Everyone has a story on the Islington Faces Blog.  Twice a day there are lovely people all over Islington donning big weatherproof jackets and hats in a mix of reflective and florescent materials ready to escort children safely over the road. So, do lollipop men and women have time to tell their stories? Just about finds Nicola Baird (so long as you arrive to chat a long time before the school bell rings). See how much you know about lollipops in the Lollipop Quiz below (plus answers at the bottom of this page). If you like this post do become a “follower” so you get a post once a week about people who live or work in Islington.

Jane: lollipop lady for Gillespie Primary School students.

Jane, outside Gillespie Primary School, N5
“I’m a teaching assistant so I work in the nursery and with reception too. It’s nice seeing the children before school, in school and then after it too”. That moment a small boy and his mum give a wave and shout ‘Bye Lollipop!’ The little children can’t always believe that I am Jane from inside and also the lollipop lady. My 19 year old came to this school, my 11-year-old is now at Highbury Grove School and the nine-year-old is here. When our lollipop lady retired, another lady did the job for a year, then she left. When I saw the job advertised I thought I could do that, and I got the job. I’ve done it for four years. It’s an under-rated job, we have to put up with a lot of rubbish from car drivers and cyclists too.”

Ronnie: lollipop man for Joan of Arc Primary School students.

Ronnie, outside Joan of Arc Primary School, N5
“In winter it’s tempting to stay in bed, but this job is what gets me up in the morning.” It’s just past 3pm on a chilly November afternoon but Ronnie is as ever enthusiastic. “I’ve just been to Cheshunt to see my grandchildren – mind you I’ve got a car, so why not?  They were going to automate us, use a beletia beacon. I wondered if we would be a thing of the past. But here I am – a real lollipop man.”

Nora: lollipop lady on Drayton Park/Martineau Road.

Nora, outside the Drayton pub (opposite Tesco) waiting for the students heading to Highbury Fields Secondary and Drayton Park Primary School, N5 plus the tots going to nearby nurseries, such as Highbury Community Nursery, N5.
Nora always chats to the folk using her crossing – but she doesn’t like her photo taken.

Pauline: lollipop lady at St Luke’s School, EC1.

Pauline, outside St Luke’s Church of England Primary School, EC1
Pauline is a skilled multi-tasker – she was happy to pose as the school bell hadn’t yet rung, but I couldn’t ask her any questions as she was busy talking on her hands free phone animatedly discussing shoe shopping.

DO THE LOLLIPOP QUIZ (answers below)

1 Can you think of another word for lollipop lady/man?

2 What’s the opposite of lollipop man (if it’s not lady)?

3 Why are they called lollipop people? (this is easy!)

4 When and who invented the term lollipop man/woman/lady?

5 If you are a driver do you have to do what a lollipop man/woman asks you to do?

Over to you
Did you notice that all the “lollipops” wear different yellow hats? I’ve never said thank you enough to my kids’ (and their friends) lollypop lady. What do you think of the way lollypop people keep our children safe and how did you get on in the quiz?  By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. And yes, this blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

LOLLIPOP QUIZ ANSWERS

1 School crossing guard/patrol/supervisor, more history at wikipedia or the Daily Telegraph newscutting here

2 I don’t think this word exists yet – could you make it up?

3 Because their sign looks like a lollipop

4 In the 1960s during a schools’ safety programme – ventriliquist John Bouchier’s “character”, Charlie, called the crossing patrol personnel lollipops – and the name stuck.

5 This is a quote from wikipedia: “Under UK law it is an offence for a motorist not to stop if signalled to do so by a patroller. In the past patrollers only had the authority to stop the traffic for children. However, the Transport Act 2000 changed the law, so that a patroller had the authority to stop the traffic for any pedestrian.”

Everyone has a story on the Islington Faces Blog. Alex Smith from Islington Local History Centre and Islington Museum helps keep many more local stories live and accessible – a hard task when you realise that there are more than 100,000 pieces of information stored on site at the Finsbury office. Interview by Nicola Baird.

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Books worth studying if you want to know about local school history.

Alex Smith can help you unlock family history and Islington info right back to the 1600s.

Books for sale at the Islington Museum. (including top row, right, the fascinating record of a house in Cross Street getting a makeover)

More titles on sale at Islington Museum.

There’s no doubt: Alex Smith loves talking history, which is lucky as she’s working with an historic archive that includes maps dating back to the 16th century, lots of information about Hugh Myddleton (who funded the New River and has a square named after him and is splendidly ruffed up at the statue on Islington Green). There are also photos, electoral registers, census details and the archive of newspapers for the Islington Gazette (founded in 1856), the now defunct Holloway Press, and also the Islington Tribune.

“Part of the joy is the way someone remembers, but also it makes you think about what you mean by history. It’s good if people have some feeling of enjoyment as they remember.” There’s a pause as Alex, 30, adjusts a makeshift repair to her glasses which are currently held together with a pipecleaner and glue gun after they broke when she was attempting to bend them back into shape…

Even if Alex is having trouble with her specs, she can still tell that I’m puzzled by her answer, so explains it with a story. “My step-sister (who is 11 years older) is a professional oral historian. She’s worked in coal mining and woollen industries and finds you need time to interview and time to calm the person down afterwards. The past is not always a comforting memory. Some people are happy to open up, some aren’t. It is really difficult to ask people to open up a section of their life which is either very private or very sad. And then kids can’t believe it when they hear their gran used a long drop toilet, or had to wash in a tin bath in the kitchen or didn’t have electricity.”

Try looking closely at this portrait of Gee Street (see below for the detail).

As you enter Islington Local History Centre look out for the giant black and white portrait of  Gee Street, just off Goswell Road, when the borough was overcrowded and a little squalid. The two-up, two-down homes with a front door opening straight on to the pavement would nowadays be a highly desirable location, as it is a stone’s throw from arty Clerkenwell and the City. But here the photographer has caught an old pram tied to a drainpipe; a man reading on his doorstep (probably because it was too dark inside without electricity); and there’s a harassed looking lady sitting on the opposite side of the street keeping watch over three or four children playing by the roadside – and it’s safe because there are no cars (or double yellow lines!).

“In 1910 just Finsbury had 100,000 people, there was a lot of overcrowding, ” she explains – now the whole borough of Isington stretching from EC1 up to Archway has close to 200,000 people. And with that she whisks off with characteristic energy to untangle the history of anyone who’s ever lived in Islington. So is she ever tempted to think about her own roots? “I’ve never looked at my family history,” answers Alex who grew up in Leeds and still has a slight northern lilt, “I spend most of the time talking about everyone else’s family history, that’s enough.” Go team Alex!

If you are interested in finding out more about your family – or just curious about Islington – do go and visit. The Local History Centre and Islington Museum are both wheelchair accessible, a 10 minute stroll from Angel tube or just by the 153 bus stop.

Islington Local History Centre, Finsbury Library, 245 St John Street, London, EC1V 4NB, tel: 020 7527 7988 or email local.history@islington.gov.uk. it is open on Monday and Thursday from 9.30am-8pm; and on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday from 9.30am-5pm. It is closed on Wednesdays and Sundays. It is also closed daily from 1-2pm.

Islington Museum with gallery, exhibitions and events is at 245 St John Street, London, EC1V 4NB, tel: 0207 527 2837.  Despite google claiming the museum has been shut, it is not. Visit on Monday to Saturday from 10am-5pm (but it is closed on Wednesdays and Sundays). Recent popular exhibitions include the Roma – but there’s always something special on and lots of hands-on activities for younger children too.

Over to you
What do you think  about finding out your own family history, do share in the comment section below? By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. And yes, this islington faces blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

David Goodman: runs Roman Bar & Grill, N7.

Everyone has a story on the Islington Faces Blog.  Here’s how Londoner David Goodman started his own tapas place not far from Caledonian Road, N7. Interview by Nicola Baird.

David Goodman runs the Roman Tapas & Grill on a street corner close to Caledonian Road & Barnsbury Station that also boasts the Hemingford Arms* and the Fig restaurant*. He was brought up in Chelsea speaking both French and English. Then in his mid ’50s David decided to semi-retire and headed to Alicante in Spain. There he fell in love with tapas – the classic Spanish snack cuisine.  ”I like the small portions, and the big variety of dishes,” he says simultaneously welcoming in a customer, and taking an order from a mum and her daughter for olives, rice and a glass of white rioja.

You’d think learning Spanish and how to cook tapas might keep you in sunny Spain, but David decided to come back to  London to run his own restaurant. The result is the Roman Tapas & Grill, which opened in 2010.

Evidence that food is good – empty plates as you study the dessert menu.

“Islington is a nice place. I thought Roman Road was a good spot. We get high court judges, but I’m terrible with actors’ names so I can’t tell you which famous people eat here. Islington’s not snobby. It’s very welcoming here – I’m even planning a Christmas party for all the neighbours,” says David. And with that he gets back to the evening shift which should see many of his customers ordering chorizo (spicy sausage), goat cheese stack (queso de cabra gratinado) and patatas bravas (deep fried potatoes with a spicy tomato sauce). But the most popular dish at the moment is a dish David created, espresso ice cream.

“I like discovering new dishes and inventing dishes – I’ve been working on a beef stew too,” adds David. So if you want a taste of the Mediterranean, with some flawless cooking thrown in, the Roman Tapas & Grill may be the place to visit.

Roman Tapas & Grill, 1a Roman Way, London, N7 8XG, tel: 020 7609 8034

Words

Hemingford Arms, 158 Hemingford Road, N1, tel: 020 7607 3303

Fig restaurant, 169b Hemingford Road, N1, tel: 020 7609 3009

Over to you
Can you cook tapas or do you prefer to eat it with friends at a restaurant in the Spanish style? If you have a tapas suggestion for David, please just add it below. By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. And yes, this blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

THANK YOU READERS! The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. This is what they found:

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,400 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 4 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Everyone has a story on the Islington Faces Blog.  JK spent his very early years in Ghana but came “very excitedly” to Islington aged seven and a half. Here he shares a little of what it was like growing up around Archway in the 1970s.  Interview by Nicola Baird.

JK: came to Islington aged seven and a half. He’s still here.

“I was seven and a half when I came to Islington. I was very excited to come to the West with my brother (two and a half years older) and my half-sister (eight years older). We’d been living in Ghana with Nana (our granny) about two hours from the capital Accra. We’d been waiting to join our parents. My father came to London five years earlier in 1972, and my mum in 1973. That was 1977. I can’t imagine doing this now to my daughter and son. I’ve become very sentimental and western,” says JK with his characteristic big laugh as he tries to explain what it was like growing up in an immigrant household. He’s talking to me in St Thomas’ Church hall, N4 while our respective children are busy at the chess club.

“In Ghana a number of kids were waiting to join their parents, and in London it wasn’t unusual for people from my home town to stay for three months or even a year before setting themselves up. My Nana visited in 1985 and stayed for a year!

JK’s mum, a caterer for the police, and dad, originally a teacher who then retrained as an accountant (and went on to work for LBI for 10 years), had a flat in Tufnell Park, N7. “There were six of us in two rooms and a very small kitchen.”

He went to Yerbury Primary School for a term and when his parents were rehoused by the council to a house in Archway, N19 where they still live, he moved to Ashmount Primary School. Secondary saw him at Tollington Park School which was renamed George Orwell School four years later (it’s now Islington Arts & Media, IAMS). Sixth form was in Barnett. He then went to Kingston University subsequently specialising in accounting systems.

“I remember going down to Arsenal for the last 25 minutes. You could see about one goal or so and hadn’t spent any money! We got our pocket money on a Sunday so there was usually nothing left by Saturday – it was quite good to do something for free. The friend I went with ended up being on the Arsenal coaching staff: definitely my friend with the best job.”

“My family were Catholic on my dad’s side. It’s not unusual for Ghanians to go to any church, the big difference is between traditional religions, Islam and Christianity. When my dad was a teacher in Ghana it was common to post teachers to different villages for two year stints, so if a village did not have a Catholic church, he’d just go to the church they had. Ghanians tend to be more religious – I put it down to having more variables you can’t control.”

Islington in the 1970s

• Catholic Italian families, based around Clerkenwell, sent their children to St William of York on York Way. The Irish Catholic boys went to St Aloysius, N6.

• Pie shops were big – there were at least two at Archway, one at Hornsey and one at Chapel Market. All gone now.

• Squats – lots along the top of Holloway road and down Marlborough Road, N19.

• Arsenal tickets were free (for the last half hour).

• Pricey phone calls “.. a phone call to Ghana cost half a week’s salary… In those days the only phone in the village/town was at the post office. Someone would go and summon my gran (usually) to come and take the important call from London. Nowadays all our relatives in Ghana have mobile phones and have taken to calling us.”

“The big change in Islington is gentrification. It’s happened all over London and the new communities have gone. When I grew up it was mainly Irish, West Indians, Africans and Greek Turkish. The Greeks have gone, the Turks been replaced by the Kurds and the Irish are still here. Most of the white kids were Irish when I was growing up – my best friends were Darragh and O’Neil.

“When I was growing up the racists were in Islington South. The National Front were giving out the Bulldog outside what is now the Angel shopping centre. The Packington estate and Kings Cross were notorious, but Islington North was OK. My growing up years were not marked by racism.”

