Really? Wouldn’t everyone like to live in the City of Light?
Not if you have to live in a banlieue.
Excellent article here teases apart the difference between a suburb (Herne Hill, for example) and les banlieues of Paris. London has its problems, but in general … Be grateful!
The mural is making steady progress, thanks not only to the tireless work of Victor and Emma but also the help of many neighbours and friends.
There’s still more to do, though. Lots of white spaces need filling in.
So grownups who would like to do some colouring in over the next few days, and leave their personal mark on this unique local project, will be very welcome, Victor assures us.
Neighbours may want to see this rather unsettling message from the Southwark Safer Neighbourhood team via people in the Half Moon Lane area.
The outstanding Herne Hill memorial website was formally made publicly available just this weekend.
It is a volunteer-led project telling the story of those from Herne Hill who served and died in the First World War, as well as other residents who suffered.
There is no traditional memorial to all Herne Hill’s World War I dead.
The database, which currently contains about 350 records (though more names are emerging all the time), has been compiled and edited by the Herne Hill Society with help from the students of the Charter School, North Dulwich, and other local people.
The 100th anniversary of the Armistice was commemorated at a short, well-attended and moving Armistice 2018 ceremony at Herne Hill Station on Sunday morning. Our local Councillors were present.
Colin Wight (HHS), Cllr Becca Thackray, Cllr Jim Dickson, David Statham (MD, SE Trains)
This project is Heritage Lottery funded, thanks to money raised by National Lottery players.
The website can be searched in many ways, including by name and by actual street. This has revealed at least five soldiers from our own street who were killed.
90 Fawnbrake Avenue
107 Fawnbrake Avenue
114 Fawnbrake Avenue
6 Fawnbrake Avenue
129 Fawnbrake Avenue
Another name, just researched and not yet entered on the dataset, is Private Thomas Evans.
Thomas Evans was 30 years old when he was called up on 10 December 1915, showing his occupation as Architect’s Assistant. The second son and youngest child of Thomas (a King’s Messenger) and Ellen Augusta Evans, he and his older brother and two older sisters were all born in the village of Cark-in-Cartmel near Morecambe Bay in Lancashire. [1911 Census] He married Eleanor Barber at St Leonard’s, Streatham, on 27 May 1916 and was listed as living at his parents’ house, 129 Fawnbrake Avenue, Herne Hill. With his battalion he was posted to France, but was killed in action on 16 September 1916 – one of many thousands killed in the heavy fighting during the Battles of the Somme in Summer/Autumn 1916.
His grave lies in the Warlencourt British Cemetery, near Bapaume in Northern France (Pas de Calais).
More names may emerge as research continues, of course.
Further to our last post … the major project to research, record and map all Herne Hill’s WWI dead is already the subject of an excellent illustrated article in Southwark News this week, which can be read in the newspaper or online.
There will only ever be one Centenary of the First World War Armistice.
On Sunday 11 November 2018 — exactly 100 years after the guns fell silent and the slaughter stopped — local people and visitors are invited to come together at 10:45 am for a brief commemoration at Herne Hill’s popular Sunday market.
In consensus with communities throughout the British Isles and overseas, Herne Hill will mark this unique and significant anniversary with a minute’s silence at 11:00 am at Herne Hill station.
Many British towns and villages have a civic war memorial where the names of the men who never returned are inscribed. But there is no civic war memorial in Herne Hill — although there are several church-based and small community memorials. Until recently, in fact, the true scale of our community’s losses in the First World War was not known.
Accordingly, the Herne Hill Society, in partnership with The Charter School North Dulwich and local volunteers, has been working on a Heritage Lottery-funded project to identify all Herne Hill’s First World War casualties.
Coinciding with the Armistice Centenary, this significant online memorial will be launched on 11 November. The names, with many other details, are being recorded on a major new website. After the public launch, this database will allow searches by street address, name, age of death, place of death, regiment etc.
Volunteers have already unearthed and recorded the lives and deaths of 350 servicemen and civilians who came from or had strong family links to Herne Hill. But new research suggests there may be very many more — the figure may even be as high as 700.
In another token of the Armistice Centenary, and with the kind support of Southeastern Railway who operate Herne Hill station, information panels have been installed in the ticket hall of Herne Hill Station.
There will also be similar panels at The Charter School North Dulwich and the Carnegie Library in Herne Hill Road.
Lambeth have published proposals to convert some existing regular parking spaces to exclusive use for electric vehicle charging.
This is intended to meet demand for electric vehicle charging places and to “aid the transition to electric vehicles”, given the Council’s commitment to install over 200 charging points by 2022. As they quite credibly point out, the current lack of charging facilities is a barrier for people wishing to buy electric cars (unless of course they have off-street parking) – so by providing more charging places, they would give potential users more confidence that they will be able to access charging facilities when necessary.
The proposals extend across the whole borough, but in Herne Hill the Council intend to capture one parking slot in Kestrel Avenue adjacent to no. 78 Herne Hill, and another in Herne Place.
Removing just one parking space from general use at these locations is not likely to cause too much distress, but it will be worth monitoring future stages of this programme to make sure that council taxpayers who have invested in conventional cars are not unnecessarily penalised.
The Station Underpass Mural is progressively being filled in, bit by bit. Loads of local colour.
But there are still many opportunities for all of us to drop in there for a short time and do some more colouring. Victor would be very grateful!
It looks like the excellent Victor could do with some extra helping hands to boost the colouring-in task: there’s still loads to do.
Anyone who has an hour to spare would be very welcome – Victor says – to drop by, grab some colouring pens, kneel down and fill in some of the uncoloured sections. Time is short before the big launch!
And he still needs to borrow some more heaters. It’s cold up there, over the station, and the old-fashioned radiators aren’t working. At all.
Readers of our earlier post from this morning should probably re-visit it to register the note of caution now introduced, following the response of a well-informed reader.