. But even with computers, as soon as we get home we just use them for buying old stuff on ebay, or tracing old friends on Friends Reunited, with the rest of their barely perceived formidable power remaining dormant and untapped.

Buying old stuff has made ebay one of the most successful companies on the Internet. And its customers are often middle-aged men bidding for plastic models of spaceships they associate with a rose-tinted view of their childhood. In a recent auction a toy Dinky truck advertising the London cycle firm W.E. Boyce sold for £20,000, setting a new world record.

The children's TV series Thunderbirds first aired in the 1960s yet even relatively new Thunderbird toys from the 1990s now sell as ‘valuable’ collectables.

A professionally restored (yes, you did read that correctly) 1967 Thunderbird 2 sold for nearly £500 on ebay recently.

And even when we do get a new children's cultural phenomenon, Harry Potter, he’s essentially about as retro as you can get. In both look and style, J.K. Rowling’s schoolboy magician could have been created at any time in the last 60 years.

Then there’s music. The state of

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contemporary pop music is the very reason I became obsessed with world music; after thirty years of rock and pop being on constant recycle, I needed to hear something different! There’s not an act around today that isn’t simply a pale imitation of Abba, The Beatles, T.Rex or the Sex Pistols.Yes, even punk rock is now just a tinned and tinnily over-compressed shadow of its former self. The same simple recipe of distorted guitars, bass and thumping drums with a histrionically disaffected youth whimpering or shouting about the state of the nation, or the non-existence of his love life.

And the old bands have come back to haunt us too. A friend emailed recently to say he’d been to see The Fall and the Buzzcocks at the Forum the same day as catching an acoustic performance from The Pretenders at the Rough Trade shop. All three bands first plugged guitars into amps more

than thirty years ago, and they’re not the only ones. In fact, The Only Ones returned in 2007 and are threatening a new album..

But the public gets what the public wants, as the tediously retrogressive Paul Weller once sang. The past sells, and doesn’t seem to have a sell-by date. Star Trek is boldly going yet again, The Terminator is terminating again (this time it’s impersonal, seems to be the critical consensus), and Batman will no doubt be back again soon, tiresomely even darker than last time but with none of the wit or charm of his 1960’s TV manifestation, and so on.

Logically it could be argued that the past is all we’ve got. And that the present is just the intangible moment which - damn it - is already the past before I can even finish tapping out this sentence.

And as for the future, it’s just too inscrutable and untested

for shopkeepers, marketing men (sorry, persons - I went a bit retro there myself for a moment) and designers to want to risk a gamble by trying to sell it to us. Because we’ve always got the future wrong in the past haven’t we? Think of all those skin-tight silvery body suits that sci-fi costume designers always thought we’d be wearing by one of those once-future dates such as 1984, or 1999, or 2001.Yet here we are in the even more disturbingly futuristic-sounding year of our Lord, 2009, still mooching about in jeans and T-shirts. Will those silver one-piece suits never arrive?!

So for the moment at least it would seem we are stuck with the past.

But if any Transmitter readers notice any signs of the future arriving - all shiny surfaced and friction resistant - please do drop us a line and we’ll send someone out to take a photograph of it for the next issue.

Howard Male

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Marvellous Midsummer “What a wond’rous life is this I lead!

Ripe apples drop about my head; The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine; The nectaren, and curious peach, Into my hands themselves do reach; Stumbling on melons, as I pass, Insnar’d with flow’rs, I fall on grass” Andrew Marvell

I’m not sure that we Norwood gardeners can experience all of the bounty described here by Andrew Marvell in the early 1600s - maybe substitute melons for large marrows - but they midsummer months in the garden are ones of horticultural ecstasy.

All of the months of preparation and hard work finally pay off.

