Here’s the second episode of Robert Gray’s new YouTube chat show, Robert’s Full English Breakfast.
Nick Raynsford: Boundary Commission proposals are “nonsense”
Parliamentary constituency boundaries are being radically redrawn all over Britain and Greenwich is one of many areas affected. This is the consequence of new legislation which rewrites the rules on boundary changes.
In the past the Boundary Commission, the independent body which oversees the process, was required to review periodically Parliamentary constituency boundaries, and in doing so had to take account of a series of objectives, including the maintenance of natural boundaries and community links as well as the number of electors in the area. The process also allowed extensive opportunities for representations from interested parties and individuals and for a public inquiry to consider proposed boundary changes. Under the new rules, the number of electors has been made the overriding consideration, with no discretion for the Boundary Commission to allow a variation of more than 5% from the quota, even if this involves severe disruption of existing community links.
The timetable for conducting the review has been accelerated, and the opportunities for the public to influence the process have been restricted. Yet paradoxically the need for thorough scrutiny of the proposals is greater than ever. The changes are far more radical than in the past, mainly because the size of constituencies is being increased substantially (from around 67,000 to around 76,000 electors) and in consequence they involve many more constituencies crossing local authority boundaries.
In our case, the Boundary Commission’s initial proposals, published on 13th September, involve splitting East Greenwich from West Greenwich. Greenwich West ward, including the Ashburnham Triangle, Greenwich Railway Station and the Cutty Sark DLR station, St Alfege’s Church, the Town Centre, the Old Royal Naval College and Greenwich Park would be transferred to a new constituency called Deptford and Greenwich, the bulk of which would lie in the borough of Lewisham.
Peninsula Ward which includes Trafalgar Road, Park Vista, the Heart of East Greenwich (formerly Greenwich District Hospital) site, the East Greenwich Pleasaunce, Blackwall Lane, Greenwich Millennium Village, North Greenwich underground station and the 02 would all be within a new Woolwich constituency which would stretch eastwards to cover much of Thamesmead and Abbey Wood.
The boundary of the proposed new constituency would not just divide SE10 in half, but bizarrely would separate the Old Royal Naval College from the Trafalgar Tavern. Blackheath Westcombe ward would also transfer from the current Greenwich and Woolwich constituency so the new constituency, called Deptford and Greenwich, would include Kidbrooke Parish Church but not Trafalgar Road. This is a nonsense.
Even though psephologists tell me that the proposed new Woolwich constituency, as well as the Deptford and Greenwich one, would be safer Labour seats than the present arrangements, I will be strongly opposing the changes. I believe that Greenwich’s historic identity should not be broken up and divided between different Parliamentary constituencies.
These are initial proposals and can be changed. There are alternatives. But if Greenwich which has been represented by one constituency in Parliament since 1832 is not to find itself split in two, it will require forceful and well-argued representations from as many members of the public and representative bodies as possible. Anyone who wants to express their views about the Boundary Commission proposals must do so within the next 12 weeks – i.e. by 5th December – by writing to:
The Boundary Commission for England
35 Great Smith Street
London SW1P 3BQ
or email information@bcommengland.x.gsi.gov.uk
Full details of the Boundary Commission proposals can be found on http://consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk
Platform: Council wrong to evict tenants involved in riots
Tom Gann and Andrea Marie explain why they think the council is wrong to seek to evict tenants involved in last week’s disturbances…
As Labour activists in Greenwich, we are ashamed that our Labour council has said that it will seek the eviction of council tenants involved in last week’s disturbances.
Currently, Greenwich has the power to evict council tenants who commit offences within the neighbourhood or locality of their house. The reason for this power is to remedy a situation where a tenant’s repeated pattern of antisocial behaviour makes their neighbours’ lives miserable, for example, where there has been an “ongoing campaign of harassment” against neighbours. Greenwich, alongside other councils, proposes to widen substantially the notion of “locality” underpinning this power to evict tenants involved in the disturbances. Where offences committed in the rioting differ from those that have usually resulted in eviction is that they are not linked strongly to the home, nor are they likely to be repeated, continuing to make neighbour’s lives miserable. Consequently, eviction is merely an extra punishment to those in this particular type of accommodation.
