What does Watling Car Park (WCP) have to do with the ousting of Naqvi, the Council Finances and the incredulity of a Labour safe seat while WCP motors ahead?
Bear with me! I’m just getting to that!
Point 1: Naqvi sat, believe it or not (because I barely can), on the Strategic Planning Committee for about 8 or 9 years. So, he should have been best placed to raise concerns about the unsuitability of Site 6 when the Local Plan was consulted on. Similarly, when the H&G Committee agenda item arose 18 months later, he again would have been best placed to tell our other Councillor (Sara Conway), what needed telling. She was one of the three Labour Councillors on that Committee who ‘Abstained’ when the time came to vote on the disposal (when one would hope and expect the them to vote ‘Against’ it, given all that we now know they should have known).
Point 2: the Council-owned land disposal is arranged as a ‘Sale and Leaseback’ transaction. Happy to be corrected, but from what I can see, if the planning application is approved, the Council will receive a whole lot of wonga in an instant. What is not clear to me, is how much of the money stays with the Council, and how much goes to the developer to commence the build. Naqvi should have known the details, but alas, residents can’t quiz him on that any more and even if he had refused to resign and then decided to tell the truth (ha ha ha!), then who on earth would ever believe him?
Point 3: If the source of the ‘wonga’ comes from outside the public sector (i.e. NOT the PWLB), then the development will sit OUTSIDE of the ‘Housing Revenue Account’ (“HRA”). The HRA is a ringfenced area of the accounts which contains income and expenditure relating to the Council’s housing portfolio. If a development is outside the HRA, this means that the Council can spend any of the rental income from tenants on anything it likes – it could, if it chose, neglect to spend it on housing maintenance. But who cares about the quality of housing when the party’s reputation for financial management hangs in the balance? To be hailed as financial equivalent of Einstein or Merlin ain’t no bad thing. Did Naqvi know this? If so, was he OK with this and intend that the money be used in this way? And what of the other Councillors?
Point 4: The Labour Party’s 2022 manifesto strongly argued against “No Tower Block Blight”. Indeed, less than a year earlier, the Labour Group’s response to the (then) Tory draft Local Plan stated, “The document does not go far enough to protect the Borough from over‐intensification, inappropriate density and inappropriate height of new buildings ‐ especially in town centres which in Barnet are suburban in nature.” It’s worth mentioning at this point that WCP is within the Watling Estate Conservation Area (which is a low-rise Garden Suburb development)! At the time of writing, live planning applications for two other Council-owned car park redevelopments contain proposals for residential buildings of no higher than 6 storeys (while WCP STARTS at 6 storeys!). This is the case, despite neither of the other two sites being in a Conservation Area (let alone on a floodplain nor removed from the Local Plan!). The illogicality and unreasonableness of these contradictions presumably seems perfectly fine and dandy to Naqvi et al…
Point 5: Strictly speaking, the current administration did not “inherit” the WCP regeneration proposals. They themselves converted the previous administration’s “Preferred Developer” into the official developer (in January 2023). They did so in full knowledge of the fact that the main site was due to be removed from the Local Plan on the grounds that it “has been found to be not developable due to constraints arising from the extent and magnitude of flood risk affecting the site…”. Quite apart from the draft Local Plan, long-standing Councillors would have been in full knowledge of the fact that the Car Park is a flood risk because of the Silk Stream (part of the Brent River Catchment), is responsible for flooding houses in Colindale. Their flooding will be made even worse if the functional floodplain is undermined upstream should people see fit to pile buildings on top of it!
If like me, you know that Labour councillors and MPs consistently support residents elsewhere in the borough who object to oversized, inappropriate and downright reckless redevelopment proposals, you have to wonder why, those same Councillors / MPs won’t do the same for this locality. Indeed, you would also wonder why they are in favour Tall Buildings in hazardous places for which there are conservation ‘planning constraints’ yet they object to buildings that aren’t even Tall which have no conservation planning constraints and aren’t in hazardous locations!
Burnt Oak Ward is still a “Safe” for Labour, probably because the Party is confident that a lot of the Burnt Oak electorate have been blissfully unaware of the WCP proposals (which is true); possibly believe that the decision has already been made (ditto); and don’t tend to understand how to engage in the planning system as confidently as residents in other localities (ditto).
I am left thinking that people are happy to ‘sell Burnt Oak residents down the river’ purely because of a lack of ‘Postcode Parity’.
-------------------
Concerned resident is a Barnet Resident. Guest blogs are always welcome at The Barnet Eye
I was informed that you had recently posted pictures of Mill Hill and made reference to the days when the motorway came to town, I remember it well.
