Camberwell Information Day
Written by NickW | Filed under Development, Events, Guest Author
Yesterday the green hosted Camberwell Information day. A collection of marquees and gazebos housing plans and projects for the area. There were councilors, volunteers, architects and consultants all there to talk to residents about the schemes and proposed buildings within SE5, including the new library, Burgess Park, Nottinghill Housing Trust for the Elmington Estate and consultants from both hospitals.
The library plans were a bit of a shock. Gone are the plans to bring over the Bermondsy Spa pavilion and instead a new 1980’s style angular red and black shed is proposed to occupy the site. It will sit at a jaunty angle producing corners of unused wasted space around the triangle structure; also almost all the trees will need to be chopped down to accommodate it. Attached are a couple of renders of the plans by Cazenove Architects.
Next were plans for the Elmington plots. There wasn’t much detail about these but the council are also planning to knock down or refurbish allot more buildings in this area as soon as the Elmington project is finished. The current proposal is mostly 3/4 story terraces following the street layout and with more walkways and cycle-ways. At present it is planned that Edmund Street will have parking on both sides, this will obviously narrow the road so it isn’t good news for cyclists that use that route into London.
Both Maudsley and Kings have building projects on the go. The Maudsley is going to start a new training centre on Grove Lane later this year and due to be finished by 2013. Plans look good from the renders and model (photo attached). Education consultants were also the event to talk about the plans to redevelop the schools in the area including St. Michael & All Angels and Highshore School on Wyndham Road.
Finally the council are getting peoples emails because I think they are planning an event to discuss the road layout around the green. Oh and there was a band playing jolly music. I will update the Camberwell development map with more information on these new projects.
Thanks Nick. Further detail in this comment from Julian.
Sorry that all happened at the same time! Sorry Julian didn’t mean to steal your thunder. I think we covered different aspects of the day and we definitely had different opinions on the library.
Good post. Thanks (and Julian too)
The St. Michael & All Angels school — does anyone know how seriously religious it is?
Do you have to be a signed-up Christian to go?
Would it be tolerable for a non-religious family in return for an education?
None of the Church of England secondary school academies is especially religious compared to C of E primary schools or other religious secondary schools such as the local Catholic schools. I don’t think there is even any priority given to Christians in admission procedures, though that is not especially relevant to St Michael and All Angels as almost no parents really wanted their children to go there.
Its unpopularity and unimpressive results are the reasons it is going to stop being a Church of England academy in 2013 and become an Ark academy like the Walworth Academy, where the results have improved a lot in the last few years. Ark academies may sound like they’re run by Christian fundamentalists, but whatever the beliefs of the founders, the schools are secular.
Actually, it’s not taking new students again until 2013, when Ark become the co-sponsors.
http://www.southlondon-today.co.uk/News.cfm?id=2512&headline=Camberwell%20academy%20to%20be%20rebuilt%20with%20new
Hmm. Thanks James. Doesn’t sound too promising.
Can I mention a group called the Grove Lane Project? We are asking the Council to improve the layout of Grove Lane near the junction with Camberwell Church Street. We want wider pavements, some more trees, less wasted space.
Please take a look at our (very basic) website, http://thegrovelaneproject.blogspot.com/
where we’ve posted our drawings and plans of what Grove Lane could look like.
Do send us an email if you’re interested in supporting the campaign at grovelaneproject@gmail.com
The plan looks good Julian — it would seriously help aggregate the area round there.
The Sun & Doves is a sorry sight. Who knows who can make a pub from the wreck, though the days of pubs may be over in those parts. It’s all fancy bars these days with art but no artisans.
The Cadleigh is a fabulous local public house. It’s not for cool people aged 20–40, it’s for everyone who lives local, like a local public house.
Now who could they be, those uncool others? Who are they? Who exactly are they? Who do they think they are?
We will never know.
Dagmar, there are concerns among people who live local to The Sun and Doves that Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company might sell the building to the hospital or to a developer for housing. Rest easy, they will not. It’s ALL ABOUT MONEY. Pubco practice is to sell off freeholds only when they sense there is no future income from a particular unit and that is NOT the case with The Sun and Doves.
The Sun and Doves will be taken over by a Multiple Operator; someone like Grand Union. In fact S&NPC already have a taker. And GU is a likely candidate; it’s a much better site for their business model than the Grove.
Selling pub freeholds individually is a last ditch stand for pubcos — as long as there’s evidence a lessee can be found to squeeze the pubco’s instinct is to keep a tight grip on a pub, get a lessee in and OWN them.
There are a number of other reasons why The Sun and Doves will remain a pub:
Although pubs are falling on their arse everywhere, because the system is designed to work like that, pub companies are still posting healthy profits — they make profit while the pubs make none. Every closed pub is a potential Rent; Beer; Double Income Stream and a pubco will never give that up until they can see no way of the unit trading successfully for them.
S&NPC make a lot of money out of that building and they will turn it round as quickly as possible so they can get back to milking again.
There is no way that site would get planning permission for change of use. It’s clearly a viable business, if the pubco shilling is taken out of the equation.