Unlike the millionaire’s daughter accused of looting shops in Charlton after travelling up from Orpington, Greenwich residents who live in council housing will be punished twice. Given, as the council’s own Equality Impact Assessment for its Housing Strategy makes clear, Black and Minority Ethnic residents are more likely to live in council accommodation, evictions also risk discriminating on the grounds of race.
Evictions will also target family members who live in the same house who have not committed a crime and are likely to be women and children. These families will be caused considerable disruption to their family life while being rehoused. Children living in temporary accommodation are some of the most deprived, missing out on schooling, on play, and opportunities to develop.
If, like Wandsworth Council, the council deems the family to then have made themselves deliberately homeless and sees no responsibility to rehouse them, the council will not only be undermining their right to a family life but also making destitution a punishment. Both of these things should never be used as a punishment for people, whether innocent or guilty of a crime.
A Labour council advocating this “double punishment” of council tenants and their families can only be made sense of within a wider context. The coalition government’s social housing white paper undermines the principles sustaining council housing and was initially, at least, enthusiastically welcomed by Greenwich Council. Councillor Offord, the cabinet member for housing, “welcome[d] the opportunities set out in the White Paper” and stated we “welcome…the capability to vary rents and lengths of tenure independently…we do not think that landlords should be required to offer a lifetime tenancy.”
The ideology behind this and the proposed evictions is one that characterises council housing as an emergency and charitable measure for people who have failed and need help to get back on their feet, at which point tenants are expected to progress to renting in the private sector or buying their own house. Without security of tenure living in a council house ceases to be treated as being worthy of respect. The right to a home ceases to be unconditional and becomes conditional in a way that would be experienced by any owner-occupier as profoundly oppressive.
Suggesting, at least for council tenants, that the right to decent housing is not unconditional is an attack on the rights of all council tenants, including the law-abiding. We are embarrassed to see our, Labour, council alongside Tory Wandsworth, and against Ed Miliband, who has warned against “kneejerk” responses like evictions, at the forefront of this tawdry and destructive populism.
It seems that there will be campaigns including direct action against evictions. We hope we will not have to take action against decisions taken by councillors who we usually respect.
Tom and Andrea are Labour activists in Greenwich. They blog on politics at http://labourpartisan.blogspot.com/
The Greenwich.co.uk guide to… 234 Trafalgar Road
Greenwich.co.uk recently reported that a London church was eyeing up the former restaurant in the Plaza building on Trafalgar Road. If a church was to be established in the former cinema building, it would mark a seventy-five year transformation from Our Gracie to His Grace – this is the story of 234 Trafalgar Road…
“Built for Mr and Mrs Greenwich”
Illustration of the proposed Granada Theatre printed by the Kentish Mercury
The Granada Theatre company was experiencing incredible growth in the 1930s across London and the south east under the stewardship of the impresario, Sidney Bernstein. Their cinemas promised customers “service with a smile” and reminded them in advertising that it should be pronounced “gra-NAH-dah”. In 1937, the chain arrived in Greenwich.
The new theatre at the busy junction of Trafalgar Road, Blackwall Lane, Woolwich Road and Vanbrugh Hill took seven months to build. Able to seat over 1900 patrons, it was designed by C. Howard Crane, with the interior designed by Theodore Komisarjevsky.
A feature in the Kentish Mercury a week before it opened it declared the new addition to the Granada chain, “Built for Mr and Mrs Greenwich“.
The newspaper noted that the “predominant colour in the scheme of wall decoration is silver, set off by natural and pastel shades in various hues.”
“Behind the facade is a large area with a flat surface, where, presumably, the staff will be able to sunbathe and indulge in other forms of recreation.”
Inside the Granada was a Mighty Wurlitzer organ, able to “command a world of music, from a full symphony orchestra to a Chinese tom-tom, the human voice, ships’ syrens, the roar of an aeroplane, the crash of the surf, even a telephone bell.”
The theatre was managed at its opening by John Roberts, who had six years’ of experience in running the Rialto in Leytonstone.
It was, according to the Cinema Treasures website, the “plainest of the purpose built Granada Theatre chain.” It certainly lacked the glamour of the Woolwich Granada which had opened a few months earlier and had been billed as “the most romantic theatre ever built” – later recognised with a Grade II listing.
