Barnet Labour recently launched its "There's Art in Barnet Campaign" (with your money). When I saw their offering, I nearly cried. How on earth could they get it so wrong? As someone who has spent their life trying to create a music scene in the London Borough of Barnet, this is a really painful debacle for me to watch unfold. When Labour were elected, their Leader Barry Rawlings asked me to help him draw up a Strategy. I did one for free. I took two weeks out of work and sent a draft to officers and councillors. I had not one comment back and eventually they all admitted that they hadn't bothered to read it. I have discussed this on the blog before. I also predicted what they would do. I said they'd bring in outside consultants, spending huge fees, to produce something that was completely useless and irrelevant. There is nothing I'd have preferred than to be proven wrong. But sadly, even the low expectations I had have not been met.
So lets start with their video. I suggest you watch it, so you can get a flavour of what I'm talking about
If you make a video that asks the Question "Did you know there's Art in Barnet?", you'd think that there would be an answer to the question, with some examples. What do they give us? A bloke walking around the RAF Museum, which is a culturally important site, but its primary role is not as an arts venue. Now I am into music, I would have thought that the Council would use this opportunity (created with your cash), to look at genuine arts venues and examples of great art.
As a musician, here's a list of venues I've personally played at in the Borough in the last three years.
2022
11th June, Mill Hill Music Festival, The Adam and Eve, Mill Hill
19th August, The Bohemia, Finchley
2023 17th February, The Edgware Services Club, Burnt Oak 6th May, The Mill Hill Services Club 28th The Bull Theatre Centre, Barnet
2024 13th April, The Bull Theatre, Barnet
17th May, Mill Hill Music Complex Studios 29th June East Barnet Festival 4th September, Mill Hill Music Complex Studios
2025 12th April -The Builders Arms, Barnet
That's eight different venues, all of hich have regular live entertainment, including two local festivals. They are just the venues my band have played at. Theres plenty of others that I've been to, all of which I feature in my regular Friday Fun round up of local music. This week, we listed 26 gigs in the Borough. This is just a normal week in the London Borough of Barnet, but there is no mention of this in the video.
There are other forms of art apart from music. I am less well qualified to comment on these, but they are equally as important. We have some amazing public art in the Borough, which I was amazed to see was not featured. A great example is the Handley Page memorial Mural, that I made a video to celebrate the launch of in 2020 (just before Covid)
Of course it is easy to moan and groan. I suppose you could say something is better than nothing, if we weren't paying through the nose for such sub standard rubbish, I may have kept my mouth shut. But that is not my style! So I am going to make Barnet an "Art in Barnet" video absolutely free. And if they like it they can have it. When it's done I'll give you all the opportunity to say which one you think is better.
When I was a little kid, my parents made me go to Church every week. I wouldn't say they forced me, it was just what our family did. There was a ritual. Dad had a big car, which started off as a Humber Sprite, then a Ford Zephyr and a Ford Zodiac. They all had bench seats. At 10/40am us kids would all pile in the front, then Dad would drive up to the Cottage Homes (retirement home for old ladies). He'd pick up three old ladies, I can recall Mrs Faller and Mrs Monaghan and he'd take us all to 11am mass at The Sacred Heart Church. After mass, he'd drop the ladies home, take us to the 'little shop' on Shakespeare Road and stock up on provisions. This included freshly cut ham, garibaldi biscuits, smoked salmon, and other tasty provisions that my frugal mother considered to expensive. He'd then drop us back and go for a drink whilst Mum made dinner.
When I was a small, Mass was in Latin. It was all sung, incence was liberally dispensed (a mate at school, when asked what he liked best at mass by a visiting priest replied 'The smell of incest', for which he was sent to the Head Mistress for a beating with the tennis bat. None of us knew what incest was, until I asked my sister). I used to quite enjoy it, it was very different from the rest of the week. The main proceedings were unintelligible. Then we'd get berated by the priest in his sermon and told we were all going to Hell if we didn't repent, and we'd sing a few hymns. There were several that I rather liked. Oh Praise ye the Lord was a banging tune. Faith of our fathers was a bit more reflective and others had excellent melodies such as How great though art.