Summer is the time when the herbaceous perennial border is at its

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finest. In these first editions of the ‘Palace Patch’ I have concentrated on establishing the framework of the garden - the plants which earn their keep and provide structural interest. The perennials featured in this issue will be no exception - long lasting, good looking and hardy - what more could you ask?

poppy’ is suited to almost any soil and throws up erect glaucous stems bearing heart-shaped, palm-like leaves. From June onwards the plant is crowned with plune-like panicles of buff white flowers.

These flowers are not really the glory of this poppy but rather the beautiful foliage is the thing.

Maclaya Cordata is a marvellous plant, creating striking swathes of olive green foliage up to 8 feet tall. This ‘plune

This plant can tend towards thuggishness and spreads with impunity but it is easily uprooted and makes for

excellent cuttings to pass on to chums or place in other parts of the garden.

The Acanthus or “Bears Breeches” are another perennial group which provide striking long-lived interest in the summer border. This plant was the inspiration for the Acanthus leaf motif in classical architecture - adorning cornicing and furniture to this day.

These plants originated in S.W. Europe and are tolerant of a wide variety of conditions although they do wilt in drought conditions and will need to be watched in the first few months.

From mid to late summer Acanthus Mollis displays lipped, tubular purple and white flowers on 2 foot upright spikes.

These are very robust and emerge from a cushion of glossy dark green leaves.

They look tremendous at the back of the perennial border and last for ages.

A. Spinosous has more deeply lobed and cut leaves than the Mollis and A. Longifolius flowers earlier in the season with deep purple blooms.

In winter they are best cut down to ground level and given a good composting but in mild winters the foliage sometimes remains pretty much intact. A fantastic must have plant for the summer border.

The Lathyrus everlasting pea is my third plant. It includes a huge genus of 150 species but I am going to concentrate on Lathyrus Latifolius - the sweet pea that just keeps giving.

This perennial climber is fantastic in the border if grown out of tall containers and allowed to intertwine freely with its neighbours. My favourite containers are chimney pots - purchased from salvage yards and junk shops. These are made from Victorian clay in terracotta through to York Stone colour and have the advantage over normal pots of being open ended - enabling the plant to fend for itself without constant watering.

The Lathyrus is very hardy and each spring emerges with winged, blue green leaves from the top of the pot from early summer to early autumn long

racemes of up to 11 pinkish purple flowers are produced. These will clamber through trees and bushes or just hang down from the pot creating a column of vibrant colour. Alternatively 4 bamboo canes lashed together with string makes a perfect wigwam for the pea to climb up reaching 6’ or more.

Two varieties of the flower are “Blushing Bride” which produces pink flushed white blossoms and “White Pearl” which bears pure white blossoms. A marvellous summer specimen.

In the last issue I was embarking on a wild flower bed with a £1 packet of seed from a pound store. What a result in these credit crunched times. Scabious, poppies, statice, cornflowers a good few more I’m not sure of - I would definitely recommend these if you have a spare patch of sunny soil. It would look even more dramatic if bordered by a low box hedge for the Elizabethan knot vibe.

Happy Gardening.

Sue Williams

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Still Luigi's?

JUSTINE PAYS HER RESPECTS TO THE DADDY OF LOCAL RESTAURANTS

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I

t has only taken us twenty years to get to this historic Italian local; back in the mid-Eighties, we booked a table at Luigi’s for my birthday but had an accident on the way and ended up with a bent wheel arch and a takeaway instead. As these were in the days of tin cans and string, we never did phone and explain the reason for us not obliging our reservation. A cardinal sin in the restaurant trade.

I wondered if our name was still mud.

With a small, neat shop front on the unmuddy Paxton Roundabout – see time going backwards on the old chemist’s clock on the wall next door – the inside opened up like the tardis and, with wicker chairs and luxuriant rubber plant

parked on the handsome ceramic tiled floor, it was indeed a little like stepping back into the Eighties.

Glossy photomontage art on the walls put us in mind of Robert Palmer album covers but that wasn’t the only thing that pleased the bookseller. He was salivating over the menu before I’d so much as shucked my shoulder pads and tried to impress me with his Italian, calling for ‘Aqua frizzante!’ with a flourish.

journey. Heck, we should have gone easy on the bread...