Next; RBS owns the building (and 900 or so other pubs that S&NPC ‘manage’ on RBS’s behalf) and they would be inclined to sell the freehold only as part of a package of pubs to some bidder who is already in the pub business.
We were trying to buy The Sun and Doves’ freehold for the last four years. Not interested — they were making too much money out of it.
This below is taken from a facebook group ‘Licensees Supporting Licensees’. It’s a series of posts made there up to yesterday.
By the way everyone — We left the Sun and Doves at about 4.30am on Friday morning, 23 September 2011, five hours before the bailiffs were due to lock us out. We left the pub EMPTY — no bar, seats, tables, lights, no stainless steel splashbacks, we took the trellis around the front garden and the gave the rosemary plants to customers. We dug the mature bay trees and other plants out of the back garden and sold the water butts to a cafe. The kitchen, the accommodation, the office, as much as humanly possible that did not belong to S&NPE/RBS we removed carefully and sold off or gave away.
Slept most of the last two days — was completely exhausted after all that working with the best and most friendly and caring people — our customers who came to help us carefully dismantle and remove The Sun and Doves from the building. And can I tell you this? I’m broke, I have no security (apart from friends of course) I have no home, I won’t be able to see my kids as much as I did, friends are putting me up until I find somewhere settled and I’ve signed on whatever… everything’s up in the air, not sure what’s going to happen and YOU KNOW WHAT? It’s a LOT, lot better than what it felt like every day for the last sixteen years. In fact tomorrow it IS sixteen years since I signed the lease in 1995. It’ll be SWEET SIXTEEN PROPER!
The police called me yesterday and asked me, very politely, about what had happened because S&NPC want to press charges for Criminal Damage and theft. They said the fixed seating, the bar pumps and the primary cellar cooling equipment belonged to them, that I’d stolen it and could they have a crime reference number. I explained: All this is equipment that I bought and installed myself during a refurbishment I did in 2006 which then was then sold to a lease hire company. I recounted the FACT that S&NPC has a detailed list of all the inventory, including this equipment, which proves that Title (ownership) belongs to someone else NOT them. S&NPC told the policeman that the cellar cooler alone was worth £10,000. Now then — this is the same equipment they always refused to service, which I ultimately replaced with new, it cost about £5K in all, which they always told me is tenant’s F&F. It’s not complicated folks: these pubcos are bullying lying cheating thieving Feudal bastards. They MUST go to the wall and end the blight they have brought upon the pub industry and the tradition and heritage of the British Isles.
It’s all good at the moment, no stress. Except the bankruptcy hearing but I’m sure that will not kill me so? Whathehell?
Soon you’ll be able to buy into Britain’s pubs with The People’s Pub Partnership: http://bit.ly/qpe85z Help Make Change Happen
The Morning After: http://bit.ly/nlPL1c
@ Che Mark Dodds
I can’t even begin to imagine what you have been through in recent years — but I do admire your tenacity regarding the fair pint campaign. That is really something to be proud about — including the positive judgement by select commitee announced earlier this week.
My only concern is that the recommendations in that report will take many years to come into effect — and many more fantastic local community pubs will close in the meantime.
Now that the beer-tie has been identified as something which needs to be removed — is there a danger that the pubco will make up the shortfall by increasing the already unrealistic rents even further — or has the report made a note of closing this dishonest loophole too?
@ Julian
Good Work — I see the green shoots of a potentially good plan there. It makes perfick sense.
Any chance of getting some of the grovers to help the Camberwell Village Hall campaign?
@eusebiovic thanks young man, much appreciated.
You’re right recommendations are only recommendations — the Select Committee presented a timetable for reform which would take a year to implement if taken up. But there’s nothing to say that Vince Cable or Ed Davey will actually enact anything for the future health of pubs.
And it is a sure thing that while they can, pubcos will be screwing more and more out of their estates — because the employees know the writing is on the wall for the beer tie and their unregulated shenanigans cannot go on for ever.
In the meantime the important thing to so is to spread the word about the tie as wide and far as possible and try to deter innocents from signing their lives and savings away forever.
The keen situationist does well to start Monday morning in Scope on Denmark Hill. Their sound system and choice of music are excellent, their books department well stocked.
William Hall’s biography of Michael Caine was available today. The story of Caine and his mother Ellen who worked her fingers to the bone for her two sons while his father was in World War Two makes poignant reading in these strange times.
To read their story helps frame our current SE5ituation of gastrobristos and the gastrognomes who linger langorously there over their langoustines.
The situationist turns up her raincoat collar against the cold, lights a Strand, walks off alone.
Nice to see the autumnal leaves being roasted on the trees, like Marlboro tobacco. Word is, the Cadleigh will soon close. Where have all the pubs gone?
Falafel next door to Stormbird is incredibly good. And the prices are incredibly good too. If you haven’t tried their food you simply must.
Fresh, well judged clean flavours, basically everything they make is from good ingredients and just delicious, healthy pleasure…
The end of my affair with Camberwell: http://bit.ly/otnrSg Well not entirely: http://bit.ly/qpe85z
I will be gutted if the Cadeleigh closes, although sadly unsurprised; even in the few years I’ve been going there I’ve seen business plummet; not even the football brings in the crowds of old. And it’s no reflection on the owners, Dermot & Mary, who run the place really well; it’s just that for the people who frequent there, the price of a pint is measured against a four-pack from the supermarket, and found wanting. But it’s my local, a proper local, where people know each others names, and that’s almost beyond value.