JK may have spent a few years in Tottenham and other parts of London, but to his surprise he’s ended up back in Islington. First in a small flat opposite his old school at Wray Crescent, N4, and then in Finsbury Park raising a family.

“There was a time when inner cities were not a place to live, but in the last 30 years that’s changed – people with money want to live in inner cities,” he adds. “When I left school if someone had told me what I’d need to spend to buy a house in Finsbury Park I’d have thought they were a madman!”

Over to you
What was your experience of growing up in Islington? Did it make your a Gunners fan too? By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. And yes, this blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

Everyone has a story on the Islington Faces Blog.  Red-haired Jet Osman is a grandmother, committed vegetarian (she calls herself a “virtual vegan”), cat-lover and new for 2013 determined to get a piece of her typically 3D-art exhibited at the Royal Academy’s summer exhibition (10 June- 18 August 2013). The work’s finished – it’s a spider – so fingers crossed. Interview by Nicola Baird

Crocheted electric cable used by 3D artist Jet Osman.

Red-haired Jet Osman is a grandmother, committed vegetarian (she calls herself a “virtual vegan”), cat-lover and new for 2013 determined to get a piece of her typically 3D-art exhibited at the Royal Academy’s summer exhibition. The work’s finished – it’s a spider – so fingers crossed. Interview by Nicola Baird

“I grew up in Holland, north of Amsterdam,” explains Jet Osman who moved to the UK in 1960 to “perfect my English.” She spent three months working as an au pair with a family in Stratford-upon-Avon, but was missing the bright lights so decided to move to London. Parisian friends had given her a contact and “lo and behold, they just needed an au-pair”. Jet liked the family. She met lots of their friends, some of whom had vintage cars so found herself invited along to vintage car rallies which she loved.

Here Jet points to the mantelpiece which has a colour photo of her Triumph Spitfire which she only recently sold. “I love driving and I loved that little car. I’d always wanted a sports car” – she finally fulfilled that particular dream after several years of hard but fun work making and selling hand-dyed goodies in Covent Garden Market, where Jet owns a fashion stall, now for sale.

“I only recently sold the car because it kept being vandalised in the street as it was so different from other cars. And of course parking and humps, the latter really spoiled driving in London for me, so bus was easier, particularly with a freedom pass! I also used to have a Vespa in the late ‘50s. My little sports car and my Vespa were my favourite means of transport.”

After au pairing she found a job in London that was “dull” but made use of her Dutch. “At some point I met Brian. We lived in Gray’s Inn Road, Bloomsbury for a bit, then when I was pregnant with Sebastian – our little boy who died – we looked for another place and came to Islington. I’ve been here 47 years now and this is where our younger son Alex grew up.”

The flat is not far from Highbury Pool, where Jet swims regularly, or Waitrose which she loves to use for its range of vegetarian food. Although it has no central heating the sitting room is made cosy from an oil-filled electric radiator and a little electric blow heater. By the bay window there is a pair of implausibly high fake leopard-skin platforms, bought from a second hand shop on Holloway Road, which her adored granddaughters, aged 12 and 15, like to try modelling. Behind the shoes and a cuddly toy for her cat Ottilie, named after a favourite Scottish jazz singer, is an old spinning wheel. The shelves boast a collection of Jet’s art – one I love is made from crocheted electrical cable. Jet calls it Stress – having nestled a red ball inside the crochet coils to signify the pain of an ulcer, but the look from a distance is similar to bleached coral reef.

The walls are white, as is the carpet, but the ceiling is painted with sun-tinted clouds. It’s very restful sitting on the sofa turning your attention from the clouds to the view outside – today snowflakes are falling softly. “I didn’t paint the clouds,” admits Jet, “but I had the idea. That’s the best for anything but my own art – to have the idea and then get someone else to execute it!”

Jet’s artistic style is to use “whatever I like the look of, so I can do quite a lot of work at home, here in Islington. But for some of the more toxic materials or specialist tools I go to a studio in Chelsea one day a week.”

“I’ve done loads of travelling,” she adds, and as the decorations in her flat suggest. “I did have the idea of living in India because there was a lovely house, and the same in Turkey. But I’m best off in London. I love going away but I love coming back. I’m not really a country person, there are too many creepy crawlies.” And on that note Jet gets ready to head off into the cold to see if her spider – named Incubus - can weave a spot for itself at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition.

Over to you
Have you had a dream you fulfilled in Islington?  By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. And yes, this blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

Student Sarah Graham on the 2012-13 Journalism MA course at City University wanted an interview with the interviewer of Islington Faces blog… So this is the interviewer’s story. If you’d like to contact Sarah, you can follow her on twitter @SarahGraham7 or have a look at www.sarah-graham.co.uk. And a big thank you to Sarah for this lovely interview.

Islingtonfacesblog; me, big cardi and sleepy dog.

Nicola Baird, author of Islington Faces blog, is just as you might expect an environmental journalist to be – an affable, suburban hippy, full of warmth and passion, and wrapped in a thick woollen cardigan.

Her blog, launched last summer, profiles the stories of ordinary locals’ lives and, driven by her fascination with people, Nicola can talk endlessly about her interviewees.

“I find those first few moments, when you talk to somebody and they tell you about their life, very powerful,” she says. “It’s fascinating, and you kind of fall in love with everybody really.”

Yet Nicola is initially reluctant to have the tables turned on herself – modestly insistent that her own story is “not very interesting”.

A cursory glance around her kitchen suggests this isn’t true. It’s a rustic, homely room, cluttered with books and children’s handcrafted creations, and a scruffy terrier, Vulcan, is asleep on a chair.

This kitchen is a hub of fun, creativity and laughter, where the echoes of lively family discussions hang in the air long after Nicola’s partner, writer Pete May, has left us to ourselves.

Nicola indicates two old flat irons on the table, telling me her 11-year-old daughter, Nell, found them in the cellar and they repaired them together.

“She’s going to use them as bookends,” she says. “I think it’s lovely for kids to have a DIY project, but she had to want to do it, so I was really lucky she discovered them.”

Brought up in rural Hertfordshire, Nicola settled in Islington in 1986, after graduating with a politics degree from York University, and has been here almost ever since.

Having struggled to find journalism work in the bleak economic climate of the late 1980s, Nicola eventually landed a job at Horse and Hound magazine.

Despite a lifelong love of horses, Nicola’s equine subjects weren’t enough: “There’s a limit, if you’ve studied politics, to how much you can write about horses,” she says. “So after two years I really couldn’t do it anymore.”

Taking the skills she’d learnt at Horse and Hound, Nicola jetted off to a “very, very different” Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) job, working on a magazine in the South Pacific’s Solomon Islands.

“There, to get people’s confidence, I had to learn a new language, so I did all my interviews in Pijin. But to get an interview with a woman I’d have to spend about two days peeling sweet potatoes before they would start opening up.”

Returning to Islington after two years, Nicola launched her career as an environmental journalist and went on to spent ten years editing Friends of the Earth’s magazine, Earth Matters.

She has written seven books, including co-authoring Save Cash & Save the Planet, and now works as a freelance writer, but “like most people now I don’t really have one job.”

Nicola teaches feature writing and blogging at the London College of Communication, she is a busy mum of two daughters – 14-year-old Lola and 11-year-old Nell – as well as a horse riding coach and a school governor at Highbury Fields Secondary School.

Blogging, then, is Nicola’s side project – she has three active blogs, including Islington Faces, http://aroundbritiannoplane.blogspot.com and http://homemadekids.wordpress.com. “It’s a desire,” she says. “If you like writing you can’t stop yourself.”

Islington Faces, she says, was inspired by The Gentle Author’s “really beautiful” blog, Spitalfields Life, while Highbury Fields School provided a second source of motivation.

“We got the money to make a short film about what some of the parents thought about their school experience, from all over the world,” she says.

“That was really perhaps the start of this idea of Islington Faces blog because we got 20 people talking about their education. There were so many extraordinary backstories,” she adds.

“Because I was working freelance I was getting antsy and wanted to do more interviews. I’m quite nosey so I was talking to people anyway and kept thinking, ‘that’s such an interesting life’,” she says.

Since September 2010 she’s posted one interview a week, and says she’s fascinated by people’s experiences of modernisation, subjects from different cultures, the changing face of Islington, and people with “a passion for something”.

“I’ve tended to interview people who have skills – people who could upholster, or talk several languages, or be great at catering. I think craft is a real something to be treasured and praised.”

Nicola’s blog can be found at: http://islingtonfacesblog.com/ or track down the full list of books at www.nicolabaird.com

Everyone has a story on the Islington Faces Blog.  Suppose you knew that cataract surgery was one of the 10 best health interventions to reduce poverty, would you ditch your job to find a way to cure reversible blindness in India’s poorest states by the year 2020? Highbury’s Lucy Mathen, 60, did. Interview by Nicola Baird.

Lucy Mathen at her Second Sight
office desk.

“Everything begins and ends with blindness,” says Lucy Mathen with customary force. At first this idea seems strange because Lucy spent 15 years as a journalist. Her career came to a halt when she did a television interview with a doctor in Afghanistan that made her feel a fraud – the doctor thought the interview might help his cause, Lucy knew it would change nothing.

So at 36 she left to retrain as a doctor and became an ophthalmologist. The plan was to do something more effective in the world, an ambition she aims to fulfill by working in two of the poorest Indian states, Bihar and Orissa, which also contain the greatest number of people who are unnecessarily blind from cataract.

Lucy Mathen: “Everything begins and ends with blindness.”

Lucy set up the charity Second Sight in 2000 – it still has its HQ at a desk in the corner of her bedroom. At first she funded the charity by continuing to work as a locum ophthalmologist. This was also a good way to enthuse her fellow British ophthalmologists to volunteer as eye surgeons to go out to India to carry out cataract surgery. Lucy herself clocked up thousands of miles of travel to the remotest parts of India, assessing hospital teams and persuading Indian ophthalmologists in private practice in the cities to do their bit to cure the rural blind. Twelve years on Lucy runs Second Sight full-time and there are over 50 professionals who volunteer in all kinds of roles.

Noble as both this achievement and her charity’s zero overheads are, it doesn’t explain how Lucy is also managing to kick child marriages into touch, educate poor girls and get women well-paid, skilled hospital jobs … all thanks to a football academy in Bihar.

Turns out this curious link between football and curing blindness starts thanks to Lucy’s fondness for a kick-around on Highbury Fields that’s been going on for 20 years. “My daughter Leyla, then about eight, came home from Drayton Park School in a fury. Our family is sports mad and she was a very good footballer. Her team of girls had lost their match. She said it was because they chose all the best boys for the boys’ team so they won, but with the girls the coach said oh poor little so and so let’s give her a go. The best players were left on the bench, and so the girls lost. She did not like losing.’

To soothe Leyla, Lucy suggested playing a regular footie game with other families every Sunday on Highbury Fields. “Most of us had never played football. The girls were very good and we played so often we got better and better. Soon there were so many players we could play 11 aside – and it was always mixed teams. Then the girls grew up and went away to uni and the adults continued.”

Fast forward to 2013 and Lucy reckons the team members “are getting too lazy to turn up every week but it’s still a tradition to play on birthdays.” Her point is that everywhere you go people love football. “There are always people to play football with,” she says. “They may have bare feet, but there’s always a pitch.”

That’s how on one working trip to Bihar, in the north of India, she ended up playing a game of football with girls in the village of Mastichak and the head of the Akhand Jyoti Eye Hospital, Mritunjay Tiwary (who also turned out to be a fanatical footballer). For Mritunjay, it got synapses flowing that has led to something beautiful — a football academy that helps give families the option to educate their girls and get them hospital jobs — rather than marry them off at 13 or 14 years.

The story is well told in Lucy’s book, Runaway Goat, which she sells for £20 – “buy a copy to cure one person of blindness”. And now there’s another Lucy project, a film about the footballing Indian girls, Junction for Having Fun, which makes the football-cataract connection even easier to follow and will hopefully see a big spike in Second Sight’s fundraising fortunes.

“It’s a drag being an inspiration unless it gets people to do something,” says Lucy passionately, and she should know – in 1976, aged 23, she was the first Asian news reporter/presenter on TV thanks to her stint on John Craven’s Newsround. “I want people to think ‘I can do that’, not ‘that’s inspiring’. Taking the film around opens up people’s eyes – it is about all these wonderful Indians in the film. Audiences watch it and then everyone bounces out saying ‘I wonder if I could do that? What could I do to help?’”

The work Lucy’s doing to cure needless cataract blindness is superb. Do have a look at her book or the film – or just make a donation to Second Sight. All it takes is £20 to cure a blind person, plus a very readable book into the bargain.

Find out more

FILM – Junction for Having Fun (50 mins) is on tour at various film festivals, look at this link to find out if it’s near you. On 22 February 2013 it will be shown at the Keswick Film Festival, Theatre by the Lake.

BOOK – Spend £20 which will cure one person of blindness and you get Lucy’s “lovely little book” Runaway Goat (that’s a quote from the venerable Dervla Murphy, whose first book in 1965 was Full Tilt: from Ireland to India with a bicycle). Buy it via here, or from John at Travelmania, 125 Holloway Road, London, N7 8LT, tel: 020 7700 4844. Or borrow from Central Library, Holloway Road.

DONATE TO THE CHARITY – Look at Second Sight, which needs money in order to 1) eradicate cataract blindness from the worst affected and most neglected areas in India by 2020, 2) help partner hospitals establish themselves as eye hospitals able to provide all aspects of eye-care to the highest standards in rural India.