It certainly changed our small town for ever and that peace that went with it at the time when the six lanes suddenly started appearing aloft on huge concrete pillars and beams constructed at the end of the Broadway. This certainly marked a noticeable change in the character of the town.
The old Midland Railway Cottages. Hunt’s boilers Merchants, the florist shop and several small shops in station Road were demolished very quickly as well as the railway bridge to make way for a huge hole which was dug in the ground. The best thing about it was that there was no more flooding under the old circular arch Victorian railway bridge and double decker buses could then travel on to Edgware, rather than turning around at Mill Hill.
I played on the motorway site with the other local boys who lived up a few doors from you in Millway. We accessed the site from the end of their garden and watched as the old allotments disappeared. I remember when the lanes were just laid with a gravel surface waiting for the concrete road surface to be poured. There was a huge pile of sand by Lilley Lane Foot Bridge and I was told that some kids jumped off the bridge onto it and sustained injury for their efforts.
My brother and I used to look at the futuristic picture placed under the emerging motorway bridge showing the modernistic bus station and supermarket soon coming to town in what is now the M&S supermarket car park. Your Dad’s MacMetals yard was also affected by the new motorway as it ran alongside and the old coal depot was used to house motorway construction workers in big grey sheds.
My brother took quite a few cine pictures of Bunns Lane and the Broadway and filmed a journey he made with in a truck travelling along the new motor ay, passing behind your house whilst riding on the gravel surface, proceeding to tip hard core for free as all local builders were invited to do that.
I attach a picture taken around 1968 of Fanning builders yard with its Thames Trader lorry parked outside. I hope that the Hendon Times will at some point upload the picture of your family in January 1963 building an igloo in the back garden.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guest blogs are always welcome at The Barnet Eye. Chris the Millhillian was born and raised in Mill Hill.
Did you know that the worlds largest aircraft factory was situated in Colindale in 1918? It even had it's own railway service. This short film and blog by local industrial historian Mark Amies tells the story.
For the hundreds of people who pass by the Kwik Fit motorists’ centre on the A5 at Colindale, the building
is just another anonymous ‘tin shed’ , that could easily have been put up in the last forty years, but its past is far more interesting. This building is the last part of what was, in World War One, the World’s largest aircraft factory.
Colindale is a place that has seen great change, with the building of high density apartment complexes over the last decade, and it would seem this will continue for many more years. But back in the early 1900’s Colindale was just another part of semi-rural Middlesex. What we now know as the A5, the Edgware Road, the old Roman Road also known as Watling Street, was a semi-made highway, with tracks for the electric tram service.
The industry that Colindale became known for in the following decades, first arrived with the building of Garstin’s leather goods factory, in 1901. Over the years the name of the company has been wrongly recorded as ‘Garston’s’, but as this link to the ever reliable Grace’s Guide will show, it is how I have spelt it https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/A._Garstin_and_Co.
However it was the birth of aviation that was to change Colindale’s fortunes. The piece of land we now know as Grahame Park, was one of the UK’s very first aerodromes, developed by the pioneer, Claude Grahame-White from 1911. Given that the nearest area of note was Hendon, it is as ‘Hendon Aerodrome’, that it became known, but in essence it is Colindale. The site became an important venue for flyers, and really became the place to come to, if you were young, wealthy and ‘with it’.
However the clouds of war were gathering, and a number of individuals, Grahame-White included, were aware that the aeroplane could be an important instrument of warfare, another was George Holt Thomas, whose family had associations with newspaper industry, and had been interested in aviation for a number of years. He set up the rather grandly-titled Aircraft Manufacturing Company, also known as ‘Airco’, and around 1912, he decided to build a factory at Colindale beside the Edgware Road. Holt Thomas had been very astute in his thinking, as the start of the Great War, two years later, would see Airco’s factory complex grow as the conflict wore on. If you want to get a feel for the size of the operation, basically its territory started at its main office block , which is now the Beis Yaakov Primary School, and ran northwards on both sides of the road up to where the current Mercedes-Benz showrooms are now. The aerial image below taken by Airco shows how things were 100 years ago.
Airco was where the series of Geoffrey De Havilland-designed combat aircraft were made, starting with the DH2 and finishing with the DH10. These aircraft were amongst the most successful of the Allied aerial inventory, and a high attrition rate meant that Airco were, at their height, producing a finished aircraft every 45 minutes.
Once World War One ended, Airco went into decline and was sold off to the mighty Birmingham Small Arms Company. The individual factory buildings were taken over by a variety of businesses over the following years, the largest going to General Motors to assemble trucks, and then their Frigidaire white goods. As the decades passed the separate parts of this once might aeroplane complex were demolished and built over, but against all odds one survived….