More importantly, a bottle of Gavi di Cossetti was brought with the water, along with bread and – pleasingly – butter curls. After a browfurrowingly intellectual discourse regarding whether to have a starter and a main or to go the whole Italian hog, as it were, and have antipasti, pasta and then a platter, we opted for the latter authentic

Then, the Spaghetti allo Scoglio studded with clams, mussels and squid elbowed its way into the space between us in a very muscular fashion and it occurred to me then, that here was a robust restaurant, full of big manly portions and the bookseller was going at it like a bare-chested road digger.

I myself tried to be circumspect

Amidst a choice of fresh crab, mussels, squid and duck livers, the bookseller sensibly went for a Caesar salad, that he reported to be ‘absolutely a Caesar salad’ and I, happy in the knowledge that I wasn’t going to go home hungry, enjoyed an untwiddly dish of grilled baby artichokes & toasted pine kernels.

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but one twirl of pasta dipped in tomato, parsley, white wine and garlic rapidly led to another and before you know it, well I had been seduced by the whole dish.

I think it was at that point I agreed to a second bottle and the genial owner Gennaro came over to talk about Luigi’s part in the pantheon of Sixties gastronomy. And our main courses were winched down between us. I gazed hazily at the luxurious harem of delicately crisped Frittura Mista di Pesce before me and breathed deeply – it’s a tough job but, hey, someone has to do it.

The bookseller meanwhile had read the second chapter of the menu with the measured consideration of a renaissance man and having toiled

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sweatily at the pit face of fragrant pasta was now regarding the generous sheaves of calves livers flavoured with sage with a refined fork. Or maybe, like me, he was finding tummy space at a premium.

Oh, but they were delicious – velvety, sweet and very persuasive.

I began my working life in an Italian run hotel and it was to my boss, Pino, that I owe much of my early trade experience, such as tasting my first truffle (heavenly) and mistakenly exploding sachets of chocolate sauce in the microwave (not so heavenly). He opened my eyes to their love of variety and flair for hospitality as reflected here in Gennaro’s extensive menu that reads like a great European classic, with a brocaded parade of carne, fish – Jeff at the Book Palace says

the Dover sole is to die for – as well as the traditional Italian fare.

Delirious with the culinary assault (though very possibly it was the Italian brandy), we agreed to a dessert. I recall pushing a final raspberry around my plate as the bookseller gamely bludgeoned a surprisingly light tiramasu. Then, we were done…

It seems though evidently our name was not mud after all, we were indeed going to require heavy lifting equipment to get us home.

LUIGI'S 129 Gipsy Hill SE19 1QS Tel. 020 8895 2249 BR: Gipsy Hill

Justine Crow

a very good yeaR MICHAEL EYRE AND SOME AFFORDABLE VINTAGE WINES

V

intage. Now there’s a word. Once uttered we are instantly brought into the world of the potentially unattainable.

I feel I’ve been extremely lucky and managed to beat the credit crunch by ordering my mixed case of Chateau Margaux 2002 1er Grand Cru Classe and Chateau La Tache 1988 for a knockdown price of roughly £3,000, but there you have it, not everyone’s cup of tea, I’m guessing.

Meadow Wood Semillon/ Sauvignon 2006.

Australia @ £6.00 (case price). Drinking now.

The colour of pale straw is instantly appealing, letting the nose drift over the aromas of pear drops and light grassy notes, followed swiftly, on the palate, by a crisp, vibrant, fruity, lightly oaked, very well balanced, easy drinking piece of work.

Clearly, an excellent time was being had in Margaret River in 2006.

This having been said, I am very happy to be able to bring to your attention four fabulous drinking wines from four equally stunning vintages that will suit, not only one’s pocket, but also one’s throat.

Guidalberto Toscana 2004 @ £20.00 (case price). Keep and drink.