I have more to write, about the Sun & Doves, but no time to do it. Soon.
@Mark — Falafel is top notch. We’ve used them for parties on occasion too — never had bad food from there.
Definitely up for the PPP — was involved in a similar venture previously but I think the people running it got bored or something as nothing concrete came out of it.
This looks like a great idea — can’t wait to see the next phase. Will email you separately.
Peter
Agree entirely. A proper back street boozer, which i’ll be very sad to see go.
Tomorrow has the Oopening at GX Gallery of Ed Gray’s new exhibition http://www.gxgallery.com/exhibition/ed-gray/
And it’s also the last day of Frank’s Cafe and Campari Bar on the Peckham car park roof.
If the weather’s like it is this evening it should be a brilliant place to spend Friday evening.
Good stuff, Mark, you make a good freelance. Word is Cadeleigh will close in a year or so, but still, shame. It’s a good, plain pub made by the people who go there.
Ladies and Gentlemen of Camberwell and further afield…
If any of you have photographs of The Sun and Doves — from any time, of any thing, I’d be much appreciate it if you could send them to mail@sunanddoves.co.uk and I’ll add them into a set of pics on the S&D flickr stream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thesunanddoves/sets/72157627768939632/with/6190633108/
By the way, the police rang again today. C.I.D. this time. Now S&PC are saying it’s radiators and a hot water cylinder that I stole. They want to press criminal charges.
A day to celebrate.
The scaffolding around the Hermits is finally coming down.
We’ll all get wet now when we have a fag though.
The streets were alive with the sounds of continental promenading last evening. It was good.
Frank’s was MOBBED; there must have been three thousand people. Easily. Went to the Montpelier after — MOBBED too. So went to FM Mangal to eat good food. They were busy too.
The Bear is closed — saw Peter’s Tweet. For ‘maintenance’: http://bit.ly/qglbpq
If you didn’t get to the opening of Ed Gray’s new show at GX Gallery last night here’s a snapshot of the evening: http://bit.ly/qz0dsj
Ed’s first major solo show was at The Sun and Doves in 2003: http://bit.ly/nefqTV That’s where Davide Mengoli, GX Gallery’s owner, met Ed and forged a relationship representing him that has lasted all these years.
The pub was a habitual stop off for Ed’s friends and family after his openings at GX: http://bit.ly/nOw77l
No Sky Sports in the Hermits anymore. End of an era.
Darts and dominoes, then. Austerity. Arm wrestling.
Not just darts and dominoes but shove ha’penny and cribbage for small stakes.
I’ve always loved that sign in old pubs.
I do love a game of cribbage too.
The arm wrestling’s already taken off in other parts: http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/6022274434/lightbox/
Bar billiards needs a bit more space.
Backgammon
In the old days we used to talk to each other. No-one used to listen, though.
See what I mean?
My grandfather taught me to play cribbage. It’s become a forgotten game. I’ve almost forgotten too.
Deal five and two in the box, or deal six and players choice? What’s the London version? My grandfather was in Hampshire.
Cribbage is a fantastic game. I play it all the time. As do a lot of people I know. Forgotten game nothing.
Deal six and put two in the box. It’s the best option I think.
Talking about the old days…now that Camberwell Leisure Centre has been fully re-opened — does that mean we’ll be able to go down the local baths and catch polio?
I jest of course! — I love what has been done to that building.
A thriving community isn’t just transport connections and a real estate mix.
Civic pride is as important as it ever was — we shouldn’t lose sight of that.
It seems to me that the dreaded “regeneration” word gets people backs up because modern architects and planners regularly fail to remember that basic, simple all-important fact.
What a pity it was Regenguru’s “Baby Linen” lingerie shop that was burned down on Rye Lane during the evenements. No wonder we haven’t heard from him recently.
The ladies in the window may have been dummies but boy were they sexy. You wear the lingo then bingo the baby comes virtually instantly. Like they used to say about Guinness in Africa, “There’s a baby in every bottle.”
As Marc Bolan sang, “Regenguru, where are you?”
Oxjam Camberwell Takeover 22nd October 2011.
The weekend before my bankruptcy hearing is going to be fun and excitement all around the SE5 area. Live music and all manner of performance, dance and burlesque is on in most venues in Camberwell. The Sun and Doves was going to be the main venue for this great fundraising weekend but hey. Time waits for no dude.
See here for flyer front: http://bit.ly/n4xgia and back http://bit.ly/n4xgia
and HERE for the Oxjam Camberwell Facebook page: http://www.oxjamcamberwell.co.uk/
and HERE to buy tickets: http://www.wegottickets.com/oxjam/f/2886
The newly re-opened Clarendon Arms on Camberwell New Road has both Sky Sports and ESPN, though.
The Old Dispensary also has Sky Sports, if you can get through a game without being stabbed.
