Sixty years ago next year, in December 1954, rock and roll hit the UK charts for the first time. By Bill Haley and the Comets, Shake, Rattle and Roll was a cover of Big Joe Turner’s song, entering the Christmas charts to nestle alongside postwar jazz ballads by the likes of Frank Sinatra and the ragtime of Winifred Attwell’s Lets Have a Party (that year’s Christmas no 1).
Its successor Rock Around The Clock became one of the biggest selling single of the 1950s – and the film Blackboard Jungle in which it was featured became notorious despite cuts from the censors. In Elephant and Castle ‘teddy boys’ danced in the aisles and ripped up seats, a spectacle that would soon be repeated in cinemas all over the country, to the alarm of politicians and the media. Music, and what it meant to be a teenager in the UK, would never be the same again. Or, at least that’s what we are told.
We are looking for people in the area who remember the arrival of rock and roll for a new oral history project launching this summer, culminating in an exhibition, publication or website for the 60th anniversary next year.
Titled Rock and Roll Enfield, the project will be focusing in particular on what it was like to live in Palmers Green, Southgate, Winchmore Hill and Enfield in those days.
And now we need your help!
Do you remember the first days of rock and roll? How did it impact on you and your family? What did you wear and where did you go out to meet your friends? If you have memories to share, or would be interested in being interviewed, or have photographs or memorabilia from that era that you would be glad to share, we’d love to hear from you. Please email us at rocknrollmemories@btopenworld.com
Palmers Greenery will have a pop up cafe tomorrow from 11-4 as part of Broomfield Park’s packed programme for Love Parks Week.
Love Parks week aims to raise awareness of the importance of parks and green spaces, showcasing the benefits they bring and highlighting the need for continual investment and engagement. It’s an urgent issue, as the organisers Keep Britain Tidy point out on its website “Sadly, as the nation comes to realise the benefits green spaces bring to our lives and communities, funding is being dramatically reduced.”
Also part of Broomfield’s Love Parks celebrations, the conservatory will also be open every day from 2.30-4.30, offering a children’s quiz and tree trail; Broomfield Community Orchard will be conducting an audit of wildflowers on Wednesday afternoon and there are also opportunities to try a new sport, including bowling and croquet. This years annual bandstand concerts also kick off this Sunday with an open mike session from 1pm, followed by an afternoon of acoustic blues from 2-5. There will then be music each Sunday throughout August.
Alexandra Park celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, and Sunday sees the big birthday bash, featuring a street party, music, a farmers market, a tethered balloon, Victorian street performers and more. The event is entirely free, with the main festival running from 11-4, and music from local groups continuing into the evening.
The park was originally designed by Victorian landscape architect Alexander McKenzie (1830-1893), who, as the superintendent of works for land owned by the London Metropolitan Board of works, held responsiblity for Finsbury Park, Blackheath and Southwark Parks, and whose work also included designs for Victoria Embankment gardens.
For more information about this weekend’s festivities, visit www.alexandrapalace.com
Back in the 1970s, on a Saturday lunchtime my Dad would (and still does) make his weekly pilgrimage to settle himself in front of Grandstand. As the last bars of Swapshop* faded, the promise of an interminable afternoon of sport sent me fleeing from the living room. But first, some neutral territory – a music slot which stopped us both in our tracks, and one band in particular. My Dad would do an impression of the guitarist, a tall, wide eyed, bizarre, flapping rooster. That man was called Wilko Johnson – and his band were the wonderful Dr Feelgood. Like us, they were from Essex.
Wilko had left to form his own band before Feelgood’s big hit, Milk and Alcohol, after falling out with singer Lee Brilleaux, but his violent, choppy, machine gun playing and rock and roll posturing made him a huge influence on the punk generation – though perhaps these days people recognise him more from his appearances on Game of Thrones, in which he plays the Executioner. (Wilko has said that years of giving people dirty looks has been excellent preparation.)
In 2008 when Julien Temple decided to make Oil City Confidential, he found he had given a new platform to one of the UK’s true eccentric geniuses. The star of the film is not just Wilko, the other Feelgoods and their friends and family, but Canvey Island, the oil city of the title, and the 1970s. Temple uses the music as a way of exploring time and place, intercut with film clips and talking heads, to wonderful and anarchic effect, evoking the unique atmosphere of estuarine Essex.
Earlier this year the news emerged from Canvey that Wilko had been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas, and that it was terminal. Refusing chemotherapy, Wilko was nevertheless in good spirits and declared that he was continuing as normal for as long as he could. “Man, it makes you feel alive to be told that you are going to die,” he said recently. This month, his favourite boozer, the Railway Hotel in Southend, changed their inn sign to feature a portrait of Wilko, and Fender have just released a new signature Telecaster in tribute.