Opening Night
Greenwich’s Granada was opened on Wednesday 29th September 1937 by the superstar, Gracie Fields.
‘Gracie “mobbed” at Greenwich‘ was the headline in the Kentish Independent, as they reported on the presence of “Britain’s most popular comedienne”. Actually Fields was a late stand in, and it was Maureen O’Sullivan who had been due to open the Granada but she had to withdraw because she was suffering from flu.
The presence of ‘Our Gracie’ drew a crowd – estimates vary between 8,000 and 10,000 – to the theatre’s opening night. Upon arriving, Gracie went straight up to a roof balcony and performed “Sing as we go” and “Sally” for the fans out in Trafalgar Road. Photos from the opening made the next day’s Daily Mirror.
According to the Kentish Mercury, she was piped on to the stage by the Dagenham Girl Pipers. The report says:
“She described the cinema as ‘proper posh’ and then said in a rich Lancashire accent, ‘Well, I don’t suppose you want to hear me talking, you want to hear me sing. Shove a piano on the stage, lads!’ And she sang ‘Sing As We Go’, ‘I Never Cried So Much in All My Life’ and ‘Sally'”
Charlton Athletic footballers Donald Welsh and John Oakes presented a signed football on stage to a pupil from John Roan School as a reward for being the first to enrol in the “granadiers” – a kids club which gave members special deals on Saturday matinees.
Elephant Boy and Midnight Taxi were the films shown on that opening night.
The opening night of the Granada coincided with a meeting of the council, so Mayor Dabin couldn’t accept his invitation to attend the opening. He, and others from the council, instead visited the Granada on the following Monday.
Mayor Dabin declared it to be the “the last word in cinemas” and said he hoped it would be “an incentive to the traders in Trafalgar Road and to the landlords of the properties to improve their buildings”.
Greenwich had Talent
Soon after opening, an amateur talent contest was launched on Friday nights at the Greenwich Granada.
A prize of £2 was on offer for the winner and £1 for the second placed act – whichever act got the loudest applause from the audience was crowned the winner.
The first such contest took place on October 15th. Eight entrants from Greenwich, Deptford, Plumstead and as far as Chatham took to the stage to compete for the first prize. The Claire Bros, who played the accordion, took the spoils and Ted Maitland from Alliance Road, Plumstead, came second for his recital of “The Charge Of The Light Brigade”.
A few months later, Ted Scoging of Whitworth Street proved so popular with his syncopated piano routine that as well as winning the prize, he was offered a week’s engagement to perform at the Granada.
Advertising
The Granada, like all cinemas, would advertise its listings in the local papers. Flyers were also created and handed out – often with a topical twist using newspaper cuttings.
This handbill below subverted a local newspaper report of the proposed second Blackwall Tunnel to suggest it was needed to “carry the crowds” to see Arthur Tracy appear in The Street Singer.
From the Granada archive at the British Film Institute library
When newspapers reported on the strange case of noted theatre organist, Reginald Dixon, getting lost – and reported missing for a while – in a thick fog in Middlesex, the Greenwich Granada rushed out flyers exclaiming, “We’ve found him and even if it snows he will appear at Greenwich Granada.”
Memories of the Granada
Joan Collins was a child living in Tyler Street at the time of the opening of the Granada. She recalls the first night:
“It was dark. The whole Granada building was dark and I was sitting on my father’s shoulder… all of a sudden, all of the outside lights went on. Everybody cheered and screamed and clapped… and then Gracie Fields came and sang some of her popular songs. It was very special.”
Listen to Joan’s memories of the opening night of the Granada
Listen to Joan’s memories of being in the Greenwich Granadiers club for children
During the second World War, George Farnish was an assistant to the Gas Identification Officer in Greenwich. In an account of his life in he wrote before he died, he recalls having to carry out a mock gas attack on a Saturday afternoon in the town.
He placed a cannister of weak tear gas at the corner the junction by the Granada and warned shops to shut their doors and the theatre to control its fans.
“The police had to blow their whistles and shout ‘gas’, then suddenly the Granada started emptying out, people with tear gas in their eyes. The manager had not believed us and left the inlet air fans on, and the place had filled very quickly. “
In his memoirs, Greenwich-born author Christopher Fowler remembers the Granada as a place where “hunchbacked, chain-smoking pensioners whiled away their afternoons because they got cheap tickets to the early shows. When they weren’t noisily unwrapping boiled sweets in the quiet parts of the film, they were creeping around the toilets with bladder complaints.”