When I was about seven or eight, things changed. Suddenly mass was in English and we started to get modern hymns and even worse Folk Masses, where geezers with beards would play guitars and sing songs with duff melodies and choruses that had clunky choruses which didn't scan very well, that were sort of like Jesus you are marvellous, Jesus you are the best, Jesus I think your wonderful, Jesus you are blessed. Even as a child, I hated these. I couldn't really see the point of telling God how marvellous he was. I mean, God is meant to be omnipotent and all knowing, so he must know we like him and if we don't and we're telling porkies, it would just irritate him and he may smite us?
As I got more into music and analysed what made a good hymn, I concluded a good tune was the key. Perhaps the best hymn is Abide with me. It also has decent lyrics.
Abide with me, fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide
When other helpers fail and comforts flee
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me
To me, this makes sense. When you are in the deep do do, it is quite natural to want Gods presence, so it is a very logical and sensible emotion. I concluded that the best hymns are also sensible prayers, not telling God he's marvellous but asking politely for his support through the dark moments in our lives.
Sadly, the vast majority of hymns fail to have any merit at all. Where are the Amazing Grace's of the current era? A mate suggested that Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen is up there and I don't disagree, but I am not entirely sure it qualifies as a hymn, as to me a hymn should be specifically written to be sung by a congregation. I used to work with a lovely chap who was also a brilliant guitarist. He was an evangelical Christian and I mentioned this view. He immediately brought me in some CD's of modern Christian music that he said would totally refute my view that modern Christians can't write religious music. Sadly, the CD's largely by failed American rock musicians, who'd discovered God, had the opposite effect to what he intended. They were all in major keys and the message was Oh Lord, you are marvellous, please make me marvellous as well. I wanted to burn the CD's as I thought the music was horrible.
When I first got Sky TV, I flicked through the channels and found a US TV Evangalist channel. There was a geezer with a moustache who looked like a porn actor. He was tellinge everyone that if they prayed and donated lots of money to him, the Lord would make them rich. There was suitably trite music in the background, there was one 'song' which sort of had the Chorus of "Oh Lord, I've made my donation, now give me a massive bung of wonga". Well those weren't the exact lyrics but that was the sentiment. I wish ill on no one, but I do hope there is a special place in Hell for such charlatans.
I was discussing my aversion to religious music with a friend who is a Catholic Priest. He suggested that I write a hymn, if I am so dismissive of other people's attempts. I had a go and realised it is not easy. As my lyrical style is mildly humourous observational sarcasm, it is not really suited to such things. But having said that, could it be worse than some of the abominations that have been written? My rather uncharitable take on many modern musicians who play in Church is that they do it for the captive audience. Of course, many churches have amazing choirs and great players, but I am sure anyone who regularly visits a church will know of certain people who give our lugholes a right old bashing. Of course, this is not a very christian observation, as we should be inclusive and encourage everyone to participate.
Having said that, I was slung out of the choir at the Sacred Heart when I was a kid for being 'unmusical' and not able to sing, so I guess I have an axe to grind. What I subsequently realised was that most hymns are simply in the wrong key for my voice and the melodies push past the range of what I can manage. I realised that the majority of hymns were actually written to suite people with a different vocal range and style to me. Now I would never claim to be a technically gifted singer, but it would be nice if there were a few decent ones that I could join in with.
One of the things that not too many people realise about singing is that it alters your mood and makes you feel better. There is a reason for this. The simple act of singing means that you inhale far more oxygen than you would normally, as you need a large volume of air to excite your vocal chords. This means that you have more oxygen in your blood stream, which actually makes you feel good. So a stonking hymn at a church service, that you can sing along to, will physically change your mood and brain patterns. Singing in a choir is a great thing to do, if you can manage the notes. I just wish I could and I wish that the stuff they sing at church these datys inspired me in the way that Ska and Punk rock music does, and even the old classic Victorian hymns did. But then again, this is the way God made me, and as my mate Bob the Scouser always says "God doesn't get things wrong".