The building that is used by Kwik Fit was one of the very first erected by Airco. Its four sides are constructed from brick, and the twin-pitched roofs are held up by steel girders. To an untrained eye there is nothing remarkable about the building. This is down to the way the structure has been adapted over its lifespan, with the whitewashing of the brick ends, and the use of modern steel cladding over its frontage. Take a look at the image below, taken in the winter of 1917, to see how it was.
You can see the line of factory workers literally held in wooden pens, waiting for their trams, this being Annesley Avenue. All the windows you can see were bricked in, but, today if you look carefully, it is possible to make out their shapes.
Quite when Kwik Fit took over the building, I have no idea, but the years between that point and 1920, when Airco finished with it, had seen a number of tenants. One of the first appears to have been TF Bristow, who made soaps and beauty products, as shown in the invaluable Grace’s Guide - https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/T._F._Bristow_and_Co
There is a very good series of images to be seen on Historic England’s ‘Britain from Above’ web resource, which shows the factory building in the post-war years , and this particular one, when you zoom in , you can see the Bristow signage https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW024761
So, after the rest of the huge Airco complex has been swept away by modern developments, you would hope that this last element of North West London’s contribution to World War One industrial history would be valued. You would assume that it was listed by Historic England. Well, sadly you would assume wrongly, because it is not.
A few months back I made an enquiry to Historic England about the Airco factory and this was the reply I got from their London and South East Regions Group Business Officer –
“The building is not nationally listed, but it may be offered some level of protection if the local planning authority adds it to a formally adopted list of local heritage assets. While local listing provides no additional planning controls, the fact that a building or site is on a local list means that its conservation as a heritage asset is an objective of the National Planning Policy Framework and a material consideration when determining the outcome of a planning application. Therefore I would advise you to contact Barnet Council’s Conservation Officer at planning.enquiry@barnet.gov.uk.
So what do you think? I would hope that if you have got to this point in my article that you probably do care, and some of you may be outraged that the building is not listed. Less than ten years ago , the RAF Museum nearby worked with the developer of the Beaufort Park estate to physically deconstruct and rebuild the 1915 Grahame-White Watch Office building , on its site on the former RAF Hendon. That was important, so why isn’t the last element of Airco’s mighty aircraft complex equally deserving?
So here is where you stop being a passive reader of my words, and an active participant of local heritage. Contact Barnet Council’s Conservation Officer, and ask for the building to be treated as a local heritage asset. Go one step further, contact your local MP, and demand they take action.
Your area’s local heritage is in your hands people, act now, or lose it.
Copyright , Mark Amies, December 2019 - All heritage images copyright Barnet Local Archives
If you liked this, I did write similar articles in a blog I created a few years back –
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Amies lives in Edgware and is a regular guest blogger at The Barnet Eye. He has several Twitter accounts, notably @YesteryearTweet and @Time_Nw - Guest blogs are always welcome at The Barnet Eye.
A couple of weeks ago, I took my grandchildren to see The Flying Scotsman hurtle through Mill Hill at around half past eight on a Saturday morning. It was a sight to behold. I am pretty sure it was the first time I went to Mill Hill to watch trains since the late 1950's. I mentioned this to my grandchildren, who were fascinated to hear that all of the trains were steam engines back then. I explained that there was no M1 Motorway and that there was another railway line that used to pass under the Thameslink line.This line carried goods to Mill Hill East, a depot in Flower Lane and a depot in Edgware, based where the Broadwalk Centre has been built. There is an excellent write up about this service by Eric Stuart, with some nice pictures of the Northern Line freight services. In the 1950's, Mill Hill East gasworks was still producing Town Gas, and the area always had a rather unpleasant aroma!
The tweet below has a link to an excellent video of the event
This morning I had the pleasure of seeing 60103 Flying Scotsman on a different route for a change, at the head of @railwaytouring's "The Yorkshireman" from Ealing Broadway to York, seen here at Mill Hill Broadway accelerating away on the fast line!https://t.co/JjTUrXzEPopic.twitter.com/ob3xTFMwfs
Watching the Flying Scotsman gave me a great feeling of nostalgia. At the end of the 1950's I was around 14 years old, my childhood was drawing to a close. By the end of the next decade, not only had I changed beyond recognition, so had Mill Hill. The M1 had been built, the Mill Hill East to Edgware railway line had disappeared, along with the coal depots and builders yards associated with it. The station at Mill Hill had been knocked down and rebuilt. Double decker buses could pass under the railway bridge, reshaping all of the local bus routes. Many other changes had taken place. The famous London smogs of my youth had disappeared as people stopped using coal to heat their homes. Ordinary working people had televisions and telephones. But what was it like growing up in Mill Hill in the 1950's?
