Category: Art and Culture

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Art and Culture Community Music Palmers Green Sport

Get ready for the Palmers Green Festival!

The Palmers Green Festival is just a week away and the festival website is now live for you to plan your day.

Running from 12-7 on Sunday 2 September in Broomfield Park, the festival aims to offer something for everyone – food, music, dancing, crafts……. and our very own community games.

The aim of the Community Games is to bring the inspiration of London 2012 to Palmers Green –activities will include a chance to climb the world’s tallest climbing wall, 7 hours of nonstop dancing and dance lessons, children’s 5 a side football, girls rugby, tennis lessons and bowls. Many of the local sports groups will be welcoming new members – there is more information on how to get involved on the website.

If you don’t fancy getting hot and sweaty, there will be music from 20 performers during the day, including rock, folk, indie, Americana, rap and hard groove. Live performances will also be streamed on Tropical FM at http://www.tropicalfm.com/ (so being on holiday is no excuse!).

Funds raised by the festival will go to the on-going work of the Friends of Broomfield House and the new Improvement Opportunity Fund, which aims to help local people develop projects which will benefit the community (see last week’s post).

The organising committee have put a huge amount of work into the event. All they need now is for you to go along and make it all worthwhile!

Visit the Palmers Green Festival Website at http://www.palmersgreenfestival.org.uk.

 

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Art and Culture Community Music Palmers Green Sport

Palmers Green festival celebrates a new beginning

The sun may have taken an age to come, but it feels like time for a party. 

The Palmers Green Festival is just two weeks away, and this year is set to be the biggest and best event ever. Set in the historic Broomfield Park on Sunday 2 September, this year will feature community games, a top London DJ, 70 stalls, over 20 performers on stage at the bandstand and , more.

The festival promises to not only be a fantastic day out, but a launch pad for new activity aimed at improving life in Palmers Green. Half the proceeds are to go towards setting up a new Improvement Opportunity Fund – anyone with an interest in the local area will be able to apply for funding to assist with a project idea to improve the community. It could be anything from setting up a Credit Union, a community internet Radio station, improving a local green space or help buying equipment to set up a local sports club. There will also be ongoing support for successful applicants from community Mentors. The aim is, for a small amount of money, to see the largest possible impact on our community. More details will be available on the new festival website, coming very soon.

The event runs from 12 til 7. The full festival programme can be downloaded here http://www.palmersgreenfestival.info/PGFestival/2012_stalls_files/PGF%20Program%20A5%2024pp%20mail%20AS%20PRINTED.pdf

The festival team are already thinking about 2013 so if you are inspired by this year’s festival and want to make it even better next year, why not send your ideas to info@palmersgreenunited.co.uk.

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Art and Culture History Southgate

Southgate wandering and winners

Congratulations to Celia Price and Patricia Johnson who were the winners of Southgate walk competition.  

If you didnt win this time, its not too late to make plans to explore the streets of Southgate this Sunday (19 August) in the company of Joe Studman. Joe’s walk, Welds, Walkers and Watering Holes starts at 2.30 at Southgate underground station. Just bring yourself, and £3.

For further information contact Joe at www.jaywalks.co.uk

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Art and Culture

The man who took Palmers Green to the Raj

Paul Scott, Palmers Green’s Booker Prize winner. Image edu@stanford

If you are of a bookish disposition, to you Palmers Green probably means the lifelong home of Stevie Smith. But Palmers Green has a second distinguished writer  – one who these days seems to get far less attention but who nearly 30 years ago was very well known indeed.

Though he won the Booker Prize for his novel Staying On in 1977, it was after his death in 1978 that Paul Scott became a household name – as the author of The Raj Quartet, the books on which the TV series Jewel in the Crown was based.

Scott was born in Fox Lane in 1920 and the family later lived in Bourne Hill. There is no plaque for the man who translated the idiosyncrasies of Palmers Green to the Raj, but we named this website after him.

There is more about Paul Scott here.

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Art and Culture Palmers Green Southgate Uncategorized

More about Warren

Raith Avenue Southgate – childhool home of Warren Mitchell

Following last week’s article on Warren Mitchell (Improbably famous in Palmers Green # 2 Alf Garnett),  we have managed to piece together a little more information on Mitchell’s childhood and schooldays in the area.

Though born in Stoke Newington, Mitchell grew up in Southgate. The family moved to Raith Avenue sometime in the 1930s, presumably into a newly built home – all the houses on the north side of the road date from then.

Mitchell reminisced about his schooldays at Bowes School and Southgate Country School in an article about inspirational teachers in the Times Higher Educational Supplement in 2008

My teachers were all marvelous. But the one I remember with great affection was a tyrant called Mr Sinden. When we went into his class aged nine or 10 he said to us: “You’ll all be taking the scholarship exam next June and you will all pass; I have never had a failure. Heaven help any one of you here who jeopardises my record.”

He then hounded us for the whole year, the net result being that we all passed the scholarship exam. I realised that the man loved us and intended that we should have a good start in life.

He repeated the story to Jonathan Sale of the Independent in Feb 2000 and went on to recount  memories of Southgate County School in Fox Lane.

I enjoyed my time at Southgate County School. The Blitz was on; it was exciting and there was not too much bombing around us…I was a pretty naughty boy. They used to say “you’ll never get anywhere” and then I would come top. This upset staff. The headmaster once said he was unable to congratulate me as he should do in the case of someone who came first because of …and then there was an asterisk referring to my 31 detentions that term.”

Thank you to Richard McKeever of Bowes and Bounds Green Connected and Joe Studman for the additional information and links. 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Art and Culture Community History Southgate

Win a ticket to Southgate’s secrets!

Another picture of Joe!

Local tour guide and storyteller Joe Studman will be leading the latest in his walking tours of the area on Sunday 19 August.  Entitled Welds, Walkers and Watering Holes, the walk starts at 2.30 at Southgate Underground station – further information from Joe at www.jaywalks.co.uk.

Joe has kindly given Palmers Green Jewel in the North two tickets to give away. To enter, all you need to do is tell me where the weather vane which once stood on the Weld Chapel is now located. As usual, the answer is somewhere on this website.

Answers to palmersgreenn13@btinternet.comby 12 noon Friday 10 August please. The winners will be the first two correct answers randomly picked from the proverbial hat.