MORE ON LUCY  – You can see a fascinating summary from the Guardian printed after Lucy won the inaugural BMJ Karen Woo awards (Nov 2012) to recognise doctors who have gone beyond the call of duty.

Over to you
Have you had a dream you fulfilled in Islington?  By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. And yes, this blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

Everyone has a story on the Islington Faces Blog.  So what’s it like growing up in Islington these days? On ITV’s Girlfri3nds Charles Williams, the fourth generation in his family from Islington, was billed as the bad boy – but these days he’d rather be at the gym, the footie or his job… Interview by Nicola Baird.

Charles Williams: “Being on TV was very surreal. People kept asking for my photo.”

“I might sound old-fashioned,” says Charles Williams, over a big mug of tea in the Ecuadorean El Rinca Quiteno Café off Holloway Road, “but kids are always indoors now and I blame consoles. When I grew up I’d knock for my friends and then go and do something outside. I was a dare-devil child – and loved to play Runouts* where we lived. I was 12 or 13 and my big brother was with the older kids on the other team. We’d jump from roof to roof! I look back and think what was I thinking?”

“One game, Letterbeats, was a bit rough,” he admits with a laugh. “There were two teams who both picked a random word, like the name of a football team, and then each team member had a letter. Then you had to run away. If you got caught the letter was beaten out of you – it wasn’t real beating just dead arms and twisted nipples.”

“If we weren’t playing these games we were always out playing football in the park, or kicking a ball against walls or garage doors or playing football tennis. The swings and slides where I grew up have gone now. Still older people prefer it – it’s a lot quieter!”

In some ways Charles, 22, is old for his age. He may have a lip and nose piercing but he’s had a job since he left St Aloysius School at 16 years, first working as a scaffolder – which left him with a good head for heights – and then in retail at the Angel.

And he’s been on TV as potential love interest in ITV2’s Girlfri3nds – a show with three girls trying to find love. “100 guys met the three girls in their house, and they all picked six different lads to date. The story about my girl Amy was she was looking for a bad boy. It was quite nerve wracking but after a while you forget the cameras are there. And they edit it too.”  You can see a video clip here.

As a result TV viewers found out that Charles from 17-19 years had a gambling problem, rather than finding out about his gift with jokes and being lovely company.  “The thing was when I started scaffolding I had no outgoings so I started going to the bookies for electric roulette and then the casino. When you are winning it is a brilliant buzz, but when you lose you just want to win it back. But bookies are quite droll places, it’s where alcoholics go. I eventually decided I can’t be in this environment. I’ve got to stop. I confided in my mum and she helped me – she’s been through a lot herself so she can relate to things.”

His confession seemed to work for Amy too – who picked him.  “And then I had to pick a date she’d like so we went to the pedalo boats in Regents Park.”

“I got very popular on twitter” says Charles amused by the effect TV has on women. “When the programme first aired I had about 100 twitter followers. I had a £50 bet with my brother that I’d get to 1,000 but I ended up with 9,000 followers. Girls beg me to follow them! Being on TV was very surreal, but I got through to the last two guys until Amy let me down gently. But it was good for me, I got quite a lot of attention from girls after it! When I go out people still ask me for pictures.”

“I was proper naughty growing up but I had a really fun childhood. I’m not going to lie – people used to steal mopeds, and though I didn’t steal any I did have a go on them. A lot of people I grew up with have done prison sentences  – they’re still nice fellas, it’s just they path they lead and I don’t look down on them, they’re the background where I came from. I feel safe in Islington. I couldn’t see myself living anywhere else. And even if I did move out I’d be back to see my family.”

Charles’ family may be one big draw for him to this area, but there’s also his passion for Arsenal. “I’m a club member and go to every home game with my brother, Ricky, 26, and two friends. We’ve got really good seats right next to the away fans,” he says happily.  He doesn’t just watch the football, he also plays whenever he can – and to do that he stays in training. So if you don’t pass Charles Williams heading for a meal with his family, or to work in Angel, then you may find yourself meeting him in the gym. Which is where he is probably now.

===

Follow Charles on twitter @chigg_will

El Rinca Quiteno Café, 235 Holloway Road, N7 8HG (close to Holloway Road tube)

Words*

• A very tame version of how to play Runouts is explained in this video here (also has the rules if you want to try it in the playground!).
• Video game console
• The Girlfri3nds website offers plenty of tips on how to date

Over to you
What’s your life like in Islington?  Please share a few of the games you used to play as a kid or what you like doing best here (whatever your age). If you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. And yes, this blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

Chris: devoting time to canals.

Classic canal design: teapot and coasters on sale at London Canal Museum.

Everyone has a story on the Islington Faces Blog.  Here’s just a little about the magic of the canal – a passion that brings Chris P to the London Canal Museum as a regular volunteer. Interview by Nicola Baird.

“It’s only 200 years ago the canal was built,” said Chris on the front desk of London’s Canal Museum striking up conversation. “In 1820 when they build the Regents Canal it was all fields on the north side [that’s from Angel and King’s Cross heading up Caledonian Road]. The New River was finished 200 years before (in 1603) and it goes above the canal at the Islington Tunnel. That’s quite a feat of engineering. It’s one of the few 1,000 yard tunnels that are straight,” he adds with admiration.

“I always had an interest in canals. Now I’ve retired I can devote time to them,” says Chris who has been volunteering at the Canal Museum for nearly two years. He’s a proper canal devotee, pointing out that, “since 1974 I’ve taken holidays on the canals, so over 35 years I’ve managed to do quite a lot of the canal network. I like the up to date bit of having a holiday and enjoying industrial history.”

The section of the Regent’s Canal that runs through Islington flows from the converted Hitchcock Studio, past the Narrow Boat pub, Hanover Primary School, through the long Islington tunnel and past the Guardian newspaper’s new offices at King’s Place, off York Road. It’s a route that is always busy with walkers, cyclists, joggers and birdlife (coots, moorhens, herons, geese etc). The attraction is as much a car-free path as seeing all the boats. There are plenty of barges to spot, and a lock or two, but also kayaks from the Islington Boat Club. From May to October you can try a taste of a bargees* life on a short canal boat trip run from the museum’s wharf.

Chris doesn’t live in Islington but loves volunteering at the London Canal Museum. “It attracts a real cross section – people keen on canals, students looking for work experience and the chance to meet people who come here who are interested in the subject and want to talk about it. Even now go through any city by canal and you’ll see a different way of life. You don’t get road rage, people chat at the locks. I think it must be something to do with the speed of the boats, it makes you slow down.”

• London Canal Museum  is at the former ice house used by the famous ice cream maker Carlo Gattix. It is open Tuesday to Sunday and bank holiday mondays, small entry fee. There is an excellent exhibition of photos from the 1940s and 1950s of the last generation of working bargees and their families, taken by Robert Longden, a Coventry factory worker. Location: 12-13 New Wharf Road, London, N1 9RT 020 7713 0836.
• Enjoy theatre on the canal again this summer. Mikron Theatre plan to perform Beyond the Veil and Don’t Shoot the Messenger on 8 and 9 July 2013 at the London Canal Museum. Booking essential.
  
•  Angel Canal Festival with boat trips, stalls and music is on the first Sunday of September, in 2013 it will be held on 1 September from 11am-6pm. It is free. Entry adjoining City Road Lock, Islington. http://www.angelcanalfestival.org/
• Take a Halloween boat trip on 26 or 27 October 2013 (pre booking essential), more info 
• Get on the water – try a course or send the kids to Islington Boat Club.

 Over to you

Do you enjoy volunteering in Islington?  By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. And yes, this blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

Diane Burridge: “let’s talk about how to get more social glue.”

Everyone has a story on the Islington Faces Blog.  Diane Burridge grew up in the Australian outback. She arrived in Britain in 1975, first living and teaching science at a secondary school in Brixton, before settling in Islington in 1981 with partner David Braine. Interview by Nicola Baird

Nothing seems to stop Diane Burridge, 61, enjoying what’s on offer locally – whether it is shopping at her nearest shops, helping run events at the Ecology Centre off Drayton Park, N5, or being on the committee for a street party for neighbours.

Diane’s organisational skills have brought in a lot of money in areas where she has worked in London, thanks to her know-how about where to go for funding. For most of her UK working life her day job has seen her working on regeneration projects in London. “I’ve raised tonnes of funding over the years, but I’m not a fundraiser. Raising money has been part of my job, just part of being a manager.”

Over a year ago Diane took early retirement, giving her time to be a Games Maker at the 2012 Olympics. And she’s dusted off her classroom skills, so she’s back teaching chemistry GCSE three and a half days a week, plus lecturing part-time on regeneration at University College London (UCL).  She’s also a committee member of the Highbury Community Association, the London Forum, and Friends of Gillespie Park (the latter since 1987).

Perhaps it’s no surprise that she can juggle heavy workloads as from 1986-1994 she was also the local councillor for Gillespie Ward (now roughly Highbury West and at that time an unpaid role) taking on spells as chair of Economic Development, chair of the Environment Committee and also Deputy Leader.

“I was working full time, nearby, and so I could manage the workload which took up about 25 hours a week,” explains Diane who is well known for rushing to multiple meetings in an evening by bike (perhaps an obvious way of getting around as she does not have a car).

She claims it was her childhood in Western Australia that shaped her into a political activist. “I was very young when my parents divorced. Very few people divorced in the 1950s but my mother was this young divorcee working in the outback as a bush nurse with two young children [Di’s sister is a year younger].  The treatment of single mothers and the low pay for nurses, as well as the harshness of our lives, gave me a lot of my politics. We moved a lot. We lived in one town, Mukinbudin where there was just one main shop only open on Friday afternoons – the next nearest town was 30 miles away. It was wheatbelt country on the edge of the desert. They were still clearing land then – we used to help out by pulling out the huge roots of shrubs.”

“I’d see herds of emus and kangaroos and the sky would be covered with birds. We also stayed with my aunt every holidays and where she lived the nearest northern town was 300 miles away.”

“There was no resident doctor in Mukinbudin. My mother was the local vet, doctor and nurse all rolled into one. She even had to drive her own trail across the desert to reach some Aborigine families.”

Living in the outback, moving often, Diane’s education could have been very patchy but she won a scholarship to a Methodist Girls’ boarding school, and went on to secure a free university place in 1969 to study geology.  After graduating she travelled the world for three years on her own – working as she went.  “These experiences made me very independent, self-sufficient and perhaps a bit too fearless,” says Diane.

Islington report card
Despite the huge amount of energy she’s invested locally over the past 30 years, Diane is proudest of the campaign that saved Gillespie Park, just behind Arsenal tube. Not only did she and others (including Angela Sinclair-Loutit, Pat Tuson, Chris Ashby, Sue Jandy and Rev Stephen Coles) guarantee a green space for Islington they also began the tradition of running a free festival on the second Sunday in September which attracts more than 2,000 locals. The 27^th Gillespie Festival will be 8 September 2013.

With so many cuts anticipated over the next few years, it’s worth remembering Diane’s tips on how to protest successfully. “Campaigns are so hard and so much work. You have to be patient and resilient,” says Diane. “It took three years to save Gillespie Park but we worked as a team and shared the work.”

Her other tip is not to dwell on the past – “I like looking forward. I don’t like looking back. ” Even so as a regeneration specialist she has some thoughts on how fast Islington is changing with ever-rising private house prices and rentals. “Physically Islington has got better but it’s suburbanisation. I cycle and used to notice the little work spaces, small factories, family-run shops and children’s homes (at Highbury and Ambler Roads). That variety of use of buildings has diminished.  Even the football stadium was turned into housing! We are getting a divided community.”

“I do see the social glue weakening, not helped by greater disparity of incomes between people.  That’s why playgrounds in parks and free festivals are so important.  They are the areas or occasions when people who reflect the local population can mix.”

Shops are another melting pot where Diane reckons people can chat and invest in local businesses. “I find it very sad that local shops are closing down. I refuse to shop in superstores – and only use small local shops. Her favourites are Whites Fruit and Veg, butcher David Mayers and La Princesse all on Blackstock Road, and the Arsenal Food Store on Gillespie Road.  “David and I know lots of really nice local people,  helped by being active in the community. We feel so lucky to have been able to have bought a house here 27 years ago and to live in this wonderful part of London. We’ll never move.”

2013 Gillespie Festival – Sunday 8 September. Entrance is free. Open from approx 2-5pm.

Over to you

How much do you get involved in Islington life – do you find it a way to make friends or something to be proud about doing?  By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. This blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

Everyone has a story on the Islington Faces Blog.  If you remember the successful 2008 battle to stop Arsenal from scrapping the community sports centre, and the 2010 campaign to stop the Whittington Hospital from being closed or downgraded, then you owe some thanks to Highbury’s Ian Shacklock who put in so much energy – with others – to winning those two campaigns. Ian, 53, works full time but his passion for preserving local character, proper pubs and more recently Regent’s Canal means the press keep him on speed dial while he helps keep Islington special. Interview by Nicola Baird.

Ian Shacklock: camapign success include saving the Whittington Hospital, convincing Arsenal to rebuild a community sports centre and getting tough with Starbucks at the Regent’s Canal in Camden.

Ian Shacklock is one of many who don’t want to see Holborn Studios, Eagle Wharf Road demolished and then replaced with shops, restaurants and rental units. See this news report.”

