Have you got an hour to spare on Saturday or Sunday?
This weekend people all over the uk will be taking part in the annual RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. To get involved all you need to do is make a note of the largest number of each species you see at one time in the period of one hour, and report your findings to RSPB. Not birds on the wing, we hasten to add– that way madness lies – but just those you spot in your garden.
Secretly we suspect that birds rather look forward to the Birdwatch weekend each January. Maybe a little more bird food gets put out, though its something RSPB advises we should be doing all through the year.
Up in the Northern reaches of Palmers Green, our birds like the usual bread, cake, suet, dried fruit, the odd leftover potato and rice. They turn up their beaks at niger seeds, which we optimistically put out in the home of luring in some finches. And they will only eat apples on sufferance. Maybe they go off them after the autumn glut.
The real mystery is what birds will turn up during the course of a year. In our first year in PG, we didn’t see a single sparrow or starling, only a standard lineup of robins, blackbirds, crows, jays, pigeons and various types of tit. But since then we have seen greater spotted woodpeckers, green woodpeckers, and, once, a redwing. We still haven’t seen any parakeets, though once they arrive we will probably loathe them.
What is the most obscure bird sighting you have had in Palmers Green? And did you take a photo?
Enfield Council is to display a rare pencil drawing by John Constable as part of a new exhibition opening on Saturday.
Enfield Life, at the Dugdale Centre, is a permanent local exhibition about Enfield’s history and will tell the chronological story of people who have lived or worked in the area or shaped its development through a mix of objects, pictures and room sets. Alongside will be an exhibition called People and Places which will include paintings, drawings, photographs and prints featuring places in the borough and people who are linked to the locality.
Though from Suffolk and most famous for his paintings around Dedham Vale, John Constable (1776-1837) had some family connections with the area. We know from his letters that in at the age of 20, in 1796, he stayed at the house of his uncle Thomas Allen, who lived in Church Street Edmonton. This is also possibly when he met painter, engraver and antiquary John Thomas Smith aka Antiquity Smith (1766 to 1833). Smith apparently gave him advice about his career on the lines of ‘dont give up the day job’ (more about Smith, his Life of Nollekins, and his connections with the area coming soon).
The new exhibition will be open daily from 10.00am to 5.00pm Mon-Sat and 10.00am to 1.00pm on Sundays.
The old and purplexing triangle sign image Hugh Humphrey
The electronic sign at the Triangle used to intrigue, with its odd, erratic and gap toothed messages. But then it was removed and it was a while before many of us noticed…..Hugh Humphrey of N21.net did, and he has made this short film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6ww_KwM0A8
Our neighbours in Bowes and Bounds Green awoke one day last week to find that it wasnt the birds that were tweeting (though we do not doubt the mellifluousness of B&B’s streets), but its roads.
So here I am, on twitter. But why am I here, after all I am just a road? Well I will tell you…
I am more than a road. I am the heart, the lung, the brain and the soul of a community. This may sound pretentious, but hear me out.
If you cut me do I not bleed? No, I am a road. But if I am hurt then a community shares my pain. If I am abused then we abuse ourselves.
And I have had enough. No more. I will share my secrets so that the people who live here, love here and rule here can see what is done to me
And maybe something will be done. Or maybe it won’t but at least people will know. Know what? Of the abuse that brings me down.
Subsequent tweets have formed a diary of hopes, indignities, disappointments and calls to action occasionally broken by a rhyme and proud boast about a swanky passing Ferrari. Near the knuckle, risky and often brilliant, its worth checking out.
Now PGJITN is no fool, and suspects, like our partner website Bowes and Bounds Connected, that it is not in fact the road which is tweeting, but a person.
But who are they? And what would Palmers Green’s roads say if they could only tweet? Are some twittering away already? Tell us!
Following on from her wonderful account of growing up in the Town Hall, we asked Betty Wright (nee Walton) to tell us more about what Palmers Green was like when she was growing up in the 30s and 40s.
Palmers Green was always known as a ‘high class area’ to live.
We had some lovely shops, one of my favourites being Evans and Davies, a large store at the beginning of Alderman’s Hill…it was a general store, selling furniture etc as well as a very good toy department. I remember looking at a china doll in the window for weeks and weeks and wishing I could have it, it cost 8s.11p. (43p) and I was hurt to find my younger sister had been given it for her 6th Birthday, but when I told my mother “I wanted that doll” she said “Oh Betty, you’re far too old for dolls.” (I was 9). It’s funny how things ‘stick’.
All our shops were good class shops, Sainsbury’s (no help service)…Woolworth…during the hot weather some of the workers in the Town Hall would ask me to go over to Woolworth and buy them ice cream cornets (one and a half pence each). I used to have to buy about six and run back before they melted. I never told anyone that I used to have a lick from each on the way back (despite being given one!). My Mother used to shop at the Home and Colonial, for groceries.
Grouts opened in 1914. Here is an image from www.palmersgreenshops.com showing how it looked in around 2004 (site no longer maintained)
Then there was a shop called Grouts (in Green Lanes, opposite Hazelwood Lane)…this shop sold materials, underwear, school uniforms, elastic, ribbons, knitting woods etc. etc. I loved this shop because when you paid, the money was put in a little pot and then it was carried (I expect by electricity) to the top of the shop, where a lady sat in a little cubicle and she took the money and returned your change and receipt in the little pot.
Palmers Green had two cinemas. The Palmadium and the Queens. The Palmadium was the ‘best one’…the Queens never had the good films. There was also a Dance Hall above one of these cinemas, but I can’t remember which one.
We also had the Intimate Theatre which produced some brilliant plays with well known actors.