I did start to try and write a hymn during lockdown. It soon morphed into a song about our local church, because as I said my style is observational humour. When I started playing it, I realised that it was dull pompous and boring, so I kept the first verse and widended the subject matter to a general comment on Sundays in the 1970s. Much of the rest of the song is inspired by the reminiscences of our drummer Graham Rambo Ramsey. I rather like it now, I hope God does!
When The False Dots were writing our "Finger in the Sun" album, I wrote a song called Wacky Races about building go karts and having races up and down Millway with the other kids in the road. Playing in the street was the best thing about being a kid. I'll give a shout out to Richard Wenham(RIP) and Luke Albanese who lived next door, Johnny and Frank Lewis who lived over the road and The Cooneys and Malones who lived up the road. We'd all be in the street making mayhem, annoying the neighbours. It doesn't happen anymore. I thought this warranted a list of things I did as a kid that my kids never experienced.
1. Being off school sick and waiting for 'Telly to start'. BBC and ITV did not broadcast in the morning. There was nothing on, apart from Playschool. If you left the telly on, you'd occasionally get "Trade test transmissions" that were boring documentaries, but better than nothing.
2. Going to The Model shop and getting an Airfix kit. Dad would give me pocket money and I'd nip around to H. A. Blunt and Sons and buy an Airfix kit, usually a Spitfire or Hurricane. I'd take it home and spend an hour making it. Some of my mates would build whole bases and paint the models. I was a bit too lazy, I just liked building the models. I hung them from the ceiling with pins and cotton. I'd make cotton wool flames and make sure the Spitfires shot down the German planes.
3. Growing radishes in the garden. My sister Catherine was really into gardening and tried to encourage me. She made me a little plot and got me some Radish seeds. They all grew and we ate them. If I hadn't grown them, I wouldn't have liked them, but I developed a soft spot for radishes.
4. Pike fishing at Stanmore Common with my Dad. Dad was into fishing. We'd go to Hunton Bridge, catch gudgeon and then use them as live bait to try and catch the big pike that lived on Stanmore Common pond. TBH I didn't really like fishing as I wasn't into decapitating worms and gudgeon. I loved being with Dad though, and so I never let on.
5. Going out on bike. Yeah I know some people dress their kids up in safety gear and take them cycling. That is not what I mean. We'd all meet up on our choppers and racers and go exploring around Mill Hill without an adult in sight. We'd usually get up to some naughtiness on the way. My mate Pete Conway's Dad bought him a super duper new bike and he cycled down Engel Park and went down a manhole. He had six months in hospital. It was just seen as part of growing up. I mention this in the second versoe of Wacky Races.
6. Investigating bomb sites. In the 1960's there were still lots of bomb sites and detritus of WW2. These were popular destinations on our bikes. By the time my kids were born, the bombsites all became luxury flats.
7. Having a day out with a Red Bus Rover. You could have the free run of London's buses with a Red Bus Rover. We'd usually head down to Oxford Street and then go on from there. My best memory was exploring the railway sidings at Battersea Power Station and getting chased out by an angry man in a uniform. To me Battersea Power station just seemed to be a wasteland of smelly rusting metal. It was fascinating though, I wish I had a pictures of it.
8. Meeting your mates at the park for an off the cuff kickabout. In the schoool holidays, we'd all congregate at one of the local parks, usually Woodcroft or Mill Hill and have a kickabout. We'd nick traffic cones for goals and the sides would change as the game developed. We'd play for 3-4 hours. We'd stop when we got hungry or the Sun set. Sometimes one of our mums would despatch a sister to bring us home.
