The Barnet Eye Advent calendar 18th December

There's a week until Christmas, and it's only a a week to go until Christmas Day. Today we focus on all things Barnet. For us locals Barnet is many things. We have the town of Barnet at the end of the Northern LIne, we have the Council, we have the Borough, but for the rest of London the thing Barnet is best known for is it's use as Cockney Rhyming slang for hair! 

Today we look at the reason for this, Barnet Fair, with a video from 1931 of this long standing event in the local calendar.

And for todays charity, we look at the excellent Barnet Museum - http://www.barnetmuseum.co.uk/. There are many historic facts about Barnet that you can learn from a visit. They say about themselves

About us
Barnet Museum is a free local history Museum in North London run by volunteers. The Museum’s collection contains hundreds of artefacts reflecting the history of Barnet and those that have lived there, dating from the Bronze Age to the present day. There is also an extensive archive, and we are a centre for local and family history research.

The Museum focuses on Chipping Barnet, East Barnet, New Barnet, Hadley and the surrounding districts.

The Museum opened in March 1938 to house and make available to the public the growing collection of the Barnet Record Society (now Barnet Museum & Local History Society) which had been founded in 1927 to record and preserve Barnet’s history. The Museum building is an attractive early Georgian house in the heart of Chipping Barnet, and is part of Wood Street conservation area. The Museum is a registered charity (no.295950) and accredited Museum.

Volunteering
If you’re interested in volunteering at Barnet Museum, please get in touch at enquiries@barnetmuseum.co.uk or come in to the Museum. Volunteers do a whole range of jobs including welcoming visitors, manning our shop, helping visitors with research, cataloguing our collection, keeping our garden tidy, cleaning the museum, etc.

The Barnet Eye Advent calendar Thursday 18th December

So only a week to go until Christmas Day. Today we focus on Barnet. Perhaps the thing Barnet is best known for is it's use as Cockney Rhyming slang for hair! Today we look at the reason for this, Barnet Fair, with a video from 1931 of this long standing event in the local calendar.


And for todays charity, we look at the excellent Barnet Museum - http://www.barnetmuseum.co.uk/. There are many historic facts about Barnet that you can learn from a visit. They say about themselves

About us
Barnet Museum is a free local history Museum in North London run by volunteers. The Museum’s collection contains hundreds of artefacts reflecting the history of Barnet and those that have lived there, dating from the Bronze Age to the present day. There is also an extensive archive, and we are a centre for local and family history research.

The Museum focuses on Chipping Barnet, East Barnet, New Barnet, Hadley and the surrounding districts.

The Museum opened in March 1938 to house and make available to the public the growing collection of the Barnet Record Society (now Barnet Museum & Local History Society) which had been founded in 1927 to record and preserve Barnet’s history. The Museum building is an attractive early Georgian house in the heart of Chipping Barnet, and is part of Wood Street conservation area. The Museum is a registered charity (no.295950) and accredited Museum.

Volunteering
If you’re interested in volunteering at Barnet Museum, please get in touch at enquiries@barnetmuseum.co.uk or come in to the Museum. Volunteers do a whole range of jobs including welcoming visitors, manning our shop, helping visitors with research, cataloguing our collection, keeping our garden tidy, cleaning the museum, etc.

Rog T on the Londonist Out Loud Podcast

I took part in this weeks "Londonist Out Loud" podcast, recorded at Barnet Museum.

http://londonist.com/2012/07/londonist-out-loud-a-podcast-for-london-16-july-2012.php

There is a great discussion about the crisis facing Barnet Museum, also appearing were

• Mike Norona, Treasurer of the museum
• Dr Gillian Gear, Archivist at the museum

We also discussed the death of the Boroughs other museum, Church Farmhouse museum and how the artefacts are being flogger off. Dr Gillian Gear explains how when she joined the museum she was the only woman involved. She also explained how she went from being a girl who failed at school to getting a PhD as a result of her involvement with the museum. She is a living example of the role such establishments have to play. The discussion also turned to the One Barnet project and previous mistakes in procurements.

We then got into talking about chips at the Olympics site and the MacDonalds. Strangely this led back to Helen Michael being interviewed by S015 about the Olympic torch route. We also discussed harrassment of homeless people by the police in the run up to the Olympics. I explained my experience of talking to people using the Passage homeless centre and how they are being moved on.

Dr Gear gives a fascinating tour of the museum, explaining the history of some of the artefacts. There are also discussions about other hot topics.

Well worth a listen. The Londonist is featured in our sidebar, keep an eye on it for all the best London stories