I’m being mean. I watched Spurs v Arsenal in there and it was fine.
That wasn’t very clever.
Managed to put two links to the same image for the Oxjam flyer, SORRY. Here is the BACK: http://bit.ly/pvpjTj
Oh yes. Heard that Southwark are seriously considering demolishing the Bussey building AND the multi storey car park.
Course that’s all I was told, nothing about the bigger plans that lie beyond such eventualities.
What’s happening to the library? The Pavilion been dumped in favour of some red thing?
The best bread in London — and therefore in the world — is to be found at Percy Ingle’s who have a branch on Deptford High Street which is not far from here.
http://www.percy-ingle.co.uk/
How on earth did you find out about Percy Ingle? How come the masses don’t know about this bread?
You are so right, John! Their Low Glycaemic Index bread is the best in the universe, by Jupiter. It is not often that I agree with the gruff middle-aged men of Camberwell, but you have stumbled on a genuine gem, John.
@J Mark Dodds
I anticipated that the demise of the multi-story car park on Rye Lane may not be too far from reality quite some time ago. These brutalist buildings are being dismantled all over London. Brixton’s went earlier this year.
Ah! but Bold Tendancies and Frank’s Campari Bar are there and the Premier Multiplex — why would Southwark Council want to get rid? Fun places but the reason they have appropriated various sections of a municipal multi-story car park is precisely because it will be on it’s way out before too long.
So that means the only cinema theatre facility left in Southwark will be the Surrey Quays Multiplex.
Hmmm — I know of a rather attractive cinema theatre building in Camberwell that could and should be used as a community arts centre with a cinema…It could easily happen — if some of the individuals who run Southwark Council showed a little lateral thinking and long term vision.
A modern build squeezed into the increasingly compromised Elephant and Castle re-development couldn’t possibly compete with the attractive shop-front of a fully restored 1930’s art deco building at the crossroads of the entire borough.
How about Mark Dodds becomes front of house manager at the Bingo Cinema Community Arts Center?
My friend the Restaurant Inspector might agree with you John, if it came to pass that it were made, by divine intervention of course, available to the non-faith faithful people of SE5 and beyond.
Went to Wuli Wuli last night. Chilli echoes of the delicious Saliva Chicken, Smacked Cucumber, Wet Spinach and Garlic sauce and Twice Cooked Pork reverberating through my alimentary canal, and beyond, this morning.
Is Wuli Wuli good, then? I’ve never been in there. What’s the consensus?
What do you mean you’ve never been!
Gives Silk Road a run for their money, but very different food at the same time.
Go for the Chinese menu (as opposed to the English menu at the start of list).
Try the green beans (with or without pork). The Lamb with cumin, and if you are feeling brave have the chitterlings. Delicious.
On another note, went to the Poetry readings at the library last night. Some amazing stuff. Not a massive poetry fan but there was one girl there with her dad who should become the next poet laureate. Made me realise that being white is easy.
Beautifully written, beautifully expressed.
Her dad read “How Do I Love thee”, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in a way that made the poem unrecognisable, i.e. interesting.
There’s a poetry slam on at the Peckham Library on Saturday night at 7pm. Hopefully the girl and her dad should be there. Well worth it.
Wuli Wuli is *really* good. There’s a great chilli beef dish that’s served in a lettuce leaf.
They do hot baby chicken, like wow.
Wuli Wuli is excellent, really. As told above the front of the book is the familiar menu you’ll see in any standard Chinese takeaway. Go some pages in, though, and the menu changes radically to Schezuan.
I’ve been there four or five times now, never cease to be impressed by the quality of their cooking and well judged combinations of flavours. Chillis are used a lot, and some dishes are far too firey for me to cope with but they are receptive to requests for less heat and knowledgeable about what they are serving. I assure you, it’s really good.
The chitlings are delicious too. I have a photograph of the menu somewhere which shows some interesting dishes with some even more interesting spelling mistakes, like Flogs Legs, but irritatingly right now can’t find it.
The wine list is keenly priced well presented and, perhaps unusually for a Chinese, good.
Go there and enjoy it.
Quick. Everyone. Down to the Hermit’s Cave. Celebrate. The scaffolding is down!
Apologies for the corporate tone, but thought everyone would like to know that in July Camberwell Baths submitted a bid to the Olympic Capital Legacy fund, and we have just heard that our bid for the Sports Hall ( to be known as the Olympic Hall) has been successful.
Subject to final approval, the Sports Hall will receive £490K funding, which is matched by the £500k funding allocated from the capital programme earlier this year.This means that Camberwell Baths Campaign has nearly reached the target of £1m for this project.
The bid was for a refurbishment of the Sports Hall to make it usable for a wide variety of sports as well as community cultural activities including dance, music, spoken word events, comedy, theatre and film shows.
Bathlady. Well Done! HOORAH!
ONE £MILLION is a helluva lot of money — MUST be used creatively and effectively. Now’s the time to plan what’s going to happen during the refurbishment and up to when it’s finished so it can hit the ground running when it’s ready to go.
Who’s responsible for programming events in the new facility and running the marketing and promotions?
What sort of licenses are available for the premises already?