9. Making bombs in the garden. Dad had a petrol lawn mower and this gave us raw material to make bombs. As we had a large garden, we practised making molotov cocktails. One day Dad realised why there was no petrol for the lawnmower and I was warned, in no uncertain terms, what would happen if we did it again. A couple of days later, he showed me how to make a molotov cocktail properly. That was my Dad. He trained me to be a very effective terrorist. My mates Dad was a senior policeman and I'll never forget his horror when my Dad explained how he could take out the whole of Hendon Police college with a simple device he could make in his shed. My mates Dad said he was pleased Dad was not a terrorist!
10. Mending bikes in the shed. We all had 'puncture repair kits'. If our inner tubes got a punture, we'd mend them. These days kids just buy a new inner tube or around here a new bike. I completely rebuilt my bike on several occasions, putting better gears etc. These days, you get a bloke in a shop to do it.
Many years ago, my sister had a flat in Canfield Gardens, in West Hampstead. She had a flatmate, who was a sound engineer. He may have been called Craig or I may have imagined that. He wasn't very chatty, but one day I was having a casual conversation with him and he told me a rather odd story. Apparently Bob Marley had been mixing tracks at a studio near Willesden. As was the way, back in the day, after the session, the artist and their representatives would take the master tapes away for safekeeping. The band went off and found a pub to wind down. They then went to a few more pubs. Marley was a Rastafarian ad reputedly didn't drink, but some of the pubs in the locality had a relatively lax policy in regards to smoking of ganja at the time. Anyway, as the evening progressed, the band ran out of cash. Pubs didn't take cards back then. To secure further libation, the band offered the Landlord of the pub the master tapes as security against their bar tab. They carried on the evening, making their way back to their dwellings at the end of a long, celebratory night.
When they woke up in the morning, none of them could remember which pub they'd left the tapes in. A frantic search of the area was fruitless. Somewhere, a Pub landlord had a set of Bob Marley master tapes, worth millions, and they didn't kow where. The story seemed implausable for many reasons and I dismissed it at the time. Then in 2017, the tapes turned up. Finding lost recordings of a legend like Marley is always an event of note. As a fan, we always dream of 'lost recordings' turning up. Usually when they do, the reason they were lost is apparent, but the Marley tapes are actually pretty good. Unlike most 'lost tapes', the tapes were genuinely lost, they were not just out takes.
This was brought to mind yesterday when I was in studio reception. A chap, who I didn't recognise walked in. He looked like a musician. He asked if I was Roger and if I played in a band called The False Dots. This happens from time to time. He then told me he'd seen a post I'd put on Facebook, about a gig the band played on June 30th 1984. It was a benefit gig for Greenham Common peace camp, rather incongrously at The Bald Faced Stag in Burnt Oak. We played with a band called "No Biscuits". He had been the drummer of the band, who were a rather good Rythme and Blues band. The gig organiser was a chap called Tony Byrne. Tony arranged for the gig to be video'd. This was a big thing at the time, but sadly I never actually got to see the video. We had a Betamax and Tony recorded it on VHS. To my astonishment, the chap informed me he had a copy and could get me a copy too.
Now this is not on the scale of the Marley tapes, but for me personally it is a massive thing. Venessa Sagoe was our singer at the time. She was truly amazing. Often these videos have poor sound quality and are badly filmed, but several of my friends, including our bassplayer Paul Hircombe have passed away and the thought of seeing myself at age 22 will be interesting. I am also intrigued as to what songs we performed. I am pretty sure that the only number we perform from those days is Action Shock, albiet a very different version.
Last year, a tape of our very first gig in 1980 turned up, courtesy of our old drummer Dav Davies. I was surprised at how good it was. It isn't the Rolling Stones, but it was perfectly acceptible and I used some of the songs for social media postings, which was fun. For a band like us, I suspect such things are only really of interest to us and a few mates. Some of the footage may see the light of day on social media etc, and a few locals may check it out, out of curiosity. In actual fact, there is a lot of nostalgia for the 'old Burnt Oak', so if there is enough usable footage, I may well hack something together.