There were a few notable moments that stick in my mind. When I was around seven, rationing ended. I was born with rationing and so it was just normal life. One day, out of the blue, we were told that rationing had ended. We were excited to learn that banana's and sweets could be bought, as many as you liked, so long as you had the money. In practice, this was usually when you'd had a birthday or just seen your granny!
Mill Hill had a cinema and our family would often visit. As well as the features of the day, the programme would feature Pathe News. This was our link with the world. As a boy, I loved the features on the latest RAF jets, the UK's rocket program in Australia and anything featuring developments in cars and trains. I loved the war films, which were jingoistic and highly entertaining. Britain seemed a very important country in the 1950's. We were ahead of the game. Frank Whittle had invented the jet engine, Fleming had invented penicillin and we had our own nuclear weapons and rocket program. News of these developments made us proud to be British. My scariest cinema moment was watching a Pathe News film about the effects of Polio. Polio was always a fear in the early 1950's and the shot of an iron lung was perhaps the scariest thing I could imagine, as we had seen classmates affected by the disease.
Cinemas in the 1950's were a very different experience. It seemed everyone smoked and people would seemingly enter and leave at random times, as no one had a clue when the programme actually started. People would talk about catching fleas at the cinema and people generally had no idea if the films were any good before going. Often you'd hear people walking out half way through saying "what a load of rubbish', having turned up on spec and gotten bored after a few minutes, realising the film was of a genre not to their taste. Local cinema's were cheap, cheerful and generally good fun.
Cinema was popular as most people did not have televisions, our family certainly didn't and none of our friends had one either. Radio was the most popular mass media method of communication, We loved the radio drama's such as Journey into Space. You would learn about such gems in the playground through word of mouth. As I recall, their was only one channel and the broadcasts were of a most eclectic nature. You would listen to things you had no interest in, as there was no choice. As such often you learned all manner of information that normally you'd have no exposure to at all. This was especially true in winter when there was literally nothing else to do.
In the milder months, we found other ways to have fun. Groups of boys would congregate in the park to play football. We'd go to Angel and Sheepwash ponds armed with fishing nets and jam jars to collect tadpoles. We'd make our way to Mill Hill Broadway to watch trains. We used to love standing on the footbridge that passed over the railway lines, as steam engines passed, to be completely enveloped in steam as the engines passed. Children would play football in the road. Go karts would be built from discarded prams. These would be used in frantic races up and down the pavements. Everyone seemed to have nicknames and small gangs of children would form, not to deal drugs, but to organise trips to collect conkers and collect tadpoles. Occasionally we'd take a trip to a local Fair in Burnt Oak or the Finchley Carnival to partake in the fun. Any fair with Dodgems was something that would be well worth the trip.
Our homes were freezing cold in winter, as they were heated by coal. As a boy, my job was to go to the coal bunker for a refill in the night, as the snow fell, the wind whistled and the frost bit. I useed to feel like Scott of the Antarctic. On winter evenings night we didn't have milkshakes, we preferred Bovril, as it warmed you up. The lack of central heating and TV meant that the four seasons loomed large. Winters were cold and bleak. Home was cold, your classroom was cold and the walk home was miserable. The one saving grace was the football season. As Mill Hill had no team, we'd make our way to Edgware to watch Edgware Town FC. There's an excellent article about the old ground by Peter Miles.
The Old White Lion ground
1956 Edgware Town programme
Groups of boys would make their way, drink Bovril and enjoy real, grass roots, old school footie. The big game of the seasons was the FA Cup, but the 50's was a very dry time for 'The Town'. The team invariably went out in the first qualifying round. In my memory, it was always raining and freezing cold, but there was also an amazing atmosphere. There was no violence and little bad language on the terrace. Each season had smells we associated with the season. The overriding smell of winter was the coal fires that kept us warm. Coal gave a very warm, pleasant, reassuring smell off and returning from a cold walk back from school, this was perhaps the finest smell of all. The smell of my fathers cigarettes was also an abiding memory, for reasons I can't quite fathom, tobacco smoke smelled far better in the 1950's, especially from Grandpa's pipe. There was also the smell of turkey at Christmas. The tradition was to cook these overnight. You would awake at 4am on Christmas morning, to a glorious smell. Although they say it is not the best way to cook turkey, the smell was glorious and worth the effort. The Christmas turkey was the only time of the year we had more meat than we could eat. Perhaps thats why we found it so special
Spring was a time of fun. Catching tadpoles in Sheepwash and Angel pond, slow worms in Arrendene, and enjoying the experience as the days got longer and warmer. Easter was more about hot cross buns than Easter eggs and church attendance was compulsory. Grand Victorian hymns were sung to the blaring background of a zealously played organ, with only a few bum notes. The air always smelled fresher in the spring. Lawns were mown, hedges were trimmed, each had their own special smell. The smell of hot cross buns at easter was another favourite. Another smell at this time of the year was when the farms did their muckspreading. This involved dumping tons of slurry from the cow and pig sheds on the fields, to fertilise the grass. The whole of Mill Hill ponged for a week!