How many people allowed on the premises and how do they get in there and out and what do they sit on and how is the storage going to be managed for all the kit needed to make a multi use space work well?
Does the plan include fixtures and fittings and equipment or does Camberwell need to start money raising so the venue can be used by people once it’s finished?
Do you know how the acoustics of the hall are to be managed? Very important to have good acoustics. And there needs to be appropriate sound and lighting rigs incorporated at first fix or else there will be problems with surface fixing down the line.
There needs to be refreshments. Has anyone thought about how to service the hall with food and drink? Are the cafe concessionaires (not invited from the local area by the way how did that happen and was an impact study done when they were invited to take it on) able to accommodate more business?
Now we must encourage CAMBERWELL, everyone in SE5, to get on with a visioning programme of events that can take place there when it’s completed.
Help! First, it’s Jenny Agutter, now Lorraine Chase. Will there be any famous actresses left in Camberwell?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-2047423/Lorraine-Chase-sells-Georgian-pad-paid-classic-adverts.html
Calm down, dear, it’s just a Daily Mail article which says, anyway, that Lorraine is looking to downisize in the area. I didn’t know she was from ver Dog Kennel ‘Ill estate! Cor blimey! as they used to say round here.
Also, Jenny Agutter is dividing her time between here and West Cornwall, so we are not to be deprived of the two national treasures and jewels in are crarne that are Jen and Lol.
It’s nice that Bertie Wooster from Wooster & Stick says that people want to stay in Camberwell. Sometimes it seems a bit rough here, but it is such a multi-faceted jewel that it is hard to come up with a cliche worthy of this multi-fascination.
Did anyone see that article in Living South some time back about performers in their youth, featuring our other national treasure Jenny Eclair with a pic of her look exceptionally crumpetty when young? She’s sort of crumpet with marmite — you either love her you you ate her.
Or you hate her. (What’s happened to the edit function here?) More importantly, well done, Baglady, that is great news about the Baths. We may well need to put our imagineering hats on with ideas for the new hall, but the public seem to have a way of life going on-ing without wearing any hat at all.
As someone who was born and bred in Camberwell, educated at Lyndhurst Grove Primary and then Mary Datchelor, it is interesting to read about “modern” Camberwell as it is now.
Does anyone else remember Doctor Lettsome’s cottage (bombed during the war) in Camberwell Grove? Or the little patch of woodland on the left hand side of the Grove,approached from a garage forecourt and backing on to the houses? We thought it was the country side and loved walking there, despite being regularly chased away by the occupants of the houses.
We spent a lot of time being chased by the tweed suited park keepers in Ruskin Park who were determined to keep us in the area by the swings and paddling pond and were highly suspicious if we dared to walk in the Rhododendron and Azalea garden or sit for too long in the shelters!
There were four cinemas too, The Odeon, The Regal, the Golden Domes Slightly less salubrious)a and the Blue Hall — a total flea pit! The Camberwell Palace was still putting on Variety Shows after a short spell as a cinema. And the jam factory just behind it perfumed the air with whatever fruit they were cooking that day.
I am 80 now and living in Essex but I still have happy memories of growing up in Camberwell.
Saliva Chicken ?
Eileen, how nice to hear your memories of Camberwell. There are some areas that I’m sure are just as you remember them; the buildings on the corners of Camberwell Green are the same, although they have new businesses inside them, and parts of Grove Lane and Camberwell Grove are well preserved too. Unfortunately the cinemas are all gone, as is the jam factory.
Doctor Lettsom’s cottage is gone, but there’s still a small park near where it stood, and a big council estate still bears his name. Lyndhurst Grove is still a school, but Mary Datchelor has recently been converted into flats.
This book might interest you: Camberwell Through Time shows photos of old and modern Camberwell for you to make comparisons.
On an unrelated note, there’s a comment awaiting moderation which I’m in two minds about publishing; it contains some potentially quite libellous accusations. On the other hand, it’s not my place to censor.
As the Duke of Wellington said: Publish and be damned.
Hi Eileen lovely to hear of your memories of the area. It’s changed a little since you were here, be we love it!
The Cycle scheme managers are having an online meet the managers session next week on the 18th October.
This is a great opportunity to press the case for bringing the cycle scheme to Camberwell. Put your case to them on the form in the link below.
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/corporate/media/questiontime/default.aspx
I mentioned the fact that this is a massive bus interchange, with 2 cycle highways planned, and no tube. Could also have mentioned the massive increase in housing and the effect this will have on transport.
The more people who nag them the more likely we are to be heard.
Peter
It’s your site so you’re liable. If you think there’s a risk of libel I’d keep it off site or go back to the poster and ask them to amend.
Hey Dagmar,
Just found this and I think you’ll like it, you being a railroad enthusiast.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=422_1318288596
Peter you may be interested in a ruling last year about the labourhome website, comments added by users and the owner’s liability — there is a good description on the libdemvoice website http://www.libdemvoice.org/high-court-clarifies-blog-owners-liability-for-libellous-comments-18764.html
Chunters, thanx, that is great. Now everyone can see why trainspotting is so sexy. It’s not just the wearing of anoraks and other nylon attire and the blinking from behind pebble-lensed glasses due to over-excitement. It is the thrust and thud of the cylinders in the privacy of the engine shed!