One of the interesting things about getting old, is that I take a completely different view of the bands old material. When we were teenagers, starting out, we wrote a lot of material, that we decided was rubbish. We dumped it all. I've revisited a fair amount of it recently and I realised that I just lacked the patience, technical ability and wherewithall to develop some of the ideas. At reecent gigs, we've been playing a song called Wrong, which was the first song we ever learned as a band. It has gone down a storm and will feature on our next album, in its newly recorded glory, with Tom Hammond singing.
The only real sadness is that legends like Bob Marley didn't live long enough to revisit his lost material. But don't despair, here's a short clip from the False Dots 'lost' first gig tape!
Do you ever wonder "what is the point of bothering?". I am sorry to say that right now, that is exactly how I feel. Before everyone rings up, no I am not feeling depressed or down, I am just feeling very pissed off. Since November, I've been working hard on my weight and fitness. I've lost just shy of two stones, which is a good thing and was necessary. That is the good side.
The bad side? It's a litany of woe. Where to start? Well I've been going to the gym regularly and my ankles and knees are suffering for it. It is not unbearable, but I am getting increasingly fed up with constant knee pain and ankle pain whenever I walk more than a few steps. My knee pain has abated somewhat over the last couple of weeks, but it has become a constant and irritating constant companion. I'd rather hoped that the weight loss would go some way to mitigating this, as les weight would put less strain. Sadly, this has not proven to be the case. It is really frustrating. But it is not the most frustrating thing.
Having been doing some serious gym work, I had just started to get to the point where I was happy with my rowing performance. I enjoy doing 10K rows. My target had been to get under 50 mins by April. I got down to 47.30. I was very pleased. I always reward myself by going to the sauna at Virgin Active in Mill Hill. Last Wednesday, I noticed something odd. When I was in the sauna and went to sit up, I had a rather odd bulge between my ribs and belly button. It was not painful, and only appeared when I tensed my abdominal muscles. I showed this to my physio, who immediately informed me that it was a large hernia and needed to be looked at. As the bottom of it was where I had the scar following my cancer surgery, I booked to see my surgeon, who I will see in mid May. In the meantime, no rowing.
A bit of a cherry on the top of the Gateaux de Merde is that I have a cold and I am covering for one of my staff, doing extra hours all week. As anyone who has ever worked in a position dealing with the general public will tell you, all of the most annoying customers always show up when you are feeling a bit rough. Don't get me wrong, I value our customers as they pay the bills, but sometimes I wish certain ones would choose days when I'm feeling a bit better to turn up! (And yes, most have been lovely).
Hopefully by tomorrow or Friday I'll feel better. I'm going to see a band later in Camden which should cheer me up, although right now, I just feel like an early night. We are nearly a third of the way through 2025. We've lost a Pope, Brian James, the founder of The Damned and Clem Burke, drummer of Blondie. I wish no ill on anyone, but I can't help but think that the Grim Reaper is doing us no favours in his choices right now.
I just hope some beer and rock and roll does the trick and tomorrow I'm feeling tickety boo! You may wonder why I am sharing such trivial woes? Because misery shared is misery halved. Talk about it, if you are feeling a bit low
Fanning Builders were founded by brothers George and Jimmy Fanning in Mill Hill after being demobbed from the army after World War two. They found plenty of building work in Mill Hill, undertaking many bomb damage repair jobs and other projects. Their first yard was located in the old Bunns Farm buildings (now known as Bunns Lane Works) situated at the junction of Flower Lane and Bunns Lane next to the old railway sidings and coal depot with the entrance opposite Mill Hill Park. The firm eventually moved out of there in the early fifties and their buildings were taken over by Laurie Tichborne who co founded Macmetals, a car crash and metal work repair shop. There were other business owners in that yard including Lynn Products making kitchens for local councils, Smiths Coffee roasters (now based in Hemel Hempstead), Higginsons Joinery, Daleys fire places and Blake engineering. It was an industrious workplace with a strong smell of freshly ground coffee and cellulose paint wafting across the park land.