If you have never seen this wonderful film there is chance in catch it on Wednesday 17 July as the next film from the Talkies Community Cinema. Appropriately, its in a boozer, the Fox, and the evening begins with blues from the Blue Hearts Band. Don’t argue, just go. It starts at 7 and tickets are £5 – book here.
A clip from the film to whet your appetite:
*notice to young readers – this bizarre show was what we had before Ebay was invented. Notice to older readers – Yes, I agree, Tiswas was far better.
This weekend is going to be a scorcher and there are plenty of opportunities for summer fun.
“Nope, I’m not doing that. Not even for charity!” says respected PG resident*
The St John’s Church Summer Fete is back on Saturday, and promises the return of teddy bear absailing.
Apart from that, the theme is ‘vintage’, based on fetes of the 1940’s and 1950’s, including bric-a-brac, clothes, cake, gifts, raffle, plants, composting, and lots of games including bottle tombola and hunt for silver in the sand. There will also be entertainment in the church, strawberries and cream, BBQ and Pimm’s. The Fete runs from 12-4pm with David Burrowes MP opening the festivities. I do hope that he will be bringing his teddy.
Over at Walker School on Southgate Green the theme of this year’s annual Walkerbout is also the 1950’s – specifically, rock n roll. There will be more Pimm’s, by which time you might be tiddly enough to think you have seen a pink Cadillac and local residents jiving. And there will be plenty more games, food and stalls. Why not see if you can get along to both?
For those in search of art and culture, there are a range of other events on Saturday, in what must be the busiest weekend of the year.
The Principal Theatre Company presents The Comedy of Errors as part of its open air Shakespeare season at the Old Ashmoleans Rugby Club, the Bourne: Comedy of Errors
Sadly, its the last opening night at Space Art Gallery before it moves to new premises. The final show will be by Conrad Mecheski, about whom more soon.
The North London Symphony Orchestra http://www.nlso.org.uk/Concerts.htm plays Berlioz, Brahms, Elgar at the United Reformed Church, Fox Lane
* I am perfectly aware that a panda is not a bear, so please dont write in!
It was a month of highs and lows, and not only in the temperature.
The success story of the month surely goes to the Palmers Greenery team, who learned that they have the go-ahead to create a new community café in Broomfield Park. There has been a huge amount of work to get this far, and its great to see their efforts being rewarded and a new community amenity to look forward to. Further down south, we also heard that regeneration of Ally Pally was to be one of 6 major projects across the UK to receive Heritage Lottery Fund support.
At the Grovelands Festival – image Colin Younger
The Grovelands Park Centenary Celebrations will surely be talked about for years to come – the biggest gathering I have seen in all my time in the area, and full of colour, fun and a great musical line up, including the legendary Tornados of Telstar fame. Many thanks to Colin Younger for his photos of the day, which adorn this round-up.
Finally, the sad saga of the Poundland Bansky seems to have been concluded with its private sale at an auction in London, at which it fetched over three quarters of a million pounds. That’s 750,000 times the price of any article purchasable in Poundland. The mural is being taken to join a private collection of Banksy’s work in the USA – though Banksy is reported to have said that once a work is removed from its location its no longer a Banksy.
There is plenty to look forward to in June, starting this weekend with the Palmers Green Shopping Festival, our annual celebration of all that Palmers Green has to offer. Unlike many areas, we still have a reasonably thriving high street, with new businesses coming in, but like everywhere, the high street is at risk, and the shape of what it has to offer could change radically if we don’t support our local traders. Hazelwood Road will be closed on Saturday to host a day of entertainment, including the wonderful SOUP ukulele orchestra, local singers and Greek Dancing from Hazelwood School. There will be street performers, stalls, ice cream and a bouncy castle, and shops all over Palmers Green will be running activities and promotions.
Devonshire Road has long taken the lead in showing what can be done with a little bit of community spirit. Residents are currently exploring setting up a monthly ‘play in the street’ day, and this weekend they have come up with the fabulous idea of a draw on the pavement day. They also have a great Facebook page– come on the rest of Palmers Green, keep up! While you are out and about, why not also pop in to the St John’s Church Flower festival including work by local children, all centred around the theme All Things Bright and Beautiful.
Saturday 6 July 12-4 Walker School summer fete – celebrating the school’s diamond jubilee
Saturday 6 July North London Symphony Orchestra http://www.nlso.org.uk/Concerts.htm play Berlioz, Brahms, Elgar at the United Reformed Church, Fox Lane
Tuesday 16 JulyAround the Corner Cinema present F W Murnau’s The Last Laugh as part of the Mimetic Festival
Sixty years ago next year, in December 1954, rock and roll hit the UK charts for the first time. By Bill Haley and the Comets, Shake, Rattle and Roll was a cover of Big Joe Turner’s song, entering the Christmas charts to nestle alongside postwar jazz ballads by the likes of Frank Sinatra and the ragtime of Winifred Attwell’s Lets Have a Party (that year’s Christmas no 1).