“Every day another issue comes along,” says Ian Shacklock from behind the big wooden table in his sitting room where he masterminds campaign victories. There’s an old PC in the corner and cuttings piled up ready for attention. On the walls are the letters that meant success – sent by Islington Chief Executive John Foster and another from Arsenal Director Ken Friar agreeing that Arsenal would rebuild the community sports centre that vanished when the team moved to the Emirates Stadium (it’s being rebuilt and due to open at the end of 2014). And there’s a sweet framed needlework cityscape view, taken from the water, which Ian sewed for his grandmother years ago in primary school. Clearly he’s a man who knows how to store important information.

“Most of the work happens behind the scenes,” he explains. “A petition is the last resort, and these days I prefer writing letters, see this one about shops, or emails and holding meetings, as well as visiting the canal at every opportunity – did you know that until the 1970s no one was allowed on to the towpath?”

Ian grew up in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire – about 20 miles outside London , close to the New River that has brought drinking water to Islington since 1613. He moved to the Finsbury Park area in 1987, where he still lives. “I just couldn’t leave now unless it became so polluted or the complete and utter social sterilisation of London drove me out,” says Ian.

“I had a motorbike accident when I was 22, two years after graduating in Maths at Imperial, and tore off my left arm through the shoulder,” he explains. “But instead of ending my life it began it. I became more practical and ended up doing things for a challenge. It made me value my job more too.”

Telling his life story it becomes clear that Ian is the master of metamorphosis for he took up campaigning only six years ago – and all because the terms of his job contract changed. “I was in IT working long hours on a temporary contract for nine years. Eventually they persuaded me to join the company and that meant paid holiday. I had 25 days paid holiday a year, which I wasn’t used to, and I thought I’d use it differently. It was CAMRA – the real ale campaign – that brought me into campaigning. I remember one of their newsletters showing how many shops and pubs were disappearing every month: it spelt out the reasons to support the Sustainable Communities Bill, so I went to the rally at Westminster. Slowly I got to know the language of campaigning, so it felt more like osmosis when I picked up the Arsenal baton.”

And then the Whittington baton – which in 2013 is set to face a whole new raft of campaigning attention, though this time not from canal-focused Ian. “I was thinking for that last Whittington campaign how I cycled to every independent pharmacy in north London – well 50 of them – and how I couldn’t do it now because there are so few railings to lock my bike to.” Ian laughs – he likes to remind London Mayor Boris Johnson that he is the “one-armed cyclist” that Boris subconsciously referred to in 2004 when challenged for using a mobile riding his bike*. “I am convinced that this was a result of seeing me with my kids in the playground at Highbury Fields in around 2000,” says Ian. “Boris was supervising his own kids at the time and I was towing a cycle chariot. I wrote to him about this in 2007 and on the two occasions that I’ve knocked on his door I‘ve reminded him. I think it makes him smile and squirm!”

Ian Shacklock: “This is one of my favourite photos of the Holborn Studios chimney I want to save. I took this in November. I like the way the whole building is reflected in the water.”

Canal campaigns
After taking over as chair of Friends of the Regents Canal in December 2010 Ian’s main focus is canal related as he attempts to mediate between the many different users of the canal.

Nose around the website here  and you’ll see ideas for bringing freight back to the canals – specifically as part of the gasometer rebuild projects at Kings Cross. A campaign success that saw Starbucks by Camden Lock persuaded to respect canal history, see here. Plus early efforts to thwart demolition plans for Holborn Studios – the elegant workspace complete with Victorian chimney – nestled by the canal but minutes from busy Old Street’s dot.com entrepreneurs.

“There are lots of issues happening with mooring spots on the canal. I don’t want to see boaters cleansed, or changes to the towpath that mean the cobble stones and grass is removed,” explains Ian. “Cyclists, who feel forced off the roads, don’t realise they can be bullies on the towpath. Pollution and noise is infuriating people living at Noel Road (which backs on to the canal). The residents feel smoked out of their own homes  by the fumes from diesel generators and burning of unseasoned wood by the people living on the boats. There’s also the problem of some boat people blocking visitor mooring spaces so other visitors can’t come to Islington.  It’s all about managing conflict.”

Conflict doesn’t daunt Ian at all. “I like the way campaigning is social. The more confrontation and debate you have the more chance there is of getting things right,” he says. “Sometimes at work it’s just bits and bytes with other geeks and very little human interaction.”  This may also be the reason he never drinks at home – instead he likes a pint from the nearby local pubs – The Auld Triangle, Bank of Friendship or the King’s Head on the corner of Monsell Road and Blackstock Road.

Like so many busy people Ian squeezes a lot into life – it’s not just the canal work and his full time job –he’s back and forwards to Swansea to see his twins Tom and Megan, now 16 – and rarely says no to a good idea. This week for instance (6-8 March 2013) he’s helping CAMRA with the London Drinker Beer and Cider festival http://www.camranorthlondon.org.uk over in Camden. No surprise really, after all it was CAMRA which convinced Ian he had what it took to become a really effective campaigner.

FIND OUT MORE

• Friends of Regent’s Canal http://friendsofregentscanal.org/ is a voluntary group which meets every two or three months.
• Friends of Holborn Studios http://www.holborn-studios.co.uk/holborn Campaign page and email petiton at http://www.friendsofholbornstudios.com/
• If you are interested in canals, you may also like this post about Chris P - London Canal Museum volunteer.

Words
*CAMRA – the campaign for real ale

*What did Mayor Boris Johnson* say about “one-armed cyclists”? Here is a comment made by Boris in Dec 2004 when asked in an interview with the London Cyclist magazine whether he still used his mobile while  cycling, Mr Johnson said: “I do. And to hell with it! It’s not against the law… If I was a one-armed cyclist you wouldn’t kick me off my bicycle, and I’m just doing something with my free arm, aren’t I?”

And here are some words he wrote in a book called Have I got Views for You (which includes an A to Z of Dos and Don’ts of cycling in London, the proof is at P).

“P is for PHONE. I see no reason why you should not treat your bike as your office. Provided you hug the kerb, as St  Paul’s ship hugged the coastline of the Mediterranean, you should be entitled to make telephone calls. It is probably safer to use a hands-free gizmo, but to all those who want to ban the use of mobiles on bikes, I say this:  there are plenty of one-armed people in the world. Are we so cruel and discriminatory as to forbid them from using a bicycle? We are not. What is a mobile phone-user but a cyclist who has, effectively, only one arm? I rest my case.”

Over to you

What made you get involved in Islington life – do you find it a way to make friends or something to be proud about doing?  By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. This blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

Everyone has a story on the Islington Faces Blog. When Zannthie Bennett was made redundant she volunteered to set-up a Neighbourhood Forum for King’s Cross that’s helped her find a connection with the area she never expected. Zannthie is now ready to hand on the role, please read all about it below the Q&A. Or go join Zannthie, 39, and the N1 WI (yes there really is a WI in Islington) in May 2013 for an historic tour of the King’s Cross area. Edited by Nicola Baird.

Q:Where do you live?

I first came to London from a small village in the middle of nowhere in East Sussex for University. I studied Environmental Policy and Management. I’ve been living at the bottom of Pentonville in the edge of the Kings Cross Ten Estates since they were done-up, and taken over from Islington Council by Peabody Trust in 2001, for nearly 12 years

It took a long time to find a friendly community in King’s Cross. When I first moved in, there were derelict offices which I overlooked and I could see through a gap to the road and hear the Routemaster (Jo-Jo’s) churning their way up the hill to the Angel. At one point I had five building and demolition sites on every point of the compass around my flat!

Q: What made you click with the King’s Cross area?

When I began work at the London office of the national charity BTCV (British Trust for Conservation Volunteers) – now known as TCV (The Conservation Volunteers) – based on York Way, by Crinan Street N1, I was dismayed to find that not only did I wake up to banging and shouting from the builders at home, but would also be aware of building work when I got to the office as it was directly opposite the site of King’s Place. I felt the pile-driving and breathed in the dust as new builds emerged all across Kings Cross during a very special era.

Growing up in a very countrified area has given me a real joy for helping others to learn the value of green spaces in urban areas. I did a lot of local history research in order to find the original use of the three-storey BTCV building. It was used for light industry, and looks quite like a big brick house with a tiled roof and chimney. It is opposite some of the large wharves that line the canal basin (Battlebridge Basin), and had been used since the mid to late 1800s for various manufacture including as a doll factory, and latterly the British Legion Poppy Warehouse until this moved to Richmond. I ran a competition to come up with a new name for the ‘House’ when the postal address was corrected from 80 York Way to 1 Crinan Street – the doors had never faced York Way and it caused great confusion. One of the companies operating from it had been called Bridgewater and so it was decided to name the building after this to make an obvious connection with the nearby canal and bridge. Poppy House came second.

Q Why do you have to hand over the Chair of the King’s Cross Neighbourhood Forum at this time?

I need to pull out all the stops to get my career back on track. I have also taken on the task of redesigning the courtyard where I live to provide communal gardens, laundry drying spaces, secure cycle storage and a dedicated children’s play area, and thus help to meet the needs of my micro-local community. I have proposed a communal food growing area  in a bid to bring the two buildings which stride the courtyard together as it is a very mixed community of ex-council tenants, housing association tenants, private residents and private tenants, with folk from all around the world and transitory students as well. It’s really important that we all get to feel comfortable and understand each other and get a social cohesion so there is less anti-social and nuisance behaviour.

Q What’s to love about Islington?

• The stretch of Regent’s Canal from Thornhill Bridge to St Pancras Moorings – a world away set apart from the busy and smelly streets. Once I was haplessly strolling and turned a gentle corner to be faced with a heron  – I never saw one that close in the countryside. And there are always water birds chirping and wind to be heard blowing in the trees. I have to remind myself to journey up to the New River Walk from Astey’s Row, where I first lived in Islington, to Canonbury and Alwyne Villas – I always find it astonishing that this was masterminded to bring fresh water to London (and in wooden elm pipes) and that it has been able to remain as a shaft of freshness, like the canal.
• The cobbledy old back streets of King’s Cross where the old stables and smithy’s were before cars waged their war on us, cuts out the busy one-way system. I enjoy hearing the bouncing of the trains on the cut and covered Metropolitan line and contemplating the route of the River Fleet under St. Chad’s Place.
• Regent’s Quarter with its ramshackle of old metal works, warehouses, courtyards and linkages, and the juxtapose of new offices – the presence of prestigious and internationally busy companies. There are some great vistas to be seen and mused upon on a sunny afternoon or wintery dusk light from the well-placed public seats.
• The grand spacing and houses of Claremont and Myddleton Squares EC1 (still Islington Borough!); the obtrusive St Marks church in the centre with steeple and hilltop view, and also St Mary’s Churchyard accessible from Upper Street for its quietness and the water pump.
• I like to walk or cycle to places that change my outlook and give my human size a different perspective. I guess I feel a bit hemmed in inside my flat behind the tall office building on Pentonville Road.
• I like many of the newer bars in King’s Cross as well as the real old London pubs, but for atmosphere, The Kings Head Theatre Bar on Upper Street does it for me every time. I love the buzz of the tiny theatre and it’s where I first sang with a London band.

Info

Join Zannthie’s historical walking tour of the new N1C area and ‘souped up’ King’s Cross for N1 WI members in May. Info at www.n1wi.typepad.com/

King’s Head Theatre Bar, 115 Upper Street, N1 http://www.kingsheadtheatre.org/

For more detail about what’s happening at King’s Cross, read on…

The Steering Team of the Neighbourhood Forum for King’s Cross is looking to a practical solution to get neighbourhood pangs and ambitions off the ground. A small group of local folk have been researching and progressing the set-up of the forum for nearly one year. A Neighbourhood Forum is the necessary and legal vehicle for a Neighbourhood Plan, a new governmental approach to getting locals involved and powered-up in planning issues under The Localism Act 2012. Zannthie Bennett, volunteer chair and facilitator for the project explains it all.

It is my greatest wish that there exists a sustainable Neighbourhood Forum for the whole of Kings Cross, however, as I step down…after a year, there is no able committee and not enough active patrons to continue the original plan.

It’s a real shame because not only have we ‘cut the ground’ when it comes to such new local powers with much good work achieved, but the idea of a ‘Pan Kings Cross’ group which spans both Islington and Camden boroughs would bring everyone together for the first time. I have been compelled to be involved since I first heard of the possibility via Kings Cross Development Forum, who conducted the initial work but needed locals to take it forward.

I think we had assumed that more folk would come forward as the word got round and we got the message out as well as we could with little time and resources between a very small team. I have always tried to inspire and motivate others as planning is something which effects everyone everyday of their life, and a project like this is a great opportunity to build up skills, to network and to meet new people. I’ve met some wonderful folk as a result of being made redundant and spending my time, I now see, very wisely! I know my neighbours and urban community far better and have had the privilege of being mentored by senior members as part of the process. I intend to work with some of the characters and contacts I have met along the way, and its fair to say that I cannot walk down a street anywhere within the proposed boundaries without feeling the community vibe as I say to myself: ‘Oh, thats where Chris, or Peter or Lizzie lives!’.