Summers were glorious, the day that school broke up was a liberation, We'd spend our days in the park, the smell of freshly mowed lawns is perhaps my favourite smell. The parks in Mill Hill were spotless, ferociously guarded by the park keepers of the Hendon Borough Council. They kept a beady eye on the kids. They had a great sense of civic pride. They would always refer to "my park" and "my flowerbed", We loved the swings, made with steel and large chains. We loved the large slide. Most of all we loved the roundabout, the game was to spin it as fast as possible and try and hang on. Failure meant a grazed leg if you were lucky and a trip to Edgware general if you were unlucky. Cricket in the park was a must. I developed an interest in Cricket via the Mill Hill Village Cricket club, It had a clubhouse and is set in the idyllic Totteridge Valley. Perhaps the best of all was the glorious Mill Hill Swimming Pool. This was the social centre of Mill Hill youth in the summer. On a sunny day in the holidays, there was not a square inch of space. The pool had fountains and diving boards (a slide was added in the late 1960's). All of your friends would be there as well, we would buy ice creams from the ice cream van outside on the way home, which announced its arrival with happy chimes and Perhaps my happiest memories from the time were at the pool. Mind you, we all hated the place when we went there for swimming lessons when it was freezing cold in April. The smells of summer were mown lawns, the smell of Mill Hill swimming pool and the woods, where we whiled away the long days.
Autumn was perhaps the most interesting time. Much as we all hated the return to school, it was the season of scrumping apples, picking blackberries and the football started again, it always seemed that the season started in glorious sunshine. Playing for the school team was a joy. As the autumn drew in and the coal fires were lit, the smogs began. Conkers were collected around the time we entered the season for proper London smogs. The smogs seemed to me like the end of the world, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Adults would stay in and insist you did the same. Doors and windows kept firmly closed. Stories of lost buses would be told on the radio. How could we have beaten the Germans when we couldn't even get a bus from Edgware to Golders Green? The smells of autumn were bonfires and fireworks. November the 5th was a big event. We made guys and collected money to buy fireworks. There were no restrictions on children buying them, so we'd have great fun with bangers, many of which would horrify modern parents. Garden rubbish was burned and it seemed every weekend was filled with the acrid smell. You also noticed the smell of coal, which had been largely absent for the summer, as fires were lit as the chill set in.
As for food, eating out was an alien concept, although once in a while, Dad would take us to Sids Cafe in the Broadway for a bacon Sandwich. Dad didn't cook, so when Mum wasn't around, this was a rare treat. Mum used to grow vegetables and rhubarb in the garden of our small council house, mostly tomatoes, potatoes and rhubarb. She also planted an apple and pear tree. These would bulge with fruit in the autumn and we'd have a season of apple pies and pear tarts. Before she passed away, I asked mum why we grew so much rhubarb. She explained that it meant we could have pudding on a Sunday nearly all year around. In terms of volume, it was the most economical of the possible fruits to grow. Cash was tight, so a small plot meant a big difference in household budgets.
In 1959, I got a job working assisting a local milkman. I loved this, at Christmas there were generous tips and there was always the opportunity to earn a few bob extra. This was where I first learned about the British love of an innuendo. The new milk boy was always the victim of bawdy banter between the milkman and the various ladies on the round. At first, this was a complete shock to me, but I soon embraced it. As I started to take notice of their daughters, having a few bob in my pocket was a wonderful thing. I'd see many of them at the swimming pool in the summer and it was great fun, at that age all very innocent. I still hadn't decided that holding hands with girls was more fun than collecting conkers with my mates!
In the summer, old ladies needed lawns mowed and fences painting. It gave me a real work ethic. In hindsight, the milk round was an a very green concept. Everything was geared up to minimise waste. The milk was delivered to the depot by train, the milk floats were electric and the bottles were recycled. Best of all though, the round gave me money, which I used to save up for a bicycle. Bicycles meant liberation. Cash was scarce, but with a bicycle, you could go fishing in Totteridge, the Welsh Harp and Stanmore Common pond. Having a bicycle gave me a practical outlet for my interest in engineering. Like many 1950's boys, I had a mecano set and built crystal sets. The bike had a far more practical purpose and being able to fix it myself saved cash and kept me mobile.