Bingo!
After the amazing boom of cinemas throughout the 30s came the inevitable decline. UK wide cinema admissions peaked in 1946 and had been on a downward trend ever since, dipping below one million in 1957 and continuing to fall rapidly as home television experienced a boom of its own.
The entrepreneurial Granada was looking for ways to diversify and started to introduce bingo at some of its less successful theatres. Part week bingo was introduced in Greenwich in 1963 and within five years, films had been dropped altogether.
The Granada survived as a bingo hall through to the 80s. The pictures below show that the sign which would have once advertised the features simply said, “Bingo Everyday”.
Used with permission from the Old Cinema Photos Flickr account
By the end of the 80s the bingo hall had been closed down and Granada’s time in Greenwich had come to an end.
A Star Is Born
In autumn of 1992, 234 Trafalgar Road was reborn as the Stars nightclub and is still fondly remembered by almost 400 people who have joined a Facebook group in its honour.
One former patron commented on the group, “Oh those were the days ….. crispy scruched hair ..knee boots ..and orange foundation..Dj playing the same songs in the same order every Friday.. I LOVED IT!!!!”
Another fan of the club added, “I remember my mate jumping off a raised stage at a foam party, landing on his knees and nearly breaking his legs! Priceless memories!”
For others though, the club was a place to avoid – it earned itself the unfortunate nick name, “Stabs”, with one local resident remembering that there was “always too much blood on the road outside Stars on a Saturday morning for me to ever venture in.”
By 1996, the party was over and the Stars had gone out.
The Plaza
Following the closure of Stars, developers moved in.
The building was gutted and thirty-nine new apartments were built inside. The building was rebranded as the Plaza and shops were created at the ground level with Ladbrokes the bookmakers occupying the prime retail space facing onto Trafalgar Road.
Local journalist Darryl Chamberlain took these photos at the time of the transformation.
In 2006, Caffreys Sports Bar requested permission from Greenwich Council to be able to offer pole dancing from its premises in the Plaza building.
The proposal proved to be hugely controversial and a campaign was launched by local residents to oppose the plan.
The Council’s Licensing Committee did, however, grant permission for dancing to go ahead – but, to the relief of local campaigners, a Stop Notice was issued by the Council at the last minute to stop the bar from trading.
That Stop Notice was successfully appealed by the owner, Shopsearch UK Limited, and in 2009 the council was to compensate the owner for lost income.
A chinese restaurant opened for a while above the bookmakers but the space is now empty and various planning applications for changes of use have been submitted to the council, including for use as a place of education, a three bedroom apartment and most recently as a place of worship.
Sidney Bernstein himself did not get attached to bricks and mortar. In fact, he strongly resisted his Tooting and Woolwich theatres being listed and while the Greenwich Granada may not boast their splendour, its eventful history and unmissable presence at one of Greenwich’s busiest junctions makes it part of the fabric of East Greenwich.
With thanks to the the Greenwich Heritage Centre, the British Film Institute library, Joan Collins, Darryl Chamberlain and Dr Mary Mills.
Greenwich Park Eventing Invitational videos
Video footage from each of the three days of the Greenwich Park Eventing Invitational.
Jane Doherty on The Only One in the Dressage stage on day one.
Highlights of the cross country event on day two.
Piggy French clinching the gold medal with a clean run of the showjumping arena.
Robert Gray’s Full English Breakfast Show
Local actor, hotelier, raconteur and biscuit tin expert, Robert Gray, has turned his hand to something new: interviewing. He has started his own internet based chat show from the basement kitchen of his popular B&B, Number 16. In the first episode, Robert talks to Reverend Chris Moody from St Alfege Church.
The first episode is embedded below and you can follow future episodes by visiting Robert’s YouTube channel
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Greenwich.co.uk guide to… John Humphries House
When the University of Greenwich demolishes John Humphries House in Stockwell Street this year to make way for its new School of Architecture, it will be the end of a building which once upon a time was part of the white heat of new technology.
A building that to many just looks like a dated office building had been at the forefront of the computer revolution fifty years ago and provided a lead in showing how local authorities could pool services and resources to maximise efficiency.
