Much-loved charity shop falls victim to Brexit

Farewell, Children of the Mekong on Lavender Hill - one
of the friendliest and most distinctive charity shops in
 the Battersea-Clapham-Stockwell area

Occasional postings on this site rating charity shops in the SW2, 4, 8, 9, 11, 12 (and other) postcodes gave increasingly high praise to the tiny Children of the Mekong shop on Lavender Hill in Battersea.

Run by a charity based in France, this shop was  a treasure-trove for people looking for unusual, good quality clothing, interesting accessories, toys, and obscure CDs, amongst much else. A fair number of the donations were of French origin, perhaps given by the many French families who were resident in the catchment area of the big French/English bi-lingual primary school on Wix's Lane.

The shop has now closed, and will soon be replaced by an "artisan" craft beer shop. According to the shop's manager, the reason for clousre was not Covid-19, but Brexit. 

The shop not only raised funds to improve the living conditiions, health and education of deprived children in south-east Asia; it also offered internships for young people from France and other countries to get some work experience in an English language environment.

Over the seven years of its existence, 97 interns from France and other francophone territories worked in the shop, usually on five-month placements. 

Apart from boosting their language and business skills, these volunteers also gave the shop a great atmosphere - and of course a chance to try out your own shaky French if you had the nerve (they were usually encouraging).

After the covid lockdowns, the shop re-opened briefly this spring - but very soon it had signs up announcing its permanent closure. 

As the manager, Eugenie Munakarmi explained, the reason for this decision was all to do with bureacracy and the costs of obtaining work visas following the UK decision to leave the EU in 2016.

"Despite the challenging year we just had, it is not COVID that forced us to close the shop, but Brexit," she said. "How sad it can be, the new immigration law does not allow European students to carry out unpaid internships in the UK. 

"Our business model won’t sustain without the interns, and this is why we are closing down today."

Little did we know in 2016 just how apt this Edvard Munch
themed poster was. For now is surely the time to scream,
 scream scream!

So it becomes one of hundreds or thousands of small ventures, relying on the EU's rights to freedom of movement around member states, that have had to restrict or abandon their projects - with an immeasurable impact on the education and life chances of  countless people of all ages.

Yes, I was a vehement remainer and still haven't come to terms with what seems like the sheer self-inflicted vandalism of the 2016 referendum vote. So yes, I am biased, and no, I won't get over it. 

And it's not just the fast rising prices of any decent cheese or wine in our supermarkets, but the ghastly new atmosphere of nationalism in the country, and the dulling-down of the variety of day to day social interactions anyone could enjoy in London while it was packed with Europeans from 27 other nations.

So this shop was just another example of how the freedom of movement enriched the lives of so many people in the "UK".

Including mine. I loved this shop so much I could not leave it without at least two or three items. I had to limit my visits. 

I decided to go there  only after having a hair cut over the road at the barber's I  finally chose following the loss of another great European community amenity in this area - Andy's in Landor Road. The Lavender Hill cutting shop, formerly Jazz Barbers and painted a nice shade of orange, was good - and I still use it, even though its name has changed to the corny London Barnet, and its decor has gone a bit blingy.

Meanwhile for the cheerfully diverse communities around Lavender Hill, the opportuntity to bag some great bargains in a strongly French-accented, Vietnamese-flavoured charity shop is to be replaced by yet another opportunity to buy and drink beer - undoubtedly of the rather pricey "artisanal" variety, at least according to to local reports.

The Battersea end of the Nine Elms nightmare: is there an uglier road in London?

Look what they've done to our road, ma! Look what they've done to Queenstown Road.  This long final strip of Queenstown Road, from Battersea Park roundabout up to Chelsea Bridge, was always a sort of runway or ramp, a diving board from which south London likely lads and lasses launched themselves into the monied worlds of the King's Road, Chelsea, Westminster and beyond.

Mods, rockers, boy racers used that half-mile of tarmac as their catwalk or drag strip. Bikers would meet at the tea hut on the south side of the bridge en route for their Friday night runs out to Heston Services and back.  That bridge, with its Christmas tree lighting,  was always a potent symbol of the gap between north and south London. Posh and arty on the north side, industrial and a bit rough on the other.