Eileen Myland — yes, the woodland off Grove Lane is preserved — you get a key off the Lettsom Gardens Association for a few quid a year and can let yourself in. It is still old woodland. They have a bonfire night every year, a big do. Otherwise, it’s a great place to go all year round and just like the countryside. My two daughters love it, so do I.
Anyone got any insight into what’s going on with The Bear? All it has is some handwritten notes posted on the windows saying it would be closed for 3 weeks for emergency maintenance purposes — I am concerned about my lovely local
It should be open again very soon.
Some electrical works being done to it.
If not, We have a real problem with a party we’ve got booked there in December!
Does anyone know the best pub to watch the Wales rugby game on Saturday morning?
Anyone got any idea where this building might be?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LONDON-POSTCARD-YE-OLDE-CAMBERWELL-FAYRE-/390234015361?pt=UK_Collectables_Postcards_MJ&hash=item5adbc28681
@Monkeycat Don’t know where the building is but the photographer (and publisher) was one Albert Flint who worked out of 68 [Camberwell] Church Street. By all accounts a go-ahead chap he went up in the world when his business expanded in 1887. See http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/evanion/FullImage.aspx?EvanID=024–000004550&ImageId=52095
I think that is the sports hall behind the camberwell baths. Its still there and looks just like that.. except in colour.
That’s the Cambria on Saturday night.
There’s an update on John Friary in Southwark News.
http://www.southwarknews.co.uk/00,news,24751,185,00.htm
The whole thing sounds strange. Is it actually a crime to groom a “minor” if the “minor” turns out to be a fake hoping to blackmail you?
Not much to be proud of for either party.
Also in the Standard:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23997851-councillor-faces-jail-over-graphic-emails-to-girl-15.do
and the Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2048689/Labour-councillor-campaigned-Harriet-Harman-admits-grooming-15-year-old-girl-blackmailer.html
It has to be a crime — the intent was there. He thought he was dealing with a fifteen-year-old girl.
Anyone who comments on this case is implicitly implicated, the Daily Mail implies, so let’s change the subject. After all, half the crooning quasi-Mail quango-Guardian bourgeois of Camberwell and Dulwich should be hanged by the neck until dead — if that’s what turns them on — for being smug, smarmy, prim, primped, perfectly predictable and generally clogging the psychic airways of our postcodes.
Also, a quick glimpse at most Facebook walls will graphically show that half the real 15-year-old girls in the kingdom should be sent on national service for their provocative quasi-manga profile pictures alone, let alone their snot-raking posts thereon.
What a nice day today — tomorrow even better. Come on Wales! Tomorrow at 9am they play France in the world cup semi-finals. Now is the time to convert and watch the rugger.
I agree with Dagmar — time for a subject change, I think.
Eileen’s earlier memories of Camberwell of old is hard to visualise. 5 cinemas & a jam factory! I remember the one where Nando’s now is & of course, there’s the old Bingo Hall on Camberwell Rd. Presumably one of the others was where Butterfly Walk now is. Was Walworth Bus Garage one of the others?
There is an interesting website — http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Camberwell.htm which details all our lost cinemas
Talking of former cinemas — does anyone know what the current state of play is with regards to the Gala bingo place?
And you can see the locations of the cinemas on this map which I really should develop more: http://map.camberwellonline.co.uk/
For the record, wherever that may be, John Friary is a good man who has done huge amounts of good for many, many people, selflessly, for decades.
There is no way on earth he deserves anything of what he’s been put through and what’s still happening to him now.
If he were a local councillor, I’d vote for him without hesitation.
There. I wish I’d said that a long time ago.
As for Gala Bingo — it’s a place where divine interventions are common occurrences. This MUST be true because Pastor Adeleke and his fine wife, in all their finest fine finery, say so.
Consequently ‘they’ are openly advertising their religious services now.
However, as ‘they’ say. I am SURE that before Pastor Adeleke and his fine wife paid 3 million quids for the Cinema — it was just as godless as the rest of Camberwell and there was no divine intervention there whatever.
I’m looking for work. Very versatile, wide ranging background experience. Any offers considered.
j mark dodds — why dont you reopen pauls olive shop?
Or train to be a pastor?
how’s this for an intervention? (btw there’s two pages to the flyer) https://picasaweb.google.com/102203747502387048964/Peckham#5663832755664431010
Funny you should say that Frazzle… Maybe I’ll try and reopen Paul’s Olive Shop with Skevvi AND train to become a Pasta.
INVALID JESSE… CURED http://bit.ly/pUM5VQ
@Mumu/Peter — thanks for the links. I’d completely forgotten the Snooker Hall on the Green. I am blown away by the fact that Grove Lane had a roller skating rink!
Back to the subject on topic. God and his divine interventions with the Redeemed Christian Church of His Name; re the link above heartfelt apologies to Mrs Jessie Jenkins for missing out the ‘I’ in her “Now No Tablets, No Pain” name.