The site itself on the eastern side of Stockwell Street had originally been ear marked for a road widening project.
In November 1950, councillors from the Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich’s Works Committee adopted a scheme to widen Stockwell Street to deal with “the increasing amount of traffic using the thoroughfare.”
As some of the buildings on the eastern side had suffered damage in the war, it was thought that they would need redeveloping anyway, thus creating an opportunity to buy and demolish the buildings.
The council set about buying up the land necessary to widen the Stockwell Street from the junction of Burney Street to Greenwich High Road.
By April 1961, the council had acquired parcels of land in Stockwell Street but still had to acquire numbers 4, 3 (Sabo’s newsagent) and 2 (the Spread Eagle) if it was to proceed with its widening scheme.
Following a change of heart, councillors decided to “avoid the necessity for purchasing the additional property,” although the council did also subsequently purchase number 4 Stockwell Street, by shifting the scheme across to the western side of the street.
Around about the same as the council found itself with plots of land on the eastern side of Stockwell Street that would no longer feature in the widening scheme, it also was looking for a base for an exciting new project – a computer centre.
Computers had been used for processing activities such as payroll several years and organisations that did not own a computer would purchase processing time on commercial computers.
One man who had worked extensively with the new computers was the Treasurer of the Borough of Greenwich – Mr John Henry Humphries.
Humphries, born in 1904, moved to London from West Hartlepool in the mid 1920s, where he first worked at Hammersmith Council, then Stoke Newington before joining Greenwich Council in 1934. His rise was quick, going from Assistant Borough Treasurer to Deputy Borough Treasurer and then Borough Treasurer in three years.
One of his “many contributions to Greenwich”, according to the local Mercury newspaper, “was the devising of a new formula to fix rents on the council’s housing estates” which was widely praised as one of the fairest to be used by local authorities.”
Humphries has been described as a “pioneer in the application to municipal accountancy of electronic computers” and his department was involved in a complete rewrite of the payroll application on a commercial computer to cope with a newly introduced graduated pension scheme.
He was also one of the key architects in the formation of the London Boroughs’ Joint Computer Committee.
The JCC included the Metropolitan Borough Councils of Bermondsey, Camberwell, Deptford, Greenwich, Southwark and Woolwich and was created with the intention of purchasing a shared computer so that the member boroughs could pool their data processing requirements.
Its remit was to “provide, operate and manage an automatic data processing service.”
Greenwich’s lead role in the project is illustrated by the decision to make Greenwich’s Town Clerk and Borough Treasurer (Humphries), the Clerk and Treasurer for the JCC respectively.
Stockwell Street was chosen as the site for the JCC’s new Computer Building and contractors for its construction were appointed in July 1962. GE Wallis and Sons of the Strand successfully tendered for the construction contract at a cost of £104,762.
W.H Penfold and Sons of Lewisham got the £579 contract for the demolition of existing buildings on site before the work could begin on the Computer Building, as it was known.
Inside the Computer Building would be a LEO III, ordered from Leo Computers at a cost of £202,008. It was the fourth installation of LEO’s third generation machine and was known as LEOIII/4.
Photo of the LEO III/4.
It was a successor to the original LEO computer which had been the first computer used for commercial business applications. According to Wikipedia, LEO IIIs “allowed concurrent running of as many as 12 application programs through the “Master program” operating system.”
In his article for the Greenwich Industrial History Society, Harry Pearman explains more about the LEO III.
“Files were stored on magnetic tape reels and data was entered by completing batches of forms, which were punched onto paper tape. Programs were written in a wholly numeric language called Intercede, and the primitive operating system required a great deal of operator intervention. LEO’s principal benefit was the ability to print forms and tabulations at speeds of up to 1,000 lines a minute.
The first application was Rate Accounting and this was followed by Payroll, General Ledger Accounting, Job Costing, Stock Control, Creditor Payments, Miscellaneous Debtors, Transport, Housing Rents, Electoral Registration, Library Cataloguing and Land Use Registration. Subsequently The Forest and Bexley Hospitals and the Bloodstock Agency also used the services of the site.”