There were various youth groups in Mill Hill. I was involved in the ssea cadet and the boys brigade. I recall one trip, to Scotland. This was planned with military precision. All of the equipment was loaded onto a rail wagon at Mill Hill and the wagon was attached to the train. When we eventually arrived in Scotland our equipment was with us. The wagon sat in a siding for a week and was re-attached for the journey back. I also loved the Boys Brigade, with its band parades through Mill Hill. A huge amount of work went into the preparations for the parade. Our expectation was that this would be a good grounding for National Service in the armed forces, but this was abolished in 1960. I had been fascinated by the army and the air force. Although now there is a touch of derision about 'square bashing' and National Service, we thought the idea exciting as 14 year olds. We dreamed of glamorous postings. Fortunately, I never got to learn the truth!
By the mid 1950's, the world was changing and the safe, old ways seemed to be being eroded. When "Rock Around The Clock" was screened at Hendon Odeon in 1956, it made the front page of the Daily Mirror as Teddy boys rioted. My Dad was disgusted and told me I'd be kicked out if I ever behaved in such manner. As a ten year old, I didn't understand why anyone would smash up a cinema.
By the age of 14, a group of us had furtively cycled down to the Ace Cafe, an infamous Rockers haunt on the North Circular. The purpose? purely to see the Juekbox. We were fascinated. The place seemed scary and the Rockers on their BSA's and Triumph bikes seemed impossibly cool. The jukebox was a wonder to behold. As I recall, I plucked up the courage to put on a Lonnie Donegan track. One of the Rockers asked if I liked Skiffle. I lied and said 'Yes'. He suggested that I check out "Only sixteen" by Craig Douglas. It was number one, I put my penny in the machine and the track started. As a fourteen year old, sixteen sounded very grown up and the idea of falling in love seemed a very strange concept, We were all rather naive. The friendly rocker told me that if I wanted to get the girls I should do three things, get a bike, get a guitar and join a band. As a fourteen year old from a working class background, none seemed very feasible, however a subsequent trip down to Edgware to Rex Judds and Edgware Music on the bicycle convinced me that if I saved up my milk round money, I would be able to afford one or the other in about a year's time. As my father would not approve of either, this would be a rather difficult decision. I figured if it was my own money, he would have less grounds to complain. I then read an article explaining how musicians could make good money playing at dances. It seemed to me that this was a way around the problem and swung me towards saving for a guitar. This was a very big difference between the 1950's and today. If we wanted things, we had to save up. Parents would not help, especially if they disapproved.
Family news came via letters. we didn't have telephones. That was a luxury and as your friends didn't have one, why would you spend all of that money. Letters would turn up from far flung relatives announcing that an auntie had died or someone was getting married. Letters from aunties required lengthy, perfectly written responses, in excellent handwriting. To not bother would lead to family rifts, especially if the letter contained a sixpence (2.5p) for your birthday. The coinage was different then. In 1960, to our horror, the farthing was abolished. Although worth almost nothing, to children they were a great coin, you could collect a few and buy sweets. Adults would often give you one or two, especially for your November 5th guy. Pocket money was a thruppeny bit if you were lucky. This would buy a decent bag of sweets.
Communications was different and by todays standards seemed very tricky. Often a letter about family business would have the telephone number of a phone box with an invitation to ring at a set time. Queues would form at the phone box and people would be viewed as anti social if they chatted too long. As a child, phone boxes seemed strange and glamorous, I couldn't imagine wanting to phone anyone. As for photography, Pictures were taken at school, at weddings and at the seaside. Very few working people had cameras and those that did were enthusiasts, needing light meters and all manner of other gadgets to get a picture from a camera the size of a box of strawberries. The idea that we'd be buying mobile phones with camera's built in for our children at age 3 would be totally beyond belief. There was no concept of junk mail.
The world seemed to move a lot more slowly. As the 1960's approached, we were excited by the new decade. In 1957, Harold MacMillan had said "You've never had it so good". In ten years we'd gone from rationing to Rock and Roll. The USSR had launched a Sputnik in 1957 and the USA had responded in 1958 with Explorer. In Mill Hill, we could cycle down the road to Hendon Aerodrome and watch the annual Hendon Air Show at the RAF base. It seemed as if we were on the dawn of a very exciting era, however Mill Hill was in many ways one of the sleepiest parts of London. Built by the Quakers, there was a bye law forbidding a pub within a mile of the town centre. Wednesday was early closing day, when the Broadway closed after lunch. You would see nuns in strange habits from the convent on the Ridgeway and priests with red sashes from St Josephs College. The roads were quiet after rush hour and the Broadway deserted after 5pm, save from commuters catching buses. There were no convenience stores, ATM's or late night takeaways. If you wanted a pound of sugar, you bought it when the shops were open. If you forgot, you'd knock on a neighbours door.