Then, of course, we were lucky enough to have Broomfield Park. I spent most of my childhood in this park. It was not only a park: it had a boating lake, a really good play area with several swings, slides and roundabouts; a place to be quiet…with a Remembrance Garden (where we children were only allowed to go on a Sunday with our parents); a full size running track and best of all the house, which held a museum as well as a restaurant to buy refreshments on special occasions!
Things changed when war was declared. Broomfield House was taken over by servicemen who had been wounded or suffering an illness. Air raid shelters were appearing everywhere, especially in Broomfield Park. We would still go to the cinema (we called ‘going to the pictures) but many the time the film would stop and the Manager would appear on stage and say “The Air Raid Warning has just sounded; you may leave the cinema if you wish”. Some people would leave but then the film would continue.
I remember running home from being out with my friend and the sirens sounded… I wanted to get home, I didn’t want to go into a shelter because I knew my mother would be worrying. However, the shrapnel from the ack ack guns was falling all around…and someone pulled me into a door way until it was safe to carry on running. It sounds so exaggerated, but believe me, every word is true.
Another amusing (??) story: I used to visit my friends Josephine and Mary Hulme (their Dad was a very famous footballer)…they lived in Riverway. When I left their house in the dark (it was really dark, because of the blackout), I borrowed a carving knife and ran all the way home ‘stabbing at the dark’ in case I met one of these ‘nasty men that my mother was always warning me about). I did this on more than one occasion and when one of my brothers came home on leave he was horrified to hear how I ‘travelled home’, because I could have murdered some poor innocent person. He warned me never to do it again (I was about 13 or 14).
Of course food was rationed, but Mum managed to feed us good meals, lots of steam puddings and she was very clever at making our rations go a long way. It took a long time for me to realise that she often went without to give us children a little more. I remember saying “Don’t you like eggs Mum?” (when we were lucky enough to get some) and she said “No, I never have liked them”. This, I discovered later, was completely untrue.
We then heard that the greengrocers had some bananas – this was towards the end of the war – and we had not had a banana for years. Each family could have four bananas by producing their ration books. We had, at that time, 9 ration books (my grandma was living with us) so Mum said, “Take four ration books to one grocers and get four bananas and then the other 5 books to the other greengrocer and get a further four bananas”. I thought this was cheating, so said to Mum “No, that’s cheating, each family can only have four bananas”. For the very first time that I can remember my Mother slapped me around the face, saying “I am doing for the chance to give you all some fruit, not for me but for YOU”. I could understand her thoughts: “Why should a family of two people get 4 bananas and only four, for a family of 9”.
I often think of this when I buy a bunch of bananas nearly every time I go to a supermarket…
On Christmas Day we received a lovely comment on the site from Betty Wright nee Walton, who told us that she was born in the Town Hall and lived there for the first 24 years of her life!
Southgate Town Hall from the New River December 2012 Image Sue Beard
I was born in the Town Hall on 26th September 1927, and lived there with my parents and four brothers and two sisters until 1951. Dad was in the Southgate Fire Brigade (2nd Officer George Walton) so was my brother Jack. Dad was also the Mace Bearer for the Mayor of Southgate. We had a wonderful life in the Town Hall, being the envy of all our friends because of the space we had to ‘play in’…..yes, even the Mayors Parlour ! I am very glad it has been cleaned and updated and is being made use of, instead of just falling apart with age and neglect. I hope I have the opportunity to see it in all it’s glory one day.
We asked her if she could tell us more, and thankfully she has been kind enough to do so. Betty writes absolutely beautifully, so we will just reprint her email in full.
We lived in the basement of the Town Hall, which sounds pretty horrific, but believe me it was kept spotless and highly polished, thanks to our Mum. We had a large living room in the front, a kitchen, bathroom, two toilets, a washing room where Mum had her washing machine (a real luxury in those days) and eventually four bedrooms. Rather crowded by today’s standards but we considered ourselves well off.
We had the run of the New River Bank……my youngest sister and I actually played in a converted fever ambulance…..dating back probably 50 years.We made curtains and made it look like a caravan…..oh what wonderful days they were.
During the War, our parents wanted my sister and I to be evacuated, but I begged not to be sent away…….it was much more exciting with everything going on in the Town Hall. I remember people coming to view bodies of people killed in air raids (the mortuary was behind the Town Hall, next to the Fire Station). I used to charge my friends a halfpenny to look through the mortuary window which was frosted, but you could see the outline of a ‘body’…..and red rubber gloves on the windowsill which were much more scary !
I went to St Angela’s Convent, purely because it was across the road, and Mum would know we were alright after an air raid. I remember the bombs which dropped in Green Lanes (a bomb carriage was blown off and all the bombs came down in one go), and Pitman’s College was hit and one of my friends killed and another lost a leg. The station on Alderman’s Hill was also bombed.
The house on the corner of Oakthorpe Road was hit by a bomb (where our Doctor lived)….and I remember going to view the damage to hear someone say “Oh that was meant for the Town Hall”.
In one of the statements I read on ‘your site’ someone saying “The Town Hall is in the grounds of the Library”……..believe me, the Library came very much later….I was about 13…when I applied to join the Library. I was asked my name and address and of course said Town Hall, Palmers Green, N.13 to which the assistant said “Oh don’t be so silly, I mean your address….not the address of the library” !!! I was nasty enough to enjoy insisting that the Town Hall WAS my address.
Another time I was stopped in the street and asked for my Identity card and when I produced it to the policeman he said “Oh are you a refugee?”. So my address caused quite a lot of queries.
What a wonderful story – I hope that Betty will tell us more about her memories of the area. Meanwhile, Betty wonders if there are still people who remember the Waltons and the wonderful parties in the Town Hall. If you do, or know someone who might, please get in touch!
Have you got an hour to spare on Saturday or Sunday?