The move was to occupy larger premises on the sloping railway sidings of Mill Hill Station fronting Bunns Lane. Most of the buildings were old wooden site huts and the office building was constructed at street level to designs submitted to Hendon Council by George. They operated there until the yard was taken over by the council for use as a car park and the old Station Masters House, Garden, sidings and station yard and buildings were all demolished and built over in 1973. There were no toilet facilities at the yard so staff would use the toilets at the station which were also basic. The joiners shed was heated with off cuts of wood in an old iron burner and the hot water was fed to iron radiators rescued from jobs.
The yard man Joe, who was the uncle of George and Jimmy, a Lancastrian. Joe would chop up all the old scrap wood and sell it at the gate for firewood for about 6 pence a bag. This paid for his beer at the service men’s club in Hartley Avenue.
At Christmas the men knocked off early and went to the yard for a Christmas booze up and ham sandwiches from a barrel supplied by the Brothers. There was a Christmas club, so each week the staff contributed to a fund and the firm matched the funding which was put into Premium bonds and shared out at Christmas including any prize money. Joe would create a crib in the shop window with a light which was always fascinating for the children to look at. Each summer was a firms coach outing to Southend which was a boozy and jovial affair.
There was quite an industrial set up in Mill Hill situated all along the railway sidings where several businesses thrived. There were builders merchants such as C. J. Hunts just by the bridge, the roof tiling suppliers were along the railway siding’s behind Millway, several garage repair places, joinery shops and next to Fanning's yard was Ace shop fitters. There was the Rawlplug factory in Hale Lane, Middlesex Reboring engine restoration at the bottom of Lawrence Street, an iron fabrication place called Rocar welding in Bunns Lane and an asphalt roofing company in Daws Lane. Builders really had it all on their doorstep except for specialist stuff such as cast iron but that was brought at the Thames Bank iron Company in St John’s Wood.
Tea breaks were often taken in local cafes as parking outside was always possible, there were a few choices such as, the cafe across the road, the Ivy in Daws Lane, San Remo in Staton Road and my favourite, the old Forge at the bottom of Lawrence Street. This was run by Phil Matthews who lived there as a boy with his brother Geoff, sons of the last Blacksmith. Builders vans all parked up on the green to pile in for a cup of tea poured from a large metal pot. Geoff was was carpentry foreman, very skilled and bit of a character who told many a yarn particularly about Mill Hill. He would hold court filling us with his mixture of angst and witty humour, the original stand up comedian.
Fanning Building Supplies closes in 1972
When the yard was shut down the company moved over to a more concealed yard in Daws Lane but it seemed like the builders had gone forever. The brothers split the premises in the mid sixties leaving Jim Fanning to run the building Company and George Fanning to run Mill Hill Building Supplies. They were offered alternative premises in Graham Park but George sold out to Lawfords and Jim wanted to remain closer to Mill Hill centre.
In those days parking was always possible outside any property we worked on and that was just about every road in Mill Hill. Lorry loads of sand were simply poured at roadside as well as several thousand bricks and rubbish was piled along the pavement verge to be collected and loaded to a tipper lorry as seen in the attached photo and then dropped up at the landfill site at Hendon Wood Lane and later in Radlett.
Fanning Builders Ltd closed in 1987 and Jim retired and moved away as he was battling with cancer. He had six sons who all spent time working on the firm during the summer holidays. I became his apprentice bricklayer and my first job was working on the fabric at the UK optical building- now demolished. There are still some examples of my brickwork in different places.
It was great being a builder in Mill Hill getting to know so many people and all over town. Very fond memories for us all.
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