The world changes all of the time. Mill Hill has probably changed far less than many places in London, but the it is a different world. By and large, the smells are gone, the innocence has gone. Children don't play in the street, take themselves off to Edgware, The Ace Cafe or anywhere else in gangs on bicycles. 13 year olds do not work on Milk rounds. Steam trains do not chug through, spewing out smoke that causes smogs, except for very special trips with celebrity engines such as The Flying Scotsman. The Broadway has a small pub called the Bridge and you can get a pint of milk from 6am til the early hours. The Hendon Aerodrome is now the Grahame Park Estate, the railway from Mill Hill East to Edgware is long gone and all of the freight is moved by road. But we have just about hung onto the Green Belt, we still have Cricket at Mill Hill Village and we still have Angel and Sheepwash pond. Luckily, the best parts of where we live are still recognisably Mill Hill.
On my Mill Hill website, I have put some links to some amazing libraries of historical pictures. If you are interested in such things, check these out, they are fascinating. I've lived in Mill Hill for a very long time and loved every minute of it and it is a pleasure to share this with you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Wilkinson is a local resident. He's put together a helpful website for visitors and local residents who want to know more about the area - https://millhillbroadway.org/
Hendon in recent years seems to have become a mere adjunct of Middlesex University (MU). It now appears that MU's domination of the area is to be extended even futher. Plans are afoot to demolish the former Meritage Club (now Well-being Hub), and adjoining buildings (including the Citizens Advice Bureau and the Mencap respite house) at Church End NW4, to be replaced with halls of residence for some 260 students; to demolish the Ravensfield House and Fenella buildings (currently used as MU offices) and nearby shops on the Burroughs, to be replaced by halls of residence to house twice that number of students; and to create a new office block behind Hendon Library (on the site of the old children's clinic) to accommodate the MU staff displaced from Fenella and Ravensfield. (The plans claim that the essential services, and the shops, will - eventually- be reinstated.)
These plans were inadvertently revealed when a 'restricted' document, appended to a report on the Hendon Development, to be discussed at Barnet's Assets, Regeneration and Growth Committee on 13 June, appeared openly online. The document was overnight retrieved, and resticted once more. However, I had read the plans and felt that as now they were in the public arena they should be discussed by the ARG Committee in public. I submitted a question about the plans, was asked- courteously- by the Head of Governance- to withdraw it ,but refused to do so. (How could I 'un-read' what I've read). My question was put on the agenda, with a written reply saying that the plan had been revealed by 'human error'. I attended the meeting, asked a supplementary question, only to be told that as the document had only been revealed by mistake there could be no response from the Committee The whole agenda item (initially designated as 'public') was then discussed only after the removal of the press and public from the meeting.
This raises two points. Church End is one of LBB's Conservation areas. With St Mary's Church and Church House, the Model Farmhouse and its former Milking Parlour, Rose Cottages, the Greyhound pub, and Church Farm House (formerly LBB's museum) it is one of the few tangible reminders of Hendon' s rural past. Its survival is essential. No-one would argue that the 1970s Meritage, etc, buildings, were in themselves attractive, but they are small-scale, and they currently house important services to the public. Their replacements will be three four-storey blocks ('world-class' of course as so obviously all MU new buildings are) which will overshadow everything around them and largely serve only the University. There will be no parking places, as MU's policy is that that its students should not have cars. Any resident of Church End/ Greyhound Hill and envirions will know that MU students have, shall we say, a different view.
The second point regards Barnet Borough's attitude to this farce. I have been told that the agenda item was merely to allow councillors to vote to approve a Strategic Outline Case or SOC: i.e an exploration of the financial impications of the plan. I was told that there would be extensive committee debate once the plans were fully framed, and a public consutation before any final decisions were made. So what? The scheme will happen because the scheme suits Middlesex University, and this small, senstive area of old Hendon will beyet further bombarded with buildings and traffic. I have no grudge against MU, far from it, but the University is just one other organization that Barnet's Tories are in thrall to. In Hendon it's MU, elsewhere in the Borough, it's the major building developers,' free' school chains, even Saracens RFC. (Of course, internally, Barnet is under the thumb of Capita.) This suits Barnet's complacent, ignorant and idle Tory councillors perfectly. Let such organizations decide what they want, and then simply vote in favour of it. Curiously, the only group that Barnet's Tories are not in thrall to is the Borough's ordinary residents; they are of no importance and may be safely ignored.