The deep colour pulls you, inextricably, further in towards a delightfully cedary and blackcurrant nose leading on to a palate of rich cassis fruit, grainy tannins, white pepper spice and a lovely long finish. This

In no particular order, these are they:

is not unlike its big brother Sassicaia but a tad more forward and open.

Vintage: excellent for the medium term but tops for drinking now.

Chateau Ogier de Gourgue 2005 @ £7.50 (case price).

Keep and drink.

With a colour of deep garnet and a pristine white rim, this looks like it will deliver. Hurrah! I was right.

As one inhales the heady aroma of soft red fruits mixed with the tang of mild waxed leather, whilst one lies upon the floor of an early summer forest, (Pete Sinfield, move over) this can only get better. The palate experiences the delights of a balance of fruit and tannin that is truly stunning. A medium bodied wine with a delicate complexity that

rolls on and on into a long sunset finish.

Truly the vintage of the millennium for Bordeaux.

Montecillo Gran Reserva 1985 @ £20.00 (case price).

Drinking now.

With a colour that reflects its maturity and a brickish red rim we know that we will be presented with an interesting and pretty set of aromas: these consist of dried apricots, mushroom, soy and peanut. The palate is smooth and silky with a medium finish.

Vintage: perfect for instant drinking.

All of these wines are from www.longfordwines.co.uk a rather good and local wine emporium.

As and when.

Michael

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Bespoke, sumptuous dresses that are as special as the celebration…

• Classic cocktail frocks for all occasions • Wedding dresses in glorious colours that will be long remembered Call Catherine Shaw The Overspill 4 cOOpers yard crysTal palace lOndOn se19 1Tn Tel: 07764 196 284

www.allboneandtrimit.co.uk

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THERE’S A WORLD OUT THERE! HOWARD MALE DOESN’T GO QUITE SO FAR AFIELD THIS TIME, TO BRING YOU A COUPLE OF NEW RELEASES JUST UP YOUR STREET (TURN RIGHT AT LIGHTS, OPPOSITE CLOSED-DOWN WOOLWORTH'S)

O

nce in a while we world music journalists have a lukewarm (rather than heated) debate on the question ‘what is world music?’ And there’ll always be one literalist who will point out that surely any music made on Planet Earth is world music. And of course, although tediously pedantic, they are right (I love being right - Ed).

And so bearing this in mind, with this issue’s column I’ve decided to take the notion to its logical extreme and review a couple of artists who couldn’t be further from what world music specialist magazine fROOTS calls ‘music from out there.’ This is ‘music from just round the corner,’ but in the case of these two local acts, no less interesting for it.

Meeting Your Heroes is the new album from local singer-songwriter Gavin Osborn. Billy Bragg is the most obvious influence in his phrasing and density of lyrical content, but Osborn’s songs have a more intimate, confessional bent which I personally find more appealing than Bragg’s proselytising and flag-waving. What we have here is essentially a charming bunch of short stories set to music.

The themes are lost love, found love, humiliation, and salvation, but not necessarily in that order.

Oh and there’s also songs about a cryogenically frozen baseball player and a failed Burger King hold-up. The latter, coming in at just over one minute, is a wonderfully concise bit of storytelling which made me think of the Trinidadian tradition of Calypso in which current news events are pithily set to music. The arrangements are so spare (mostly just acoustic guitar and a few light brushstrokes of violin or trumpet) that all the focus is on the words, and that’s how it should be if your words are as incisive, happy and sad as Osborn’s are. I was reminded of everyone from Ray Davies to Reckless Eric as each bittersweet tune unfurled, and every greyly English cloud of a song was saved from overt sentimentality by the silver lining of Osborn’s wit and wordplay.

Osborn seems to be one of the best half-kept secrets in the music business, being as he’s well known enough to have performed on the same bill as the likes of John Hegley, Jarvis Cocker, Stewart Lee and Ricky Gervais, but hardly a household name yet. I am betting that it’s only a matter of time.

Rumsey’s five-piece band is The 159.

