Author: Suzanne Beard

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History Palmers Green Uncategorized

New air terminal for Palmers Green?

Jean de Manio on the roof of 75 Derwent Road in his Bleriot monoplane. Image by kind permission of James Birtwistle

This was the scene in a recently built Palmers Green street on 6 December 1912.

Pilot Jean de Manio had been on his way from the aerodrome at Balls Park (on the outskirts of Hertford, now part of the university campus) to Hendon in his Bleriot monoplane when he lost his way before getting into engine touble. He aimed for Broomfield Park, but fell short and crashed into the roof of no 75 Derwent Road, at that time the residence of a Mr Andow. Sustaining only cuts and bruises, he was thence rescued by two schoolboys, who went and got a ladder from Southgate County School while de Manio calmly puffed on a cigarette. Those, indeed, were the days of aviation.

The spectacle was reported on by the Recorder on 19 December 1912

All ways led to Derwent Road, and the inevitable crowd gathered. I think it may he said that the majority of the inhabitants of this usually peaceful suburb felt the importance of the occasion, and I verily believe that they were even imbued with a feeling akin to pride that the first aeroplane to fall—I beg pardon, to fly—on to a house-roof should have performed that feat in their own neighbourhood.

Sadly, de Manio died in a further accident a year later, before the birth of a baby son, also called Jean. As Jack de Manio, Jean Jnr became one of the most famous and controversial radio presenters of the 50s and 60s.

 
Categories
Uncategorized Winchmore Hill

St Nicholas brings merriment to the green

Winchmore Hill follows up the summer’s fantastic N21 Festival with the St Nicholas Fair, to be held on the Green on 8 December. There will be stalls, music, children’s activities, merriment, horses, reindeer, St Nicholas and snow….Festive events start at 2pm.

Categories
Art and Culture Bowes Park History Music Shops

Bizarre Bowes Park for the “interesting and nice”

Bizarre Bowes Park image Peter Berthoud

Award winning tour guide Peter Berthoud of Discovering London repeats his Bizarre Bowes Park walk at the weekend

Peter promises that the tour will take in “Ovi the dinosaur, an odd collection of eagles, London’s most interesting underpants, and a ramshackle “pop-up” church that has recently been saved and  look at some interesting late Victorian and Edwardian architecture.” It will also include a stop off for a drink in one the area’s most interesting bars, an exploration of Bowes Park’s musical links and a chance to view the most disturbing window display in the entire city.

Peter has  introduced an entertaining pricing system for this walk, and that alone is worth clicking through to make a booking.

The walk is on Sunday 30 September from 11-2 and starts at Bowes Green tube station.

Categories
Art and Culture Music

Serpents at the church

One of the recent recordings by the quire Image: LGQ

West Gallery Church Music is what you would have heard in many churches up and down the country before it was common for churches to have their own organs.

There is a rare chance to hear west gallery music played live at Enfield’s St Andrew’s church on 27 October, when the London Gallery Quire give an evening performance.

The event is one in a series to support the restoration of St Andrew’s  C18th organ, which is being taken away to Liverpool in a few months for a complete overhaul.  “So we will be playing music to restore the organ, which was exactly the music that the organ replaced!” laughed David Holliday, one of the church organists showing visitors around the church as part of last weekend’s Open House .

West Gallery Church music is so described because it was often performed by a band of singers and instrumentalists from a gallery at the west end of a church. Explains the Quire’s website.

“It differs markedly from cathedral music, both in style and function. It was written for and in many cases by amateur musicians; professional performance was not usually envisaged. Much of the repertoire consists of settings of the metrical psalms; there are also hymns, anthems and canticles.

The music is often of a very lively and joyful nature; too lively indeed for the reformers of the mid-19th Century Oxford Movement, who sought to replace it with the more staid and solemn repertoire typified by Hymns Ancient and Modern”.

Categories
Art and Culture Palmers Green Uncategorized

Memories of a happy childhood

Born Melanie Ann Skinner, poet, short story writer and painter Melanie Ann Camp lived in Berkshire Gardens from 1957 until the early 80s when she moved to her grandmother’s house in Edmonton. Though she left the area completely when she married, she still has family connections with Palmers Green and is a regular visitor.

In her new book of poems, “A Penny in my Hand (Growing up in Suburbia)”  Melanie captures happy memories of suburban life in Palmers Green during the 60s and 70s.

“The roads and avenues, then, were all lined with trees, shading the pavement from the sun on those long hot summers.  Privet hedges and little walls surrounded each front garden and everyone had a gate,” she recalls.

The book is dedicated to Melanie’s father, Albert “Chick” Skinner (pictured), her mother and her grandparents.

Melanie has kindly allowed us to publish one of the poems in the book. Copies of A Penny in my hand are available at £5 plus £1.50 p&p. If you would like a copy, please email melanie.anne@ntlworld.com

Saturday Morning Shopping
Buying fresh bread at the local shops,
And talking to people in the street.
Watching vans deliver fish from the seas,
And meat from the farms,
Not so far away.
The newsagent and the sweet shop,
Full of children eager for a new comic,
Or a packet of sherbet.
Lazily walking back up the road,
Knocking on friends doors,
And going over to the park.
To feed the ducks.
Or just sit in the shade
Of the old Willow Tree
Beside the small lake
And in front of a beautiful old house.

 

Categories
Food Health History Palmers Green Shops Uncategorized

Have you tried the new helium bread?

Helium bread was one of the exciting delicacies offered at Goodall’s in Park Parade Palmers Green in the first years of the 1900s.

Leading medics of the day were testifying to its health benefits, including the King’s physician. And if you hadn’t tried it you were missing out, declared The Recorder in the housewives column of its first issue in November 1907.

I tried a four days’ old loaf the other day, and found it as moist as a few hours’ old household. There is no crust, merely a thin crisp coating. The shape of the loaf is such, that delightful pieces of toast can be made.

It was perfect for afternoon tea too, and look! no waste:

There is one thing about the bread: there never will be any waste; no odd crusts to throw to the birds.

Goodall’s version with added currants was, apparently, was particularly tasty.

 Neither of Goodall’s loaves were the best thing since sliced bread however. That wasnt invented until 1912.

  • The Recorder was published from 1907 to 1916. A searchable disc containing all 170 issues is now available  from Southgate District Civic Trust
An advertisement for Goodalls from the first issue of The Recorder, November 1907, reproduced by kind permission of David Cooper/Southgate Civic Trust