Here is a small film I made with Gerrard on the day Church Farmhouse museum closed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gerrard Roots is a resident of Hendon and the former curator of Church Farmhouse Museum. Guest Blogs are always welcome
Picture of the year - Cornelius Signs Capita Contract Unread
When I started to write my retrospective blog of the year, I struggled. As a naturally positive person, I look back on 2013 as a year when many bad things happened in Barnet.
As I looked at all of the blogs posted, I realised that this blog has told a fascinating story. Perhaps the most interesting aspect was the way a team of guest bloggers have given a narrative to the issues which have been of local and national concern. I think that these guest writers tell a far more interesting story about Barnet and the UK than anything I've written. So this review is in two parts. My favourite personal blogs, which tell my story. I hope this isn't being narcassistic, it just seemed to me that these were actually the most interesting things I wrote. The second part is a month by month selection of the best guest blogs. These provide a commentary on the stories in local and national news. The format limited the contributions - One per month. This meant that whilst December when there were lots, I could only feature one, wheras in September there were none. Rereading all of them, I can only thank my contributors for their efforts and the quality of the their work. I have chosen not to put a commentary on, as one of the terms of doing a guest blog is that I don't put my spin on it. I hope you enjoy this.
Here are my favourite blogs
January - Rog T's Cancer Blog - My Bucket List - I revealed my teenage bucket list and my desires, fulfilled and unfulfilled. I note that a year later I still haven't fulfilled number 10 on the list. To watch the sun set on the Millfields whilst eating a tin of Pineapple chunks. Maybe today I will tick that one off. http://barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/rog-ts-cancer-blog-my-bucket-list.html
February - The Saturday List #34 - My top ten juke box tracks I think this is a great blog. Strangely enough, I got the list wrong. I omitted Rebel Rebel by David Bowie. There is no greater thrill in the world than putting that track on the Juke Box and giving the one you love (or fancy) a great big kiss as Bowie sings "Hot Tramp I love you so". http://barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-saturday-list-34-my-top-ten-juke.html
April - What really matters in Barnet? If you want to know why I write the Barnet Eye blog, read this. It sums up what I care about and where I find the energy to write a blog every day. I have tried to pick positive and upbeat blogs for this selection, but there really was nothing in April that warranted inclusion in this list that was in any way happy or uplifting. http://barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/what-really-matters-in-barnet.html
May - Is football run by morons? A short blog that summed up my disgust at the way the Premier League football clubs conduct their business. At the time I thought I may be falling out of love with football. What a difference six months makes. We are halfway through the most exciting season for years. Half the teams in the Premiership (almost) could conceivably win the league and half almost might get relegated. Despite all of the chaos, it is great. back in the 1980's there was a famous series in the Judge Dredd strip in 2000AD, where an Urang Otang called Dave was elected to be Mayor of Megacity 1. Despite all of the dire predictions, he was the best Mayor ever, because he was uncorruptable. You can guess how the story ended. It reminded me of what happens at Chelsea. The less of a coherent plan they have for the future, the better they seem to do. http://barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/is-football-run-by-morons.html
September - Sunday Morning youth football - A joy to behold, so don't make the kids play in your rubbish One of my greatest joys is watching mys on play football for his team Watling Youth FC under 14. A blog about the joys of being a "football Dad" and a plea for the residents of Barnet not to use our parks as a dumping ground. http://barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/sunday-morning-youth-football-joy-to.html
October - Just say Yes ! A little rant about the negative messages we bombard our teenagers with. We are squeezing teenagers like never before. Tuition fees, closure of facilities, bombardment with tests and exams. I am glad I grew up in teh 60's & 70's. http://barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/just-say-yes.html
November - Remembrance Sunday My remembrance day blog is always one of my favourite blogs of the year. It is important for us to remember. My father flew a Wellington bomber with 40 squardron during the second world war. He was shot down over Bucharest in Romania, whilst bombing oilfields in Ploesti. His rear gunner, F/O Andrew Murphy was killed during the engagement and is buried in a war grave in Bucharest. I believe it is the least I can do to remember his sacrifice. http://barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/remembrance-sunday.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barring accidents and major news stories, that's it folks for 2014. Many thanks for your support. This year we passed a million hits. I never imagined when I started that I'd get a thousand, let alone a million hits. I hope I have repaid your faith in this blog.