It comes on like a classic Elvis Costello or Nick Lowe tune, and Rumsey somehow almost manages to make me care as much as he does about the demise of the Streatham-bound 159 routemaster bus. It was one of those domestic, everyday thrills to be to be able to run and then make that final oftpractised jump onto the platform just as the bus was accelerating away... As soon as I heard The 159 on this CD, I remembered hearing it performed live outside the Royal Albert pub last summer. And now it has set up permanent residence in my head: surely the mark of a good pop tune.

The one thing that these two local talents have in common, and should be applauded for, is that they both sing with an unapologetically English accent, rather than going for the acceptable and safe option of adopting American phrasing. Which does I suppose mean it should warrant the title of honorary world music. Next time normal service will be resumed with a fresh batch of CDs from far flung places, and probably none from Crystal Palace!

Howard Male

But if you like your local music more jangly and pub rocky, with a few nice West Coast harmonies thrown in for good measure, then I suggest you check out The Effras new four track EP. It’s apparently a promotional freebie and, if you’re lucky, Jonathan at the Bookseller Crow might have a copy or two left if you ask him nicely. My favourite of these four tracks by Andrew

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the bookseller JONATHAN SELECTS A FEW LONDON BOOKS, SOME OF WHICH HAVE A DISTINCT LOCAL FLAVOUR...

It is true that even in the palmiest days of the Crystal Palace you barked your shins over the iron girders – painted a light blue, my memory assures me – and that the boards and the flooring were so far apart that you could lose, down the cracks of them, not only your weekly sixpence or your birthday shilling, but even the sudden unexpected cartwheel (do they still call a crown that?) contributed by an uncle almost more than human. It is true that the gravel of the paths in the ‘grounds’ tired your feet and tried your temper, and that the adventure ended in a clinging to bony fingers and admonitions from nurse ‘not to drag so.’ But on the other hand…

Think of the imagination, the feeling for romance that went to the furnishing of the old Crystal Palace.

There was a lake in the grounds of Penge Park…How did these despised mid-Victorians deal with it? They set up, amid the rocks and reeds and trees of the island in that lake, life sized images of the wonders of a dead world.

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E

Nesbit, one of the greatest children’s writers of the last century, author, most famously, of The Railway Children, but also of more than 60 books for both adults and children, remembering her childhood visits to the Crystal Palace as quoted in A Woman of Passion a life of E Nesbit by Julia Briggs (The History Press £12.99).

Born in Kennington, Nesbit lived much of her early adult life in various South East London locations, Lewisham, Catford, Blackheath and Eltham, which, at the time, as this excellent account of her wilful Bohemian life illustrates, was a hotbed of early Socialist endeavour. With her husband Hubert Bland she was a founder member of the Fabian Society and moved in a like-minded circle of friends that included George Bernard Shaw, Stanley and Beatrice Webb, Eleanor Marx and H. G. Wells.

But it is as a children’s writer that she remains best known and she later returned to her memories of the Crystal Palace when in 1906 she wrote The Enchanted Castle (Puffin Classics £5.99).

Three children, Kathleen, Jimmy and Gerald, having been left under the supervision of a French governess for the summer holidays (even though the jacket copy of my Puffin edition emphatically states winter) find a secret passage to a castle, Yalding Towers, whose parkland grounds are the Crystal Palace Park in its heyday. Here they encounter Waterhouse Hawkins’ dinosaurs as well as the classical gods that E Nesbit had first seen and fallen in love with in the Greek Court of the Great Exhibition. They also encounter the daughter of the housekeeper, who, whilst pretending to be a princess, discovers a ring with magical powers that can make the wearer invisible and by turns, at night, allow the invisible one to see the dinosaurs come alive. Hermes

and his god friends too. This is great stuff, and whilst it is a children’s book, as with the more famous The Railway Children (Puffin Classics £5.99) there is plenty here for the adult mind to ponder, too.