And congratulations to Mr R. B. Charteris; Cambs who says: “I WAS NOT A BIT RELIGIOUS — SEVERE ARTHRITIS — NOW A NEW MAN”
Church of England Leader Canon Malcolm Widdecombe, died 2010, is quoted as saying something very nice about the RCCG championed healer and his abilities to make many people walk home after arriving on crutches or in wheelchairs.
Let us walk away from this.
Ok Dagmar… What should happen at Paul’s Olive shop then?
The big housing development that burned in January 2010 http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/sets/72157623150668836/with/4250674506/ has gone bust. Nothing happening there currently.
What should happen at Paul’s Olive shop then?
< < Whole Food store with eat-in food. A Camberwell branch of Food for Thought. Not sure how big the market opportunity is, but it’s wide open.
Or maybe a co-operative venture.
What does anyone think of “The Shard”?
Good views of it once you get up the hill a little.
I didn’t like it at first, but now I do, kind of. Or maybe I still don’t. Conceptually it’s a ludicrous capitalist spire. Still, it’s way better than the abomination at Elephant & Castle.
Edit: Renzo Piano, the architect, is apparently a cool guy. So maybe I do like it.
Thanks Gabe.
Please, everyone, keep the thoughts coming for the Olive Shop.
The Shard is interesting, I find. http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdodds/sets/72157627182949279/with/5965309571/
Ed Gray, whom I love, his show ‘All This Useless Beauty’ at GX Gallery in Camberwell featured in the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/8823031/Fly-on-the-wall-painter-Ed-Gray-celebrates-the-industry-passion-and-drive-of-Londoners-and-London-itself.html
it would be great if the olive shop became an organic, natural ‘whole foods’ shop — in a local sense not in a poncy way, especially if the days of cruson may be limited, (i hope it always continues). An East dulwich deli meets camberwell!
We already had a whole foods shop, Basic, on Denmark Hill. I shopped there infrequently, as did most people.
BTW, here’s the comment I received recently which I was dithering over whether to publish. I’ve removed the identifying details, I hope:
People of Britain!!!
Please take note of this, because I really hope you will decide not use this establishment having read this!!!
My slant isn’t of the food, or the service, the ambience because I have never been here to have such rights to judge, but please read on and decide for yourselves.
I have an overseas friend on a 6-month visa. She cannot work on her current visa, but stupidly agreed to work in this restaurant for 2 days cash in hand. (more fall her I guess)
Granted she was not legally allowed to work here, but please read on before you make judgement. The proprietor agreed to pay her by cash.
He agreed to pay her £4.60 an hour and she worked 2 days from 11am to 11pm.
On leaving on her final day, the proprietor of this so called legitimate UK business, said there is no payment. On asking why, he said f*&^ off and go to the police, see if I care. He knew she couldn’t report him!!!!! Yet he was breaking the law by having them work there in the first place.
What really bugs me and I am taking off my non political hat here, that this a [[redacted]] restaurant, and I must admit I am now questioning how many of their staff actually have a permits to work here in the UK!!
The owners of this business have completely abused someone’s rights under the illusion of being a legitimate business. Visa or no visa, everyone deserves the right to be paid for the work they have done. I write this because I cannot sit back and let this happen here in the UK. From my experience most legitimate British businesses don’t do this and follow the law. What give this cafe owner the right to do this. Go back to the put you cruelled from. This is modern slavery, extremely corrupt; they should not be in business.
I am so angered by this that I have decided to take this further.
I would ask anyone with any empathy, compassion and any morale standing to skip this premises, walk on by and go to next one. If we continue to ignore these things then what will become of this already broken United Kingdom.
wasnt basics the one thats been hit by a bus?
id like to know the name of that restaurant!
Probably a tough business running a whole food shop, depending how it’s set-up, etc. I used to shop there, but not that often. I’d guess the temptation is to go for the higher margin supplements & vitamins market.
On that note, I can recommend Persia in Peckham. Well worth supporting and good products too.
Peter — which restaurant was it? Local to here or what?
There is another restaurant (maybe the same place) in Camberwell equally exploitative. My daughter applied for an advertised job there as a waitress. She was asked to do one shift and then another unpaid to see if she was suitable. She then chose to walk away. More of this will go on in these hard times and the poorest and weakest will suffer most.
Dagmar keep on keeping on!
God drives the 468.
D.H. Lawrence passed through Camberwell today. He is out of fashion, but everyone working anywhere should read the Rainbow and Women in Love before they feel qualified to deal with people.
Lawrence is a Class 92 built by Brush. We remember that the last engine to pull a British Rail train was the Class 92 Beethoven in November 1997.
Has anyone noticed, though, how many D.H. Lawrence lookalikes there are these days, especially within the new draft of art students?
Earnest young men of skinny trouser, tubercular chest, dark beard and distant, disapproving look. Can a world war be far away?
Patrons of Basics, take note!
ON Peter’s redacted letter — I’m not surprised at all, I’ve heard of the same practices carrying on in other local businesses.
The Bear opens again tonight. I heard it was electrical problems.
Maude, gawd, I got a postcard from Grace from Morocco. Said she was making loads. It was a short message, but good in these days, I suppose.