Moreover, by bringing the Neighbourhood Forum into existence, “it means that all those difficult, stressful and often angry battles fought by individuals and comparatively small community groups can be usurped by what would become the Neighbourhood Plan – without this the individuals have no legal power or advantage and would be forced to repeat this activity when any planning application comes up – if they see it in time. A good example of this is the relatively ‘famed’ Camden Town Hall Extension Building for which is submitted a proposal for a replacement 26 story tower once the occupants have taken up residence in their brand new premises at Pancras Square NC1 in 2015. Friends of Argyle Square immediately adjacent to the plot took on the ‘fire-fight’ and have a certain assurance that this height specification is now removed from sales and marketing strategy, however, the outcome is still to be confirmed. A network of Kings Cross workers and residents and users could have been involved very easily through the established forum even before the plan is accepted, and the plan itself could pre-determine reasonable heights for this section of the Euston Road opposite the gracious and recently refurbished St Pancras Grand building.

I did a few vox pops on this proposal, greeting and asking folk as they moved across the streets and station concourses in the eye of the site. I was met with horror and surprise as young and old alike were puzzled to think that anything like this would be allowed to happen – yet if they didn’t say what they felt, who was to know? Even bus users taking the journey past the iconic building were inspired to get clued up once I pointed out the peril to my fellow passengers.

The first Neighbourhood Plan in the country was adopted following public consultation last week (March 2013). The Upper Eden Neighbourhood Plan in Cumbria covers 17 parishes, with voter turnout in the referendum higher than the figure for the recent police and crime commissioner elections. The plan is due to be formally adopted by the council on 11 April 2013 so ‘it becomes material in terms of planning applications for development in the area covered’.

So, the most desirable set-up is competing with the most practical way forward due to the need for progress in areas where there are active residents and workers coupled with delaying commentary by Islington Council over its areas for inclusion.

The Neighbourhood Forum for King’s Cross current steering team have agreed that the most practical alternative to a single ‘Pan’ Kings Cross Neighbourhood Forum is to establish a collaborative approach between existing and emerging active groups and networks covering smaller areas and districts in and around Kings Cross, unless there is made known other groups of committed individuals who can drive forward the original aim.

It’s not too late to put this right if you want to get involved to club together in the most desirable set-up. You will however, need to be able to commit to a certain level of action – but an action shared is more than an action halved, right? See how to help in the contact info below.

More info:

The last meeting of the current steering team is 7-9pm Thursday 4 April 2013 in The Council Chamber at Camden Town Hall, Judd Street WC1

You can read the article in full – Summary of Intent for Final Meeting at: http://kingscrossneighbourhoodforum.com/2013/03/19/summary-intent-march-2013/

And get the lowdown on results fast by Twitter and Facebook:

Facebook:  www.Facebook.com/KXNeighbourhoodForum

Twitter:  www.Twitter.com/KXneighbourhood

Over to you

Thank you Zannthie, for all the work you’ve done, and good luck getting more people to breathe new campaigning energy into this. Are you like Zannthie? What made you get involved in Islington life – do you find it a way to make friends or something to be proud about doing?  By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. This blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

Everyone on Islington Faces Blog has a story. Illustrator Teresa Robertson, 53, moved to Islington when she was just eight months old.  She’s a trustee of the Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants, runs occasional art workshops and is increasingly well-known for her colourful portraits of Islington families outside their home. So far she’s painted 101. Interview by Nicola Baird.

Teresa Robertson: “my house pictures are usually gifts.”

“My parents were the  theatre designers Patrick Robertson and Rosemary Vercoe,” says Teresa pointing to a portrait she did of her father pinned to the fridge and then to a framed costume design done by her mother.

“My dad had been trained as an architect – that’s why he bought a double fronted Georgian house on Hamilton Park West for £4,000.  The builder said ‘Rip it down’ – the porch had been blown off in World War Two when a bomb landed on the other side of the road. It had been empty for 10 years so there were ropes of dry rot. My mother said it was ‘like walking into a tropical rainforest’. But my father saw the shell of a good house and it became our family base for 50 years (rented out for nine years while working in Nottingham).”

“All my family and school friends are here. I’ve got friends from my nursery school, and Canonbury Road* Primary, and Camden School for Girls too. I went to art college at Hornsey – the foundation year was in Crouch End – and the fine art was taught at Alexandra Palace. There are all the people I know because my children went to St John’s Highbury Vale Primary School and then there’s Christ Church, Highbury where I taught art to 95 children a week for 10 years. My New Zealand friend says next time we go on a dog walk together she’s going to put a bag over my head as so many people stop to talk,” says Teresa trying to be understanding. “I’d never leave! Islington’s my village.”

Teresa Robertson’s studio is the heart of the kitchen, just by the oven.

Strangely about half the commissions Teresa gets to paint portraits of houses come from people who have sold up and are just about to leave the borough. Most of the rest are commissioned as surprise gifts for significant birthdays and even retirement.

So far she’s painted more than 101 Islington properties (and many others elsewhere) in her characteristically colourful style, usually with the owners posed outside, sometimes with pets or treasured possessions. She remembers how excited her son Leo was when she was asked to do a portrait of a Pagani Zonda sportscar.  Take a close look at one of her pictures and you’ll find special toys, terriers, hens, Blackberries, whatever home owners feel they can’t live without.

Tragedy
“When I was 28 my twin brother Adam died in a motorbike crash. We’d done everything together,” explains Teresa. “I just thought on a visceral level he’s been taken to heaven. I’d never have thought of that until the moment I heard he’d died. I thought, ‘I’m still here. I can see every leaf that comes out and every tree. I’m seeing every flower, and he’s not’. His death made me notice everything – and made me think I could go tomorrow.”

Already an artist, this heightened way of seeing the world led Teresa to Christ Church. More than 25 years later it’s almost a second home: she’s helped out as the administrator and taught art classes with her friend Berrin Bates. She still runs the youth club and buys the sausages and bacon for the breakfast shift for the church’s night shelter for the homeless from Godfrey’s (who support the shelter by providing the meat with a generous discount). Back in the ‘90s she also worked as a fund raiser for the Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants when it was based at St Mary Magdalene’s Church, Holloway Road. When the centre moved to the Baptist Church on Cross Street she became a trustee. “We have 130 learners for ESOL (English as a Second Language).” There are also art and knitting classes, well attended by (mostly) Turkish Kurds, Eritreans and Congolese. “We don’t advertise, it’s all word of mouth,” explains Teresa.

Intricate decoupage for Teresa’s tea table in the garden shed.

Parties, pictures and punk
Teresa starts her gorgeous paintings with a photo shoot. She then goes back to her desk, nestled beside the oven, and does a pencil version. After checking this is the view – and hairstyle – the client wants she then paints a final version sometimes moving into her home’s extension which has more natural light and boasts a screen printing area, another computer work space and a table for eating. Above all this are washing lines which she uses to dry her own greeting cards. There’s also a posh, and pretty, garden shed where she keeps a sewing machine on a decoupaged table adapted from bunk beds by her husband John Dodgson.

“John and I were at the same parties for 10 years before we met: I was 27 when we got together. I was always dancing and he was talking intellectually in the kitchen,” she says making a mug of lapsang tea. “In the ‘70s Camden School was so liberal you only went to lessons when you wanted to. It was bohemian chaos. Looking back I think there was lots of neglect – rich families were not there for their kids, so the kids took every drug going. Going to church was the biggest rebellion I could do! It was an incredible time to be a teenager – my haunt was the Hope & Anchor pub, Upper Street, famous for punk bands. I saw Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Dr Feelgood and then there was the Sex Pistols’ and messy parties in squats in Londale Square. Islington wasn’t stockbrokers at all then – it was the poorer cousin of Hampstead.”

Teresa loves our local landmarks. All are available as greeting cards.

Nowadays she enjoys different parts of Islington. When her work as a book illustrator is slack she uses the time to paint local landmarks including Christ Church, Islington Town Hall, St Mary’s church on Upper Street and the grand café  in Clissold Park. “I think the next building I’ll paint will be the main Post Office by the King’s Head pub. If you look you can see it’s got beautiful statues outside,” she says.

Places to go

Despite her busy life and a studio seeming to over-run the kitchen Teresa loves cooking at home. “I like to tempt family and friends back with fish pie and stews. Every Sunday there’s a big meal here and if people don’t come then John and I will eat it for the rest of the week.”  At times the house is crowded – her 95-year-old mum was a regular visitor until recently having to go to a nursing home. There are also their three boys, Callum, 24, Leo, 21 and Lawrence, 19, (she also has two step children Tamsin and Matthew, who’ve made her a step-grandmother), 15 well-loved cousins, favourite builders and all those friends…  who occasionally tempt her away from her paintbrushes and casserole dishes to nearby Pizzadelique and the Bank of Friendship.

Given her day job, Teresa is the person to ask about art supplies. “I love Fish & Cook. Raj is our family therapist – he knows what colour pencils and art materials we like, he even knows that my son Lawrence does stand up. Then I go to Galaxy – it’s so well hidden I didn’t find it for 20 years – for paper and printing cartridges. Atlantis  in the East End is the biggest and the best, but I do go to CassArt occasionally if I’m at the Angel, because it’s close to my biggest wardrobe weakness, the White Stuff.

Highlights of Teresa’s year often include running a stall at a local event or cooking for neighbours. “The street party in May is good fun, so is the church’s summer fete and their fireworks night. But Gillespie Festival is the best. It’s where Gathering Moss asked me to supply them with my greeting cards. It got me started. I now have cards at Louis Farouk, Concertina Works and a select number of other shops in London.”

Many of us make our homes cosy or sleek inside – yet forget to take snaps of the exterior. Teresa Robertson’s pictures save us. They offer not just a peek at our neighbours’ lifestyles, but a colourful keepsake of our own.

http://www.teresa-robertson.co.uk/

http://www.teresarobertson.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/apr/22/obituary-patrick-robertson

Find out more
Atlantis Art Supplies, Britannia House, 68-80 Hanbury Street, E1 5JL, tel: 020 7377 8855

Bank of Friendship pub, Highbury N5

Canonbury Primary School, used to be called Canonbury Road School – see the fascinating history about the school (which opened in 1877) and the area (including Booth’s poverty maps) here

Concertina Works, 158 Liverpool Road, London N1 1LA,

Fish & Cook, 3 Blackstock Road, N4

Galaxy, 15-19 Benwell Road,

Gathering Moss, 193 Blackstock Road, N5, tel; 020 7354 3034

Gillespie Festival 2013 is on Sunday 8 September

Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants, Cross Street Baptist Church, 16-18 Cross Street, N1,

Louis Farouk, 113 Highbury Park, N5, tel: 0208 288 0259

Pizzadelique (Mexican food and Italian pizza), 1-3 Chatterton Road, N4 tel. 020 7226 3838

White Stuff, 12-14 Essex Road, N1,

Over to you

What made you get involved in Islington life – do you find it a way to make friends or something to be proud about doing?  By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. This blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

Everyone on Islington Faces Blog has a story. Whatever the weather there always seems to be a tennis coach setting up the perfect rally shots on the courts at Highbury Fields – and often it’s Viren Soma. Interview by Nicola Baird.

Viren Soma; “tennis coaching and playing are two different things.”

Watching tennis pros on TV – Ferrer or Murray say – its tempting to think tennis is always strenuous exercise. But Highbury Fields tennis coach Viren Soma, 40, barely builds a sweat despite playing 30-40 hours a week.

“It’s not intensive exercise – some lessons I just stand still,” he says laughing over a latte during his lunch break. “Coaching and playing are two different things. Mostly I’m hitting the ball nicely to people. It ruins your game always being nice and you don’t have the time to compete. But if everyone was really good I’d kill myself physically!”

Of course Viren is joking – but for his tennis-crazy family, who grew up in South Africa during apartheid, sport was a matter of life or death. “My uncle Jasmat, and dad, Hiralal – known as the Dhiraj brothers (their father’s first name) – represented the South African Lawn Tennis Union which was the non white tennis union – part of SACOS (South African Council of Sport) which was the national sports body of non- white sport in South Africa at the time.”

“Because of apartheid they couldn’t play against white guys,” explains Viren. “So they had to save up money, and quit their jobs in order to tour Europe playing tennis. When my uncle made political statements which helped get South Africa kicked out of the 1970 Davis Cup (a worldwide tennis tournament) he had to stay in England where he had some friends. Then my dad joined him. They were both involved with the ANC (African National Congress) and SANROC*, the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee, which helped them settle in the UK. Both groups ensured that South Africa was kept out of international sport [and the Olympics] until apartheid was ended. Sport is so big in South Africa that exclusion from international sport really hurt.”

“I was born in Pretoria, but my mum and I joined my dad, who is now 68, here in London when I was two, in 1974. We were first at Crouch End, then Aberdeen Road, then Highbury New Park, then Blackstock Road and then Stoke Newington. I went to school at Highbury Quadrant and then to Highbury Grove – all my friends were in Islington. But I’ve just moved to Haringey with my fiancee, three-year-old son and 10 month old daughter.”

10,000 hours

Skill at tennis isn’t a gene, but when your dad is a tennis coach and your childhood is spent playing tennis (both Viren and his younger brother Hitesh were in Islington’s tennis teams) perhaps it’s no surprise that when Viren left school at 18 he went “straight into tennis coaching.” He spent nine years at Islington Tennis Centre* on Market Road but is now a regular at the courts by Oasis in the Park. “Being outdoors and seeing the seasons on Highbury Fields is great. I can’t bear being cooped up indoors, and every lesson is different – new things happen every day on the fields.  And until my son started to go to nursery I was rarely ill, though now I do pick up bugs.”