The LEO III computer was installed and operational in February 1963 but unfortunately, John Humphries would not live to see the Computer Building open. He died at the age of 58 at his home in Courtlands Avenue, Eltham, on November 19th 1962
Tributes were paid to Humphries by councillors and a report presented to a Special Meeting of the Council noted he had “given outstanding service to the Borough and that he will be greatly missed.”
Dense fog had prevented some councillors attending the Special Meeting so further tributes were paid the normal meeting a week later: they “expressed their deep sense of personal loss at his passing.”
His passing was recorded in the Mercury and the Kentish Independent. According to the Kentish Independent, “one of his great interests was music, particularly church music, and he was considered an organist of great accomplishment.”
The minutes of the Finance Committee meeting for December 1962 record the decision of the Joint Computer Committee to approve the name “John Humphries House.”
“The Joint Committee were unanimous that the valuable and untiring efforts in the computer sphere of the late Treasurer to the Committee (and Borough Treasurer of Greenwich) should be recognised in this way.”
The LEO computer was used at John Humphries House until 1975. By that time, local government had been re-organised – the London Borough of Greenwich had been created – and it was also becoming cheaper for organisations, and even home users, to own their own computers.
The building was still used by other council departments – Planning was based there for a time – but it was subsequently sold to a private owner.
As the council moved out, the building and its annex became home to a wide variety of small businesses and art studios. The Village Market was set up in the car park and would take place every weekend, causing much disappointment when it closed in 2009.
Various attempts were made by developers to revamp the site and do away with John Humphries House, and planning permission was given for a large mixed use development but when the housing market tanked, developers shied away from the risky project and the University of Greenwich stepped forward with a plan to redevelop the site and build a new library and School of Architecture.
John Humphries House will soon disappear from the local streetscape but its legacy will be in the pioneering use of computers and demonstrating a way in which boroughs were able to work together on shared services to create efficiencies – something that politicians still aspire to achieve today.
Thanks to Greenwich Heritage Centre, Harry Pearman, Leo Computers Society and Dr Mary Mills.
Did you work at John Humphries House? Did you know John Humphries? Share your memories in the comments below.
Greenwich Rhyme: HD Awareness
Trish Dainton has published a book of poetry and prose to raise awareness and funds for those caring for people suffering with Huntington’s Disease.
Trish, who is from Greenwich and sadly lost her husband to HD earlier this year, has been exhibiting a poem from the book at the Greenwich Carer’s Event in Woolwich this week which coincides with Carer’s Week/HDA Awareness Week.
This poem is called The Terminology and is in Trish’s book, which is called Curse in Verse and Much More Worse.
The Terminology
“It’s all Greek to me!” Is the phrase in my head,
As the words on the paper begin to be read.
Is it Greek, is it Latin? I haven’t a clue,
But it sounds quite impressive how they describe you.
So I turn on computer and search on a word,
Oh why is the spelling of these so absurd?
And then one by one, as their meanings unfold,
It’s no wonder they use them, the sadness they hold.
‘Aspiration’ tells me though happy you’re fed,
The nutrition is aiming for your lungs instead.
‘Dysphagia’ tells me the food that I give,
Is making you choke more than helping you live.
‘Dysarthria’ tells me your mouth will not say,
What you want me to do, do you want it this way?
‘Bruxism’ tells me your teeth will grind more,
And whilst you do not notice, my nerves can’t ignore.
‘Ataxia’ tells me your order is altered,
Explaining the speech and the steps that are faltered.
‘Dystonia’ tells I straighten in vain,
The stiff limbs contorting, contracting again.
‘Alexithymia’ tells me your feelings are dead,
Or you cannot express them as words can’t be said.
‘Anhedonia’ tells me you cannot feel pleasure,
Devoid of the feelings you once used to treasure.
‘Myoclonus’ tells me the thrashing in bed,
And the knee in my back, and the punch in the head,
It’s not that you mean it, it’s not aimed at me,
There’s a name for this symptom within your HD.
More information about HD can be found at the Huntington’s Disease Association website.
Greenwich Rhyme: The Master of Time by John Herbert
THE MASTER OF TIME
Allow me a moment and I’ll think of a rhyme,
Though God forbid I don’t have the time.
Yet I’ll sit here wondering what I should say,
And all the while time’s ticking away,
Like a runaway train, yet constant and true,
It simply won’t stop whatever you do.
Such a curious force, content to devour
The seconds and minutes, hour by hour.