Noel Coward, who became Nesbit’s friend in her later life, once claimed that ‘of all the writers I have ever read [she] has given me over the years the most complete satisfaction’ and it is said that a copy of The Enchanted Castle lay beside his bed when he died.

More recently A.S. Byatt, who explored the Victorian era in her Booker Prize winning Possession (Vintage £8.99), moves into the Edwardian era with her new novel The Children’s Book (Chatto and Windus £18.99) and creates a central character Olive

Wellwood, a famous children’s writer very much based on the life of Nesbit.

Annie Besant was another extraordinary woman of the early Edwardian era: a friend of E Nesbit – although they may have fallen out over George Bernard Shaw - and prominent fellow member of the Fabian Society.

A women’s rights activist she is remembered today for her involvement in the famous London ‘matchgirls’ strike of 1888 which forced Bryant and May to improve the wages and conditions of its, mainly female, workforce. She was also a member of the London School Board that introduced free secular education and free school meals. Indeed, so far ahead of her time was Besant that in later life she discovered Theosophy and the

hippy trail, living and ending her days in India. For a time, however, she lived at 39 Colby Road (then 26) just off the bottom of Gipsy Hill and she is one of the entries in Lived in London (Yale English Heritage £40.00) a handsome, comprehensive, coffee table book telling the story of exactly 800 noted lives and the Blue Plaques that commemorate them around the capital. Fascinating, but not entirely surprising just how many there are in South London – two more I could mention in these cinema-topical times, are David Lean and Will Hay, both within spitting distance of the Triangle.

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If you have a very big coffee table then you might also be interested in The Statues of London (Merrell £45.00) as a companion volume.

Apparently London boasts more statues than any other city in the world and this book holds photographic essays on 80 of the most interesting with a gazetteer of a further 100 of them. Again, fascinating stuff.

Were Annie Besant alive today, she would almost certainly have a blog and very probably a Twitter account too. Maria Roberts, a self-confessed ‘bit of a hippy’ and author of the memoir Single Mother on the Verge (Penguin £6.99) has both. At the age of 22 she escaped an abusive relationship and, with her young son Jack, moved to a women’s refuge where she supported herself through

48

university. Later still she moved from Manchester to London and now has the good sense to live just down the road, which is as it should be. Her book, which is based on her blog of the same name, is funny and tough in almost equal measure and belies its pretty rubbish chick-lit cover.

Finally a word for a couple of books I’m looking forward to taking on my holiday next month. First a new novel from one of Bookseller Crow’s favourite American authors, Dan Chaon, whose Await Your Reply (Ballantine US import £16.99) is published in the US on 24 August, expect copies in the shop shortly afterwards. And a new novel from another favourite author (and former South East London bus driver) Magnus Mills is always an occasion to celebrate.

The Maintenance of Headway (Bloomsbury £10.00) appears to be about buses and bus driving and the journey from the southern outpost to the arch, the circus and the cross.

I can’t wait.

Jonathan Main

Crystal Palace Triangle FREE Festival DEJA VU? YES, THERE ARE LOTS OF FESTIVALS IN CRYSTAL PALACE....

BUT WHO CARES WHEN WE ARE HAVING SO MUCH FUN!

Saturday 25 July will be the fifth Crystal Palace Triangle Free Festival, and is expected to be the best yet.

The event is underpinned by a great selection of live music in the triangle’s many pubs and offers fun and shopping opportunities in all the lively independent shops of the area plus an eclectic mix of established and 'pop-up' markets.

The Markets Church Road Market home made produce, bric-a-brac, antiques, curios , Andrea’s food stall..

Haynes Lane Market records, retro, books,clothes, vintage, jewellery etc.

Jasper Road Market four floors of amazing antique and retro furniture, lighting and the areas own honey.

The Alma Garden Market enjoy a pint while you browse the craft stalls, fresh produce, jerk chicken, jewellery, food, etc.

'Ad Hoc' Events and Fun All around the Triangle Lots of local businesses and shops around the triangle will be putting on special activities, so keep an eye out!