Although Islington has few indoor or outdoor courts – indeed when Wimbledon* starts it’s hard to get on to a tennis court, despite the floodlights allowing play after dusk – there’s the Islington Tennis League which organises single and double competitions.

Viren is also a member of Highbury Fields Tennis Steering Group (HFTSG) which aims to be “a voice for all who play tennis and offer tennis services on the fields.” Even so he is sad that “there’s no proper tennis club in Islington, the place where parents join and the kids come along and watch, and go to lessons. It makes it hard to reinforce the skills, especially hand and eye co-ordination. To do well you need mental, physical, technical and tactical skills, if you’ve read Bounce – the blockbuster sports coaching book about the myth of talent and the power of practice by table-tennis genius and Times sports writer Matthew Syed – you’ll know what I mean.”

Virem reckons playing tennis is far more than a sport. “Playing tennis reflects life. Some of the kids have to umpire their own matches – it’s not like football. So at 11 if someone cheats you or gives a wrong call [out when you think the ball is on the line and should be in] and you have an argument you’ve got to resolve that. Things aren’t always going to go your own way so you have to learn how to deal with situations that sport presents – just like conflict with someone in the street, or a friend.

When to start playing tennis?
The youngest kid has been two and a half – you just roll the ball, like you might roll them a toy car or a balloon. It’s basic ball skills. Lots of the skills I teach on the court parents could be doing, or children would be doing if they played outside – like catching a ball.

What to wear for bad weather?
I wear a jacket with a thermal layer and several base layers, but I’m on court from 9am. It’s not a problem if you are playing for one or two hours. It is difficult when you get several seasons in one day.

Tell me how to be a great tennis player
It depends on how good you want to be. What is good to you – keeping a rally going or winning tournaments? Having a lesson and practicing/playing matches 2 or 3 times a week will see you improve much quicker.

Any nutritional tips?
I have a mixture of good and bad food. In the evenings I eat well – but during the day it’s pasta and sandwiches. I get lunch mostly at Didos in Highbury Barn and drinks from Oasis in the Park.

Dido cafe serves hot and cold choices at Highbury Barn. It’s busy at lunch time, often with staff from nearby schools plus tennis coach Viren Soma taking a well-earned break.

Food, fun and toddlers
When Viren isn’t on the courts at Highbury Fields or Woodvale Lawn Tennis Club in Crouch End or following Arsenal FC he likes to “look at the shops at Upper Street and have a coffee at Tinderbox in Angel. My three-year-old loves to run around on Islington Green, go to the playground at Finsbury Park and the swimming pool at Highbury Fields. My fiancee and I used to live off Essex Road – everything was so close we ate everywhere on Upper Street, now if I go out there are lots of great Turkish restaurants like Gokyuzu on Green Lanes.

• Highbury Fields Tennis Courts can be booked on line for one hour slots between 8am-9pm any day. Use this booking form here Courts cost: £10 adults and £4.50 junior [with an Izz card it is £8.50 adults and £3.50 juniors]

• There are five regular tennis coaches at Highbury Fields – Viren, his brother Hitesh, Manu, John Paul and Wendy.

• Viren charges adults £40 per hour including court fee and juniors £33.50 – but you can share a session, so get together a group of six kids and its approx £7 a lesson. Contact him on virensoma@hotmail.com

• Islington Tennis League, runs four competitions a year matching you against people of a similar standard locally. The entry fee is £15 and you usually have eight weeks to play your matches.

More info*

TENNIS

SAN-ROC – brief summary here 

Crouch End tennis clubs – there are more than 13 tennis clubs in Haringey, many at Crouch End, see details here

Highbury Fields Tennis Steering Group – a voice for all who play tennis and offer tennis services on the fields.voice

Islington Tennis Centre,  Market Road, N7, 020 7700 1370 has indoor and outdoor courts.

Lawn Tennis Association, for any questions you might have about tennis

Wimbledon 2013 – is from 27 June to 7 July.

OUT AND ABOUT

Dido for lunches, 1a Highbury Barn, N5.

Gokyuzu for Turkish dining 26-27 Grand Parade, Green Lanes, N7,

Oasis in the Park, see the islingtonfacesblog interview here with Yehia El Nemer.

Tinderbox for coffee at the N1 Centre, 7 Parkfield Street, N1

Over to you

What made you get involved in Islington life – do you find it a way to make friends or something to be proud about doing?  By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. This blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

Everyone on Islington Faces Blog has a story. Normally at the hairdressers it’s the client who chats, but this time Simon– who runs Barnaby’s in Highbury Barn – lets me interview him while he cuts my hair. Half an hour later he makes the last snip, then picking up a mirror to let me see the back (very nice) Simon says… Interview by Nicola Baird.

Simon Dolin: runs Barnaby’s. “I’m 99 per cent certain it’s always been a hairdressers.”

“I’ve saved the best for last haven’t I? I didn’t tell you we had a car through the window? It was a normal day cutting hair and then about 5.30 pm this old Mercedes drove right up to where you’re sitting. There was glass everywhere. The driver had put her foot on the accelerator instead of pressing the brake. One woman in the salon was 2 seconds from death. She’d been sitting by the window but I’d just got her to go through to the basins.

Barnaby’s may be peaceful now, but this is where a Mercedes stopped after driving through the window a few years ago.

“It was surreal. The driver had our sign on the front of her car! She tried to drive off, but we had her number plate. It had fallen off when she ran into the salon.

“No one was hurt but then another client, a woman who was perhaps a little bit eccentric, came in through the door, ignored the car, and said ‘Are you open?’!

“It’s a good thing that it’s now a 20-mph road.”

Simon, 46, never expected to run a hairdressing salon. After school he started doing engineering. “I was good at fixing electrical things so I was pushed into engineering a bit, but I wasn’t happy. My best friend was doing hairdressing so I went into it.

“I did one day a week at the London College of Fashion and worked as an apprentice in a salon. It was the 1980s – Toni and Guy were huge. I was interested in punk but I was a bit young, only 10 when it started. The ‘80s was New Romantic for me and my friends. Girls looked like girls and boys looked like girls. Guyliner wasn’t it?” says Simon flashing his scissors close to his face.

The former bomb shelter is now used as a coatroom and toilet.

He took over Barnaby’s in 1993 with a business partner. “I’d been working in Hampstead for 10 years and this shop was run by his father, Louis Stone who’d had it for 50 years. Before that a woman had it and cut clients’ hair in cubicles. The salon has been here a long time. There’s a WW2 bomb shelter in the back we use as a toilet.

“I’m 99 per cent certain it’s always been an hairdressers.”

“When we moved in the top of the front window was boarded but when we removed it the stained glass mosaic, in a creamy design which I think had a number 1 on it for 1 Highbury Park, shattered. It’s still #1, but the new shops to the right are known as 1A and 1B.

It might be haunted
“When we did the shop up we just put new walls up. I don’t know what’s behind them. Actually it can be spooky. If I’m here late at night it does get a bit chilly and I think I’m going to go now! It might just be because it’s an old building.”

In 2007 Simon bought out his business partner and is now the sole trader. But the links with Louis Stone remain – his manager Neil has an uncle who used to work Mr Stone.

Want do hair?
So what do you need to be a good hairdresser? Simon thinks for a bit and then says, “Diplomatic, able to listen to people, keep quiet about politics and be non judgmental about people. For instance even Ken Livingstone (who was famously abolished by Mrs Thatcher) was able to find something positive about Mrs Thatcher when she died. The clients are paying your wages so should be treated with respect.”

Of course Simon learnt this the hard way … “When I was working in Belsize Park this scruffy lady with all these bags came into the salon. I didn’t want to do her hair, I thought she was a bag lady. But then she sat down and looked through the magazines until she found a picture of Anita Roddick who ran Body Shop. ‘It was only when she said ‘That’s quite a good haircut,’ that I realised she was Anita Roddick!  I used to cut Heather Mills’ hair at that salon too. It was before her accident.”

Simon has seven staff, including apprentices who are also studying at college. “There are no interns, everyone gets paid,” he says, “but we do offer work experience for 15 year olds sometimes, which isn’t paid.”

“Hairdressing seems pretty recession proof – I’ve worked through two now, first in the ’80s, and now. But there is a little bit of internet interference with the Groupon offers that big companies can do. Cutting hair for £20 is not for me, and it offers a false sense of security to clients as often the cuts are done by junior stylists.

“You learn a lot about people cutting hair. We all might have various experiences – illness, problems getting on with people, but as you speak to clients you hear that everyone has the same challenges – it’s almost comforting.”

Simon lives in Muswell Hill, but his wife and their children, Sophie, 16 and Cameron, 12, all come to the salon when they need their hair cut. And as the salon is open seven days a week there’s a good chance you’ll spot them all in Islington.

.

Barnaby’s, 1 Highbury Park, N5. Tel 020 7226 2177

Wash, cut and blow dry for women is £38; cuts for men are £23.

Follow on Facebook at Barnabyshair

Over to you

What made you get involved in Islington life – do you find it a way to make friends or something to be proud about doing?  By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. This blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

Everyone on Islington Faces Blog has a story.  TV writer and theatre fan Piers Torday has just had his first novel published – The Last Wild. It’s an animal adventure set in a very empty, futuristic English landscape so how did he manage to write it when he’s based in Islington jostled by 200,000+ people? Interview by Nicola Baird.

>>HAVE A GO AT THE COMPETITION – EASY TO WIN 

The interview with Piers Torday was in a flower-filled living room that looks out on to a jungly garden. One bunch came from publishers Quercus after The Last Wild launch party at Daunts, Holland Park, and the tulips are survivors from his birthday the week before.

>>>>>>>>>

Win your own FREE COPY of Piers Torday’s fabulous children’s novel, The Last Wild. It’s a hardcover book worth £9.99; and it’s signed. To win just email nicolabaird.green@gmail.com putting LAST WILD BOOK in the subject line. The lucky winner will be picked on Wednesday 8 May 2013 at 5pm. If you’d like to include a note about the best things for a 12-year-old boy to do in Islington (or anywhere else!)  in your answer that’d be great.

NOTE: The winner will need to supply their first name and a UK postal address.

<<<<<<<<<<

“Animals can be vulnerable, timid and voiceless – a bit like the way some children feel.  There’s a long tradition of writers using talking animals as a way for children to deal with issues like death, loss, sacrifice and courage,” says Piers Torday at his wooden table in N5. Down the road is Clissold Park (admittedly in Hackney, but just minutes from bustling Highbury Barn) which boasts deer, wildfowl and aviary birds.

Right on cue Dusty, the neighbour’s tortoiseshell cat stalks into Piers’ garden and sits down calmly by the bamboo, as if joining us. I don’t think she can hear us through the sitting room’s thick glass window…

“I’m a huge optimist,” continues Piers. “In The Last Wild Kester, his dad and friend Polly think all the animals are dead, but they keep finding survivors. In a world of dwindling resources it’s a big question for children – will there be any animals left? I feel if there’s one animal left, even one rhinoceros, then I’m hopeful that we can use human ingenuity to solve things.”

Piers grew up in a 17^th century cottage in the market town of Hexham, in Northumberland – a county renowned for having more animals than people.* He studied English at Oxford University where he fell in love with plays and comedy.

He also an enviable literary pedigree. His mum, Jane, ran a children’s book shop in Hexham when he was a tot. Roald Dahl even gave baby Piers a pat when he visited Toad Hall Books (now closed).

More recently his father, Paul Torday, who’d spent a lifetime in engineering became a best selling author at 60 with Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

After graduating Piers went to the Edinburgh Festival where he met Christopher Richardson, founder of the Pleasance Theatre*, who offered him a job –in the bar. “I went from Newcastle to King’s Cross station and then hopped on a bus to Caledonian Road. That was 1996. I haven’t left Islington since, apart from a brief foray to south London.”

Piers lucked out at the Pleasance. When he overheard a director complaining he was overwhelmed by scripts, Piers offered to read some. Within a year Piers was programming the theatre’s Edinburgh Festival programme. He’s now a trustee.

“Working in the theatre there are a lot of late nights, so it’s really helpful living near where you work. But I love Islington too. I like the fact that Islington is on a hill, there’s the light, the not very tall buildings – those low Georgian terraces, the colour of the brick – I find it very soothing, and love all those squares… and then I discovered Highbury.

“I lived in Barnsbury Road in a terrace of Georgian houses which hadn’t been redone since the 1970s, near the Pleasance. When I met Will (the pair are planning their civil partnership in May) he wanted to move out of his place to do a PhD and both of us were looking for somewhere more peaceful. In our 20s and early 30s Barnsbury was great fun; but now I’m no longer the person coming home at 3am I don’t enjoy the late night noise, the traffic and the buses.

“I’d never stopped and looked at Highbury, but we rented the first flat we looked at on Riversdale Road which is fantastically quiet.

“We’ve only been here two to three years but recognise and know people. My friend Harry Wallop has a huge section in his book Consumed about Islington. He claims in certain parts people are more likely to bump into each other  ’in the BA check-in queue to Oman’ than by your front door. Highbury seems different. There are even children who play in the streets nearby – you see them wearing curtains so they can pretend to be kings or putting a box on their head so they can be robots. Playing out suggests a sense of place, it’s where people belong, not just a property on a map.

