To end of September. Lambeth Heritage Festival
For the full month-long programme go to the library or to http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/leisure-parks-and-libraries/libraries/lambeth-heritage-festival-2015.
The Festival includes:
Saturday 26 September. 10am-5pm Lambeth Local Archives Open Day
Full programme of talks and local history groups’ stalls, as part of Lambeth Heritage Festival. I will be running a stall at it. Lambeth Archives, 52 Knatchbull Road, London, SE5 9QY. Full details at http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/events/lambeth-archives-open-day-lambeth-heritage-festival-2015
Monday 14 September. 7pm. Lambeth Council Cabinet on Local Plan
The Cabinet was expected to consider the outcome of the consultation on the future of cultural services. This is not now going to happen. Instead the meeting will consider: the Lambeth Local Plan; a new supplementary planning document on house alterations and extensions; a revised statement on Community Involvement. There is also a highly critical report from the Oversight & Scrutiny Committee the consultation methods used over the proposed replacement of the Cressingham Gdns Estate. The papers can be accessed at
http://moderngov.lambeth.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=225&MId=9358
October. Wandsworth Diversity Month
Highlights include:
Monday 5 October: Nick Draper on slave owners of Wandsworth
Friday 9 October: Kathy Chater on Black Victorians
Tuesday 13 October: Kwaku on 2000 years of British Black Music
Monday 19 October: Katherine Hall on legacies of British Slave ownership. Full details in brochure here:
http://www.better.org.uk/diversity-month
Tuesday 13 October. 12.30pm. Vauxhall and Kennington’s Creative Industries Walk.
I will be leading this walk for Vauxhall Society. Meet at columns at entrance to Vauxhall Pleasure Gdns by Royal Vauxhall Tavern.
Monday 19 October. 6.45 for 7.15pm. Meet Allan Wilmot
Allan is a 90 year old Caribbean author and Lambeth resident who volunteered for the Royal Navy and RAF in World War II and then had a unique career as an entertainer in the rhythm and blues group The Southlanders. In conversation with Mr Arthur Torrington of the Equiano Society and Windrush Foundation, Allan will give an illustrated talk on his new book ‘Now You Know’. Friends of Durning Library. Light refreshments. Everyone welcome. No admission charge, but a £2 donation. 167 Kennington Lane (Kennington Cross).
Monday 16 November. 6.45 for 7.15pm. The Duchy of Cornwall’s estate in Kennington
Nicholas Long, author of the Kennington chapter in the book celebrating the Duchy’s 650th anniversary, gives an illustrated talk on the Duchy’s involvement in The Manor of Kennington Estate, particularly the architecture of buildings by Adshead & Ramsey, John Duke Coleridge and Louis de Soissons. Friends of Durning Library. Light refreshments. Everyone welcome. No admission charge, but a £2 donation. 167 Kennington Lane (Kennington Cross).
Saving Lambeth Libraries and Local Archives
Unless the Cabinet backtracks in the forthcoming report on the future of Lambeth’s cultural services several libraries will be closed or their future put under threat if proposed community control does not work. A petition to save the libraries is being run at www.change.org/p/london-borough-of-lambeth-save-lambeth-libraries.
I have signed on the basis that as someone who worked in Lambeth in various capacities between 1976 and 2012 and as a historian of aspects of the Borough I have deposited material with Local Archives, the future of which is under threat if the Minet Library is closed. My comments on the original Library consultation in 2012 can be seen at http://historyandsocialaction.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/is-lambeth-councils-libraries.html
Clapham Common 1914
New Old Ordnance Survey map from Alan Godfrey. See details and to order: http://www.alangodfreymaps.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?WD=common%20clapham&PN=London__Sheets_110-119%2ehtml#a3125
‘Lord Clapham’
John O’Farrell, former Battersea Labour activist, and author of Things Can Only Get Better, who lives in Clapham writes in the September issue of the Clapham Society newsletter:
As far as I know there has never been a ‘Lord Clapham’ – but since I like to smuggle Clapham into my writing I invented a ‘Lord Clapham’ for a character in a Broadway musical I have just co-written, now playing at the St James’ Theatre in New York (and recently nominated for 10 Tony Awards). Something Rotten is set in Tudor
London and follows the fortune of two playwrights struggling in Shakespeare’s shadow. Lord Clapham is their patron who is horrified by their idea of writing the first ever musical. The part is played by the American actor Peter Bartlett who by pure coincidence lived in Clapham in the 1960s when he was a student at LAMDA.’ See also:
http://www.newyorktheatreguide.com/news/nytg15/somethingrotteninterview15.htm
and
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/apr/22/something-rotten-broadway-john-ofarrell-writer
John’s tongue in cheek discussion of the Labour leadership election is at
History & Social Action News and Events 