I look at my watch and sit here aghast,
I started at nine – it’s nearly ten past!
Have you ever noticed when you’re enjoying yourself,
How time gallops away with diabolical stealth?
As quick as the wind through an open barn,
As sharp as a punch line to a joker’s yarn,
It doesn’t slip or slide, it departs with a rush,
The moment flies off in one sweep of a brush,
I tried to hang to its coat-tails and wrench it back,
But my grip was tenuous, I didn’t have the knack,
And those pleasurable times, like the Sun that shone,
One minute they were here, the next they were gone.
There must be an answer to slowing it down,
So I sit here and think, and I fret and I frown,
The answer is simple, staring me straight in the face,
Like a hand at pontoon with the King and the Ace.
I’ll march on round to St Alfege’s Church
And climb to the belfry where the pigeons perch,
And before you can utter “dickery-dock”,
I’ll be sitting astride the hands of the clock,
Denying the big hand with an iron grip,
Refusing to allow another minute to slip.
With grim determination I’ll hold it so tight
That daylight will prevail against the oncoming night.
And life’s disappointments, and heartaches and pain,
Will never be allowed to surface again.
All those petty arguments and lovers’ tiffs,
Will be dead in the ground along with the stiffs,
And as I cling to the big hand ever tighter,
The future’s denied, but the present’s much brighter.
This very moment, right now, cannot be surpassed,
With all of our troubles consigned to the past.
For once I look down on the Cutty Sark
And the lush green expanse of Greenwich Park,
But from the peak the statue of General Wolfe,
Casts me, dismissively, as a mischievous dwarf.
He stands there self-satisfied as if ready to gloat,
All his heroic escapades, great battles of note,
A statue – the pinnacle to which greatness can aspire,
Now a permanent memorial for all to admire.
But for all his conquests and great endeavour,
Wolfe’s dead and gone, whilst I’ll live forever!
Stretched out so precariously, reality bites,
I’ve become one of Greenwich’s tourist sites.
Down below arms point and tongues are wagging,
Parents’ admonish their kids, who are lagging,
Yet for this unique event it seems churlish to deprive,
Especially when the ambulance and police arrive.
My determination will evidently be put to the test,
As officialdom regards me as merely a pest,
But my resolve is strengthened – where is the crime
In single-handedly becoming The Master Of Time?
So time is stuck with my untimely intervention,
The clock mechanism growls at this sudden prevention,
But the wind swirling up between cold stony walls,
Suggests the elements will not tolerate interfering old fools.
As my arms are targeted by this devilish gust,
I can hear its whine: “Tomorrow or bust!”.
With my arms now tiring as it pulls and yanks,
The clock innards prepares with whirs and cranks.
I’m dead in the water, no bets – not a dime
For the St Alfege’s crackpot, The Crank Of All Time!
But if nothing else I’m a fighter of sorts,
Clutching for dear life till the rogue wind aborts.
From within I’ve discovered this cast iron will,
As my fingertips cling to the minute hand still.
With time now secured my spirit just leaps
As the clock machinery splutters and weeps.
Once again I sit up with my head held high,
Yesterday and Tomorrow – we can wave them goodbye.
Such an epic moment, so wonderfully sublime,
Up there on St Alfege’s – The Master Of Time.
Looking down – arms pointing, tongues still wagging,
Parents’ still angry with kids that are lagging,
But from these dizzy heights I feel fairly sure,
Eerily, they’re exactly the same people as before.
This moment frozen in an everlasting frame,
A museum to humanity, perpetually the same,
And with time standing still the last tear wets my cheek,
Every molecule in my body goes steadily weak.
Hence ‘The Master Of Time’ seems to lose all its glow,
So I come to my senses – and let the minute hand go.
This poem by John Herbert, a life long resident of Greenwich, is one of two Greenwich poems which feature in his new book, Sacremento Satin.
If you enjoyed John’s poem, you may want to check out his book where there’s 34 more to read – it’s .
Photo credit: Karen D Martin
Review: The Temperamentals, Greenwich Theatre
Boy George (in hat) with the cast of The Temperamentals plus, right, Brian Paddick and Patrick Wilde and director Joseph C Walsh far left.