“Our flat is also near Clissold Park which is lovely to wander around. When you’re writing you can’t underestimate how easy it is to get locked into your head, or the computer screen. A half-hour walk is hugely soothing: Clissold Park has the right mix of water, landscape and animals. The fallow deer there are different to Stag in my book, but I like watching how they sleep, the way they rest their heads on the ground, how their bones stick out and how they get up.

Insider’s guide to Islington

I like going to shops where I know people – Arsenal Supermarket & Off Licence has got a good range and nice croissants. It’s next to The Globe, a Turkish café, that says it has the best coffee in Highbury and it does!

Arsenal Supermarket, 229 Blackstock Road, N5 020 7359 3093

The Globe, 231 Blackstock Road, closed Mondays, 020 7354 1400

The best place for good value brunch is Garufa – their Monmouth coffee  is almost as delicious as The Globe.

Garufa, 104 Highbury Park, N5.Open Mon-Sun 10-22.30, tel: 020 7226 0070

I really like our local pub, the Woodbine. It feels like it is full of friends and I’ve seen Bates (Lord Grantham’s valet) from Downton Abbey drinking there!  In Barnsbury the Drapers Arms has nice beer and used to have delicious food.

Woodbine, 215 Blackstock Road, N5

Drapers Arms, 44 Barnsbury Street, N1 tel: 020 7619 0348

The lamb baby ribs for £11 at Yildiz are sensationally delicious. It says it’s Dermot O’Leary’s favourite place, and can you believe it I then saw Dermot O’Leary in there?

 Yildiz, 163 Blackstock Road, 020 73543899

Fitness First on Avenell Road is the one place I spend more time than at home.

You can have your book and eat it… The last of the cupcakes from Piers Torday’s book launch.

So why did Piers write his book? “I wanted to challenge myself. I love stories about wizards, witches and werewolves, and complicated fantastic places with made up rules. But I felt English wildlife is neglected. I wanted to go back to my childhood amusing myself in a big space to remind children how you can have as much adventure in your own place – your garden say – as can be found on the computer. The landscape in The Last Wild may seem eerie and alien, but my hope would be if you went on a family holiday in Scotland it would spark your imagination.”

Or maybe even tempt kids outside for an afternoon playing in the park?

Piers is working on the sequal to The Last Wild, this time set in the city. It may help that he’s a reading volunteer with the charity Beanstalk  which sees him working with children at Hargrave Park Primary school  in Archway to improve their reading. “The Last Wild is for children aged 8-12 years, an age when children are just learning,” adds Piers, “they can enjoy a multitude of experiences like running to a tree or playing on their i-phone. They don’t distinguish between good or bad learning.”

Seems like an approach us grown ups could perhaps benefit from too because it helps you try new things. So here’s to being out and about in Islington, whatever the weather.

You can enjoy Piers’ TV comedy work on BBC3 in August with Boom Town. Don’t forget to enter the competition (see top) or order your own copy of The Last Wild.

www.pierstorday.co.uk

www.thelastwild.com

Need to know
Northumberland population density* Evidence here - I’m doubtful about this, but Piers pointed out that it’s a well-known quote and in Northumberland you will see plenty of sheep and cattle as well as foxes, otters, bats, kestrels, swifts, swallows and red kites. Red squirrels have been reintroduced and in the rivers there are salmon. Northumberland is the sixth biggest county (501,301ha) in England but sparsely populated (0.34 people per hectare). In contrast Islington is rather small, but it is London’s most densely populated borough with around 137 people per hectare, see here.

Pleasance Theatre info here Carpenter Mews, North Road, N7. Nearest tube: Caledonian Road.

Over to you

What made you get involved in Islington life – do you find it a way to make friends or something to be proud about doing?  By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. This blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

Everyone on Islington Faces Blog has a story. Founder and director of Zippos Circus, Martin Burton, sprinkles his fabulous tales of big top life with some tidbits about Islington clowns. Interview by Nicola Baird.

“I spent a year in intensive care after a fire eating accident,” admits the unflappable Martin Burton, 59, “so I promised my mother I wouldn’t do it again.”

Fortunately clowning wasn’t off limits. During the interview – held in Martin’s carpeted office (a cosy trailer) lined with circus memorabilia – he shows me a large skin graft scar braceleting his wrist. “Well, I was 25 and invincible! But the audience never know if something goes wrong,” he jokes and then recounts how the amazing Lucius Team motorbike stunt – four leather clad riders and their bikes seemingly defying gravity in a circular steel cage – have had one slip-up. “They really look after their equipment,” says Martin, “but one time there were three laid in the bottom and the fourth one had to keep going round and round above them [in the Globe of Death]. The problem was that he was getting increasingly dizzy, but he couldn’t come down without hurting the others.”

Nell, 12, meets Scooby (a riding school rescue horse who now stars in the circus with Nicky de Neumann) and Martin Burton, owner of Zippos Circus.

The death-defying acts on motorbikes, horses, trapeze or ropes are as much a part of the circus’s appeal as the carefree life on the road.

Red tail-coated ringmaster Norman Barrett puts it succinctly, “You are never too old or too young or too cool for the circus.” That’s certainly the case when my family visit – grannies, teens and tots seem equally gripped by the action. The circus gives away 100 tickets to the “parish needy” but London’s massively successful theatre producer – think Blood Brothers, Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat - and Everton Football Club chairman Bill Kenwright and family (including his partner Railway Children actress/political activist Jennie Seagrove) are just some of the famous faces spotted recently in the 1,000-seater big top at Finsbury Park.

Even the Queen’s had Zippos Circus set up in the grounds of Buckingham Palace.

Trials of a clown
Martin began working as a clown in 1976. “I toured places where I wanted to go – Australia, Singapore, Bali, Philippines and Malaysia – but couldn’t afford to holiday. For quite a while I did theatrics, but a friend in the 1980s said I must get a circus, and that’s how Zippos began.

Hercules juggles tyres.

“We actually started Zippos on Highbury Fields and we did amazing business, but slowly something changed and we no longer go there. The last visit to Highbury Fields was in 2004 when Paul Newman (yes THE Paul Newman, star of The Color of Money, Cool Hand Luke and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) joined us for one performance. He was giving money to a number of charities including Clown Care which sends clowns into hospitals. Then we were trying to send clowns into Chernobyl. There’s research in America that shows that if clowns cheer children up then they recover more quickly, so the insurance companies like to use clowns to get people out of hospital. It also means in the US clowns get highly paid.”

That year Martin battled with Islington’s Head of Parks to put down aluminium tracks so that the taxi drivers chauffering a party of circus-going children in wheelchairs could drive across Highbury Fields to the big top. Islington wasn’t keen. “At the last minute the mayor – a woman – accepted an invitation to come to Zippos,” explained Martin, “and then I found out she was in a wheelchair. I told the Head of Parks that I’d be telling his Mayor, Cllr Doreen Scott, as I pushed her across the fields ‘it’s all your fault’. In a flash we had permission.”

Pete May bravely stands in as a flower with Zippos Circus clowns.

Clown guide
“To be a clown you have to be willing to metaphorically and physically stand naked in front of an audience. That’s why women generally make bad clowns – they’ve got more self respect…” When Martin sees me shudder (at the thought of being naked you understand in an English winter, not just the anti-women line) he adds, “I’ve seen clowns all over the world and I think Andrea from our show’s clowns is the best lady clown.”

England’s most famous clown has close links with Islington. Joseph Grimaldi (1778 -1837)  was just four when he made his first appearance at Sadler’s Wells, Islington. He had a tough childhood, in a performing family explains Martin. “He’d be at Sadler’s Wells for the first act then run over the fields to the theatre at Covent Garden, it was all fields then.”

Martin Zippo Burton’s clown is the top row, in red.

Grimaldi introduced the white face paint and two-sided personality of the clown that’s still used today. Traditionally clowns paint their face makeup on to a chicken’s egg to register the design.

Martin’s clown cabinet includes egg-heads of Zippo’s Delbosq Clowns, Martin Zippos Burton and Norman Barrett (for once not kitted out as ringmaster). There’s also a large collection at Wookey Hole, Somerset.

Nearer home Holy Trinity Church in Dalston, is famous for holding a service to remember clowns, attended predominantly by clowns, on the first Sunday of February.  Grimaldi is buried at St James’ Church, Pentonville Road in Clerkenwell.

Come to the circus

The Globe of Death can have four motorbikes tearing round inside it – seemingly defying gravity.

“In order to sell tickets we have to promote the romantic idea of the circus,” explains Martin. “You’ll read in the press ‘Last week I looked out of their window and saw the circus had come. Now it’s moved on and there’s just a fairy ring left in the park where the big top was pitched.’ The reality is a circus is where people live, we’re a travelling village. For me today its 2pm on Sunday and I’m in my office making sure that all the vehicles comply with the low emission zone in London. I’m always doing health and safety. People are surprised how highly qualified we have to be.”

“Everywhere we go is different, this is just cosmopolitan London. Most important people seem to quite like Zippos Circus and are happy to see horses on Finsbury Park. “And I love coming to Finsbury Park. There’s a great bagel shop with the best and biggest chocolate croissants in London . And I’ve been into Lidl about five times already this weekend.”  On the sofa there’s a Lidl bag full of red wine bottles.

There’s one small hitch. Finsbury Park is run by Harringey, which Martin remembers as “the first London council to ban performing animals 40 years ago. Islington did follow eventually and I even know what act was the problem. We had three Italian clowns who put a duck down their trousers. Actually I had a pet Indian runner duck which I trained to sit in the oven when people came round for dinner…” It’s a funny aside, but he swiftly comes back to the point which is that the few animals used in the circus are cared for extremely well – nothing like the circus followed in the novel and film Like Water For Elephants. “We’re only allowed to bring horses, dogs and birds into Finsbury Park by special permission of the council. And there’s a vet check too [which you can read on the Zippos website].

Ringmaster Norman Barrett, MBE with his budgies (not badgers!).

Being on the road so much Martin has a million tales – many about animal care and his battle with authority. Most are hilarious. “We had a Romanian girl in the box office who was asked what animals we had. She said horses and budgies, but it sounded like badgers. Later six police armed with machine guns and two RSPCA officers turned up asking us why where we kept the wild badgers! I said “We’ve got budgies. The police went beserk at being called out wrongly.”

We were in Stevenage, Hertfordshire and had little Falabella ponies. One wore a headcollar with a nice foam horn. I took a photo one misty morning and it was really good – he looked like a unicorn and the press loved it. Then the Head of Leisure called me in to his office. He made me stand in front of his desk. I know about that, I had to stand in front of desks at school. He said we’ve approved animals but this doesn’t include unicorns… We were banned from Stevenage for having a unicorn!

Go join the circus

“The great secret is that wherever we go people think it’s their circus. In East Ham the audience will be from south Asia, Kerala on the southern tip of India where circuses come from – he points to a photo on his frame-filled wall – they think it’s their own. Last night in the restaurant in Green lanes the Turkish were claiming it.”

Martin lets them think it… but he’s also super-adaptable to particular community needs. Locally some Jewish families can only attend the circus if there are no women singers on the soundtrack and no female performers. This year this might mean one show with the horses on the sidelines, as they are ridden by equestrienne Nicky de Neumann.

Each year Zippos Circus offers fresh acts. This year the team of palomino ponies are gone and instead there is fascinating trick riding by Nicky de Neumann on her lovely horses and a tiny Welsh pony. “I was madly into ponies as a kid and then read an article about trick riding when I was 13,” says Nicky who went on to train as an actress and singer. The photo is taken after the show with Zeus, an ex-Arab racer.

It’s also why Martin set up the Academy of Circus Arts, a unique big top training programme for people who want to runaway and join the circus. It runs from May – September each year and the 2013 intake is full. “There are always more girls and most want to learn aerial,” he explains.

For six months the circus trainees are on the road developing skills, suppleness and the ability to pitch a big tent, plus they hold a show open to the public each Saturday –Martin’s idea. “When I was training with Johnnie Hutch [the circus acrobat/theatre trainer who died in 2006 aged 93, see obituary here] we never used to bother to learn anything unless it was going to be in front of an audience. It’s the adrenalin… and how the circus performer learns what can I do for this show,” he adds.

More info:

• Zippos Circus  Tickets between £24 and £5. Check their website for discounts and locations.
• Clown Care
• Follow Zippos Circus on Facebook

Over to you

What made you get involved in Islington life – do you find it a way to make friends or something to be proud about doing?  By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. This blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

COMPETITION to win the Last Wild children’s novel — SEE WHAT TO DO HERE. 

Everyone on Islington Faces Blog has a story. Stanley Smart is a well-known St Thomas’ Road character who you may have seen washing and polishing cars. But his passion for vehicles was nearly his undoing. Interview by Nicola Baird.

Stanley grew up in Trinidad, one of the bigger Caribbean islands, but in 1958 – 10 years after the Windrush* docked in Tilbury, Essex – he arrived in England on an Italian ship, the Ascania. The trip took 13 days (compared to today’s seven hour flight from London to Piarco).

Stanley, then 24, had been working for his grandfather as a stevedore* loading and unloading cargo ships. Back then Trinidad exported three main products – cocoa, copra and sugar – but all sorts of goods were landed at Port of Spain.