Crystal Palace Has Got Talent

outside Sainsbury's Westow Street Local heat of Croydon's Got Talent

Scissors, Paper, Rock!

Westow House Westow Hill

The marriage of Craft Fair, Fete, an afternoon play and evening gig!

Craft Fair / Fete The craft fair will bring an array of homemade but quality Arts, Crafts, Clothing, Stationery, Games, Face Painting and Cakes to the venue throughout the day followed. Stallholders confirmed include, with lots more to come...

Afternoon play Billy Ruffian Productions present The Full Nelson....

Actor Gregor Truter tells the full story of one of Britain's greatest heroes.

A human tale of hooliganism and heroism on the high seas.

Music Gig Larsen B

Glorious indie with a twist of folk.

The Lovebirds

From Crystal Palace, Bluesy and down right awesome!

The Dirty Tricks

Old School Rock'n'Roll from deepest Norfolk, expect dancing, rocking and loud stamping

Music Antenna Studios Haynes Lane open day from 12.00pm art exhibition, craft table and magic cake stall evening concert 6.30-8.30pm Summer Strings

Showcase for small group orcestras featuring young local musicians

The Grape and Grain Anerley Hill Brazil

4-7pm (South American music latin / jazz / bossa)

The Alma Church Road The Vince Dunn Band soulful jazz.

The Royal Albert Westow Hill ive music from: Jonathan (Jon Stone) Mendicant

The White Hart TBA

Also, keep an eye out for: • • •

Gez Mighty Love Sound System Mid Life Crisis

DonDidoDougDan… and Nigel

Fresh indie rock from the members of seminal 90s band Tiger Samantha Marais

Beatifully restrained folk, playing an early set before she sets off to the Secret Garden Party. + DJs until late

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Recycle it

Feeling left out about recycling?

I have come up with an idea - get an old item of clothing you don’t need or wear anymore, e.g. a top, and turn it into something else like, e.g. dress or cool socks! Take a photo and then send it in and we will put them on the transmitter website - come on join the fun.

Email your photots to cathyscolumn@thetransmitter.co.uk

yoga class 1st session FREE with this ad. £7 per 90min class Mixed ability, drop in class

Thursdays 7.30-9pm Anerley Town Hall Anerley Road SE20 8BD

What’s annoying you?

There are so many things people are getting annoyed at recently like: • The death of MJ • Credit crunch • Stormy summer weather

Elizabeth:020 8778 5396

But we want to know what’s getting you hot and bothered so tell us at

elizabethknott@hotmail.com

cathyscolumn@thetransmitter.co.uk

Crystal Palace Boxing Style Bootcamp

Every Saturday meet at Cafe Nero Crystal Palace at 9.30am and follow on to park. Pay as you Go! £5 session or £20 for 6. To register text: your name and Bootcamp to 07878445163. All fitness levels welcome!

To advertise in this really popular bi-monthly magazine

ADVERTISING

0753 0450 925

sales@thetransmitter.co.uk

Capel Manor College at CRYSTAL PALACE PARK

Are you 16–18 and…green thinking?

Could you dig Want to learn to working with plants? handle animals?

Horticulture

Animal Care

We have full-time and part-time courses in Horticulture and Animal Care starting in September.

If you’re 16–18 years old tuition is FREE. APPLY NOW! For a prospectus and application form contact: 08456 122 122 | enquiries@capel.ac.uk | www.capel.ac.uk

ENROLMENT takes place 9 er 200 b m te p e S 6 1 y a d s e n d e W

Crystal Palace Park Farm recently welcomed ‘New Kids’ – Betty, Bertie and Boris.

Why not pay them a visit?

The farm is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 10:30am–12:00pm and 2:30–4:00pm. Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays 12:00–4:00pm.

Wednesdays CLOSED. Entry is FREE. See www.crystalpalaceparkfarm.co.uk for details.

Capel Manor College, Crystal Palace Park Centre, Ledrington Road, SE19 2BS