BOY GEORGE arrived with a flourish, hiding behind a pamphlet used like a fan to ward off SE10’s solo paparazzo as he swept quickly into Greenwich Theatre.
“Marvellous!” thought the theatre-goers gathered outside the Rose and Crown, as they finished their drinks and rippled in after him.
The show’s cast had invited their special guests – Boy George, Brian Paddick and Patrick Wilde – to Greenwich by Twitter. Amazingly, they’d all come, agreeing to sit on a panel discussion at the end.
David Ames, the 24-year-old actor who plays Rudi Geinrich, had been the main Tweeter. Afterwards, in the panel discussion, there was a moment:
“We haven’t met in person,” said Boy George, the old hand, waving from across the stage.
“I know! Hello!” waved back the young actor.
We had just sat through The Temperamentals (a codeword for ‘gay man’ in 1950s America), a play about the Mattachine Society, a gay rights group founded in the USA in 1948 by Harry Hay and a young Rudi Gernreich.
At the time Harry was 36 and Rudi, who later became a famous fashion designer, was 26. Rudi was Austrian, Jewish and gay and had fled Austria aged 16. Harry was American, Marxist, a teacher and married but gay.
The play opens with the two of them talking, discussing ideas and flirting with each other. Harry has a manifesto, he explains later, a gay rights pamphlet, and he wants to change the world with it.
“It’s the most dangerous thing I’ve ever read,” says Rudi, whose family had died at the hands of the Nazis.
This meeting of minds led to the foundation of the Mattachine Society. Originally just four men, the Mattachine Society ended up spreading throughout metropolitan America, with clandestine meetings attracting hundreds of people.
The story turns on the trial of Dale Jennings, arrested for allegedly soliciting a police officer (entrapment, as they used to do not so long ago and as the UK’s other famous George knows only too well). The trial led to publicity, which led to the growth of the society.
At this point someone in the audience whispered to her friend, “Do you know how this ends?”
“With everyone off it down at G.A.Y.,” he replied.
It was a point the audience picked up on later. Do today’s young gay people care enough – or indeed know enough – about the things their politically-motivated gay forefathers went through? Do they know they suffered? Does it matter?
Boy George said the Mattachine Society was all news to him. “I thought gay history started with Stonewall in 1969.” The Stonewall Riots, when drag queens rioted in the streets of New York, are often cited as the birth of the gay rights movement.
“Today,” he added, “it’s all Britney or Kylie.”
Does it matter? Yes, said Brian Paddick, it all matters, history is important. We live in a diversity bubble in London and it’s easily burst. Just this week, he said, his (gay) neighbour had ‘banned’ him from helping him shift furniture out to the countryside.
“My neighbour thought his parents might recognise me as a gay man and that would out him,” he explained. The neighbour has lived with a boyfriend for six years. “And this is in Sussex,” he said.
But of course, pointed out Patrick Wilde, the world has moved on a lot and this story wouldn’t happen like this today. The internet, Facebook and Twitter would see the message spread like wildfire.
This was theatre you had to concentrate on. Miss a line or two and you could be lost. You had to work at it – characters popped in and out played by the same actor and it could take a moment to catch on or up.
It felt like a difficult web to weave, which is perhaps the point. Numerous strands of history – WWII, Jewish history, Black history, gay rights, Hollywood, fashion, Communism and then to top it all the McCarthy Trials – plus the character’s own personal lives were all in the mix.
It left you feeling a little exhausted but also on the road to exhilaration. It didn’t happen on Thursday night, but apparently the show was electric on the Wednesday. And I could well see why. The history is fascinating, the struggle each individual faced – public shame and professional failure – humbling and the pair at the centre of it all clearly in love, both intellectually and physically, but strained because of it.
It was, in short, a demanding play with a lot of words – lightened by a sprinkling of good one-liners delivered with comic perfection by Matt Ian Kelly playing co-leader of the society Bob Hull. But demanding is good. You could imagine it being pared back and powerful in a tiny theatre, or you could see Kevin Spacey playing the lead in the movie.
Either way, it’s sure to carry on. Written in 2009 by Jon Marans it’s already won a handful of awards. It’s also attracted the attention of some big names. Sir Elton John helped back this particular production financially – a sure sign that the long forgotten tale of Harry Hay and Rudi Gerngreich, won’t be forgotten for very much longer.
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