It was tough work and Stanley felt lured to Britain for new opportunities, and by “fascination and gossip… (see his poem below & maybe listen to him reading it).

“We were led to believe that Britain was very rich. I expected to stay for a short while, three years maybe. We all thought we’d work for lumps of money and be secure, but it’s not like that at all – – it’s rich for the rich, not riches for the poor. The situation was completely different. Even teachers, lawyers they didn’t get what they expected. You took what you could to survive, and jobs were plentiful. I first worked for £2.10 a week in a factory making headboards for beds and quilted plastic material for handbags.”

Finding a home was hard too.

“Those were the days of ‘no pets, no Irish, no blacks and no children’ but our rescuers were the Jewish people at Stamford Hill. They helped a lot of black people get their own homes. They rented rooms if they felt they could trust someone to collect the rent [from their tenants]. They’d pick up the money on Sundays.

I came solo, but I was married.

My wife stayed behind for a year and then came with our youngest. We left two children behind – we hoped to make a lot of money, be secure and go back… The couple moved a lot, but made it to Islington in 1975. Sadly their marriage broke up in 1976, but Stanley has six children, five boys and a girl. “I’ve got about 11 grandchildren and I’m not sure how many great grands.”

Stanley Smart’s poem 04-04-13

“I write all the time. Not only poems, songs as well. I have so many bags of words.”

Listen to Stanley reading his poem here on soundcloud.

In Search of Wealth

In search of wealth? And an aim for gold…
So many stories I’ve been told
So away I came in search of gold.
I’ve heard that the streets of England is paved with gold.

I have searched in vain over and over again
And again bursting my one and only brain.
But where is it? Gold. No where have I seen any. None at all
Perhaps they meant charcoal way down in Wales
in those mountains and hills. Gee wiz.

Lies, lies and more lies.
Gold rush. Hush! Hush!

A change of life – another country
A different lifestyle. New faces and places.
Oh gee wiz.

An experience to last a lifetime
For sure what’s the score!
Well no gold for sure.
Head for the hills
Stop taking the pills –

Hit the heights
Then look yonder
As far as you can see
And pray to Allah – God Almighty.

Only He Himself and son Jesus Christ
Can help me…

Put faith in him.
And stop dreaming.
It’s all a myth – unrealistic.
My advice. Think thrice.

Boy you are too bareface and bold.
Here there’s no streets
That’s paved with G. O. L. D.

Buses, lorries, cars
Stanley’s passion is maintaining vehicles.

He’s been a mechanic for years, including a time in the 1970s on the buses based at Pemberton Gardens near Upper Holloway.

“Before you got the job London Transport trained you to drive a bus in case there was a fire and you had to move them. I also had my HGV licence.”

Risky business
“I was nearly killed working for Whitbread in around 1975. I should not be here. I tell God thanks all the time. I’ve had three lucky escapes but that was the worst one – I should have been biscuit. There was lots of pain in my back and my eyes were as red as the chair you are sitting on. They had no white at all,” says Stanley remembering the day a 12 ton lorry rolled on to his face and shoulder at hilly Margery Street, WC1, between Sadlers’ Wells and the Mount Pleasant post office. Here’s what happened.

“At the time Whitbread (the brewers) was based at white Horse Street, Moorgate. They were building the Barbican, it was so dusty. I was part of Whitbread’s fleet maintenance. It was raining and I was working under the vehicle to remove the prop shaft. The u-bolt had collapsed, and we should have made sure the dead man was on to lock all the brakes, but I was new to the job. I removed three of the four and then when I took the last bolt out with the spike bar and hammer I accidentally cut the brake cable. The lorry rolled and I was pinned under it, but luckily the front wheel had been turned to the right and so jammed on the kerb. If it had rolled anymore I would not be here.”

In shock to find he was stuck under the lorry’s wheel Stanley croaked out his foreman’s name – “Bert, Bert” – who super-humanly forced the lorry off his mechanic with the help of the driver, passers-by and staff at the council’s Islington Architecture building opposite.

Two ambulances arrived and Stanley was taken to St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Amazingly no bones were broken and he was discharged that day, with enough time for him to go back to work and drive his Humber Super Snipe home. “The police hadn’t told my wife I’d been taken to hospital so when she saw me with red eyes and black tyre marks on my face she started laughing…”

Driving life
“I’ve had 30 vehicles,” recalls Stanley and my son Marcus and I remember that car. If you asked me to tell you my number plate now I’d have difficulties but the Humber Super Snipe was a 1967 model, it was silver and metallic and its number plate was OMU 175E.”

Stanley’s retired, and the accident was years ago now, but he still has the spike bar that broke the brake cable – as much because it’s a good tool as a memento mori.

• Stanley was interviewed at 4 Angels café and tea room, 94 Gillespie Road, N4

FIND OUT MORE
MV Empire Windrush in brief – the ship docked at Tilbury, Essex on 22 June 1948. It arrived with 493 passengers who boarded in Jamaica intending to start a new life in the UK [not all were Jamaican]. Many West Indians were on board though as a Jamaican newspaper had carried an advert offering cheap transport on the ship [approx £50] to anyone who wanted to go and work in the UK, see more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Empire_Windrush Info about the BBC2 four-parter about the Windrush, screened in 1998 [5oth anniversary] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windrush_TV_series

Info about the Italian ship, the Ascania, was hard to find, but see this link http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1172046 which suggests she was first known as Florida. Stanley thinks he paid £360 for his ticket. See info below from that thread:

“Ascania [1955-68]  was built as the SGTM liner Florida in 1926. She was bought by Grimaldi-SIOSA in 1955. She was refitted to carry 183 first class and 932 tourist class passengers on services from Southampton, Vigo and Lisbon to the Caribbean and Venezuela. She mainly carried Spanish and Portuguese migrants outwards, and West Indians on the return voyage. In 1966, Ascania became a budget Mediterranean cruise ship.http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/“

More about stevedores, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevedore

Info about Whitbread, http://www.whitbread.co.uk

Over to you
What was your experience of moving to Islington? By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you. And yes, this blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.

Everyone on Islington Faces Blog has a story. Zrinka Bralo was born in Sarajevo. She studied Politics & Sociology, then went into radio journalism. Covering the Bosnian War led to her working 12-15 hour days during the siege of Sarajevo (which began in 1992). Every day Zrinka helped  foreign film crews find out how many shells had hit the city and how many casualties had happened. It meant filming a massacre, or a morgue or people running… And then she went home to more shelling. At the end of 1993 she left permanently. Zrinka is no longer a journalist. She lives in London, not far from Finsbury Park and is the Executive Director of the Migrant & Refugee Community Forum which welcomes migrants to London. Interview by Nicola Baird

“I came to London in November 1993 – it’s coming up to 20 years. I didn’t have a plan when I left, I just wanted to leave Sarajevo…” says Zrinka in her sitting room. It’s immaculately tidy even with her high heels stored on the  stairs, and a home gym opposite the sofa. Sun is drifting through blinds (which are kept down). There’ a scented candle burning and two laptops.

It’s the room of a successful 21^st century working woman – as ideal for downtime as for catching up with office tasks.

So what does Zrinka, now 45, remember from the trauma of living and working in a siege town?

“I was 25 when the war started. War is a frightening experience – your immediate existence is under some threat, and then it just becomes humiliating. You are reduced to searching for food and water. There’s a huge daily effort required for any kind of meaningful life. The war in Sarajevo was between people who knew each other. You discover your friend from primary school, the one you did your homework with, is in the mountains shooting at you. Where’s the sense in that?”

“Every day you hear someone has been wounded or killed. But life is also about logistics – how to wash your hair with one bottle of water. Where to find soap. Suddenly you have frizzy hair, no deodorant and no tampons. It’s a daily humiliation… and then you don’t care. In the summer of 1993 there were a few days of ceasefire and suddenly we had running water for a couple of days. I was working with a French TV crew and they saw these crazy Bosnian women out soaping their kilims (rugs),” remembers Zrinka with some humour – but she has to explain it too…”You see we all were burning little stoves in our houses and everything smelt of smoke. Washing carpets was an attempt to regain pride.”

Snipers kept us indoors
“As a teenager my working mother insisted we moved to a new block of flats. It was perceived as a step-up because it was brand new – and had central heating. That’s important because Sarajevo is very cold. My mother was fed up with the old neighbourhood. But living on the second floor in that 12-storey block became safe. For a couple of weeks we couldn’t leave because of snipers. We spent time in the corridors and we felt safer because it was a vertical street. People were sharing food, and concrete is a good material to be surrounded with during shelling.”

It’s clear that Zrinka’s experience has left her with an extremely practical bent.

When she came to London she remembers that loud noises didn’t scare her, instead “the hardest thing was to suspend my panic buttons. For a long time I’d just see disaster scenarios everywhere. In the case of Channel 4 I’d see the building and think, ‘ if there was shelling this building wouldn’t survive, I hope they have a studio in an underground cellar’… I wonder how crazy that must have seemed to my friends?

Zrinka in the wreck of Sarajevo Library. She could only get there when the snipers had gone.

“I know I don’t have time for whingers and spoilt people. I sometimes have to imagine how it is to be a normal person, brought up in normal circumstances. I think I’m harsher when it comes to judging people. I find in London that I have a sense of kinship with older people who were alive during World War Two. They still have a spirit of toughness and they don’t waste things. We throw away a lot and don’t recycle enough…”

House sitting
“I moved into Finsbury Park – which is a very nice neighbourhood, with a nice park – in 2005. I was house-sitting for my friends but I have stayed for years. They went on a round the world trip and ended up staying in the Philippines.” Her friends’ pictures are still on the wall – a blue seaside scene which shows a storm coming and a photo-montage of one, Tanya, walking in a Spanish street.

Zrinka’s photos are up too – a black and white shot of the young Zrinka in the ruins of Sarajevo Library taken by a camera crew she led there once the snipers had left. “It smelt of old books. I used to study at university here. It was such an act of barbarism to burn down the library in August 1992,” says Zrinka still affronted.

Sometimes she walks into the library at the British Museum to catch that same special scent of old books…

Learning to live in peace times
“The first couple of years in the UK is a blur: things were just happening to me. I’d survived. I had some kind of responsibility to myself and my mum – I had to get a job and better myself. There was no time to think. I started working for the Refugee Council as an interpreter for Bosnians who’d been evacuated. They’d been severely tortured at Prijedor. I was almost a social worker for them. I’d go round to doctors’ appointments, try to find places for them to live, find out about welfare benefits and where the kids could go to school when their families joined them. It was very difficult for them.”

Was it hard for her? Zrinka pauses then says:  ”I consider work to be therapy. It’s really important to get some sense of self-worth from doing things. So then I went to Amnesty International and learnt more about asylum seekers and refugees. And I finished a Masters degree at LSE in Media & Communications. That’s when I realised that I didn’t want to be a journalist any more. My work now – at the Migrant & Refugee Community Forum – is interesting and inspiring. There are no ordinary stories. I meet people from Syria, Rwanda and Zimbabwe… It makes me think all the stuff that happened to me was not that bad. I wasn’t raped or wounded. Though maybe it isn’t good for me to diminish my experience?”

Enjoying Islington

I’m on the border of Islington. I like the shops in Upper Street and the nice bakery, Euphorim too. I like have meetings their – I like those shared office spaces! And I love the cinema at Screen on the Green now they’ve done all the work inside. There are a few nice pubs and gastro pubs too – the Vineyard, 179 Upper street  and the Bar with No Name,  at 69 Colebrooke Row is good for cocktails.  Upper Street is missing a bookshop though – I’m trying not to spend money on Amazon. I tend to go to Crouch End to do my shopping – it’s lost Prospero Books but it has a Watirose and a health food shop – and it’s easy to reach on the bus.

Thinking about home
Twenty  years on Zrinka is able to talk about her experience of war, and feel safe enough to support continued efforts in Bosnia to help with reconciliation in Prijedor – a 4 km square area which at one point had three concentration camps. With friends – and in her spare time – she runs the Bridge of Peace charity helping to link 8-14 year olds who have grown up in a deeply divided community.

“We work with four schools, – with Roma (still treated badly in Bosnia), Bosnian, Croat and Serbian children,” she says. “Last year we sent 100 young international volunteers to do music and drama with the students for a week. This year we’ve adapted Midsummer Night’s Dream and the students will perform that together.”

For someone who has a staggeringly busy life – helping settle migrants as her day job – it would be easy to have drawn a line at this extra task. But Zrinka felt: “For the past four or five years I have a sense of being a little more in control. I’m making the choices and not forced to do things – that’s the sense of being settled. I needed to feel safe and settled in order to go back and do this. It shows time helps.”

Zrinka is an inspiration, but don’t go telling her that. As she put it: “Being in London it is easy to be invisible and to fit in. There are so many people with so many stories – it means you don’t have to stand out with your experience of trauma. I’m no longer the one with the weird name who gets asked where I’m from which starts an ‘Oh-My-God’ conversation…”

Migrant & Refugee Community Forum - Go to the website to see how you can help introduce someone to life in the UK. Or if you need a meeting room in Paddington, London consider hiring their office space.

Bridge of Peace, annual review 2011-12, here.

Over to you

What made you move to Islington or get involved in Islington life – do you find it a way to feel safe, make friends or something to be proud about?  By the way, if you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via nicolabaird.green@gmail.com. Thank you.

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This blog is inspired by Spitalfields Life written by the Gentle Author.