For various reasons I am beguiled by the portrait of Kitty Fisher in the National Portrait Gallery today. To see the life in life is extremely enlivening.
Maude, it may have been Monaco.
TTFN.
(Is that still txt language these days?)
Peter’s letter covers something important, obviously, but the reader wants to know who sent it and who it is targeted at. Is it someone local?
I can see why you’d redact the name of the target, since how do you know anything about the sender or their motivations. Once you interface the publication of info you’re potentially liable for slander.
Shitty practice, thou. I wouldn’t want to spend money at a place like that.
A correlation between world wars and earnest young men of skinny trouser, tubercular chest, dark beard and distant, disapproving looks.
Oh man, I’m stocking up on museli and brown rice.
Gabe, Gabe, dude, you don’t mean to say to Peter, “Shitty practice, thou.” You mean “THOUGH”. Dear, oh dear, who said spelling was boring? Peter may have redacted and even rendered a little but he hasn’t exactly waterboarded. Word will spread which restaurant it was — that’s just village life. Well done Peter. It is his exemplararily gentle and open-minded manner that keeps this excellent journal going.
Oh yeah, Peter is boss. I was meaning exploitative employers.
For those looking for some poetry/ jazz/ bands/ stand up comedy, Oxjam Camberwell takes place tomorrow at 7 venues across Camberwell (The Tiger, Grand Union, Joiners Arms, Crooked Well and others). It’s all in aid of Oxfam, £10 a ticket, and goes from 2pm in the evening.
Indiaah!
Don’t forget our friends at Indiaah. Had a delivery from them last night. Fantastic.
I believe there will be burlesque at the Crooked Well. At around 11pm.
Basque folk singing.
Dagmar, I met someone in the Coop in Denmark Hill who said that her son was living in Monaco and commuting to London to work because he didn’t want to pay tax. Do you think our Grace is hanging out with that lot of no hopers? The same lot that like to set up companies based in Guernsey…maybe she’ll be off there next. Good riddance!
What does TTFN mean?
Some body told me that those DH Lawrentians are the sons of venture capitalists but I’m not sure I believe them. The annual influx of art students is a joy. Will they be back next year though?
TTFN is Ta-ta for now, a somewhat WWII phrase, like SNAFU.
Yes, the gilded ones. The problem, though, with living in places like Monaco is that one’s neighbours are as deeply superficial as one and “more so” in everything.
What a fabulous day. The short train ride from Denmark Hill to Sevenoaks will reveal the forest showering the earth with bronze, silver and gold coinage — Celtic, Roman, Danish and English.
Did most of the Oxjam takeover rounds of Camberwell last night. Missed lots of acts just because there was so much on. Was great to see everywhere busy. It really demonstrates what Camberwell COULD be like already if it were not for usurous pub companies sucking the profits from their pubs thus reducing their tenants’ ability to reinvest in the area and IF the local authorities had anything joined up locally.
Why weren’t Hermits and errrr, Stormbird not part of it?
Noticed that NEVER GIVE UP has been given the heave by Stormbird. I wonder why.
See this thread around a viewpoint of St Paul’s cathedral from the Tate Modern end of Millennium Bridge, it’s fascinating and some of it is visually stunning: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandarinokid/243679734/
Speaking of St Paul’s Cathedral, I was in the vicinity today for my bankruptcy hearing in the Rolls Building — it was civilised and calm although the lighting in that newly appointed space is absolutely dreadful. Working there will be an awful strain on anyone’s eye.
So, hearing done, and given that my financial ruin has been brought about by corporate greed, thought it worth taking a walk up to St Paul’s to see whether the ‘Health & Safety’ issues preventing public access to Christopher Wren’s glory, thus losing the church £16K in missed revenue, are plausible. They are not.
It’s quite clear that the church has been compromised and has closed in order to put pressure on protesters to leave. The whole atmosphere of the place is calm, peaceful and composed. And the people protesting are polite and willing to bend over backwards to comply with requests to change anything they are doing which, inadvertently, may cause a threat to public safety or to the church.
Bumped into that NICE YOUNG MAN who used to be the manager at Funky Munky. The one with slightly red, wavy long hair. He’s older now. As am I.
Let’s occupy St Giles churchyard. Bring along a can of Tennent’s Super Brew. It is the same price as Carlsberg Special Brew, but the “electric soup” has far more attitude.
Thanks to everybody who recommended Wuli Wuli. Had a great meal in there the other night, with very friendly service.
See None At Friends United?
And there is a stunning red tree in front of a blue pebble dashed house at the corner of Lyndhurst Grove and Crofton Road. And so much fallen, bruised fruit along the highways and byways.
The art students flock to the front of St Giles for their lunch break.
The Church of England is a bureaucratic structure and part of the ‘establishment’ of this country. Such institutions do not take risks or seriously threaten the status quo. There is too much vested interest. Some individuals might but the command and control power structure will always attempt to isolate and disempower them.
This sounds a little gloomy though I am not!
Maude! Have you been to Nonsequiturs R Us on the Old Kent Road again? Followed by the Sibelius symphony cycle with a man walking in front with a red flag?