Now, it's getting bland on both sides.  The money-zombies have taken it for themselves. They've taken over the Queenstown bit, the whole length of the bit that faces dear sweet Battersea Park. And soon the road that continues on the north side will be overshadowed by the Chelsea Barracks re-development. The views into Battersea Park are still there, but that knockout close-up view of the great looming power station has gone completely.

Look at this photo - how on earth has this happened? People joked about how absurd the old
Observer/QVC building, Marco Polo House, was. This place - occupied briefly by the supposed rival for Sky TV, BSB (later BSkyB as Murdoch added its scalp to his knapsack) - was a veritable cathedral of restraint and good taste compared to what we see now.

Looking north towards the bridge from the Battersea Park roundabout, it seems that three or four bulky, mass-market holiday cruise liners have backed up against the road. Those horrible blunted curves. Wrap-around balconies in some dismal white stone-look material.

It seems they have used every available inch to shove their bulbous bodies as close as possible to each other and to the public realm, the street.

Are these the "affordable" bits of this monster development? Or are the people paying their £850,000 plus happy to stroll around their balconied decks, looking straight across at another block which is identically ugly to the one they live in?

Tell me, please, I really don't get it.

As Brixton loses another pub, so Battersea's QuecumBar launches Kickstarter funding campaign to fight massive rent hike

Battersea's Le QuecumBar to fight rent hike with a crowd funding campaign as more south London pubs and clubs bite the dust

You know when they say things are coming to a head? As in, when bad things have happened so many times, and the people have taken it, kept quiet, grumbled amongst themselves, but not done very much?

Then another bad thing happens and you suddenly have the French Revolution, or the Poll Tax Riot, or whatever?

Well, the continuing litany of much-loved London pub and music closures has reached a new and almost absurd peak in this silly-season month of August.

First the deeply depressing news that Brixton's Canterbury Arms - under threat for so long, maybe we thought it would be ok, maybe they've forgotten about it? Er, no. It's going, in September, to be replaced by a 9-storey block of….you know what.

For the full, horribly sad story, including the gut-wrenching message from the pub's landlord, read the  story on the consistently excellent Brixton Buzz.

Then, sort of out of the blue, comes news that a well-established and truly quirky music venue in south west London is also under threat.

A report on the  London Jazz News site comes like another hammer blow:  the future of Battersea's Le QuecumBar, probably the only venue in the UK devoted entirely to the types of gypsy swing jazz made famous by  Django Rheinhardt's Hot Club of Paris, is under threat due to a 50 per cent rent increase.

Rather more hearteningly, this unique venue is fighting back, and has launched a crowd-funding initiative on Kickstarter to raise funds to pay this hugely hiked-up  rent. It's planning to increase its food offering, to set up a Swing Jazz school, and to run a festival next year, among other things.

Manager Steve Tennison also hopes to improve "the look and feel"of the place, though I must say I like the rather dusty old Parissienne café look and feel it has right now.

ANd yes it needs all our support, so I for one will be going along to get a taste of this 1940s revival music - and yes, they really do have live music, every night.

Get down there, or get to their "Kickstarter" fundraising page and throw some cash their way, if you care about the quality of life and music in this strange city we live in.

Look what they've done to our park, ma!

Building the safety cage around the Battersea Park FormulaE circuit - doesn't seem to leave much room for the cars….

For the past three weeks, large swathes of Battersea Park have been closed to the public as preparations continue for this weekend's electric car racing.

On a quick visit yesterday, it was clear that the Formula E track has been created around the perimeter road by building a compete, linear cage of steel, with the occasional bridge and makeshift seating areas.

It's really tricky to get into the park now, people are waiting all round to turn you away, sending you off down paths that lead nowhere. In theory you can still cross the park but in practice it's just too much hassle.

The sports areas at the eastern end of the park are still working, but the rest of the place is unusually quiet for this time of year, with only the most determined dog walkers and sunbathers bothering to break through the various cordons. Once you get in, of course, it's nice - but then you have to find a way out as well.

You wonder how long it will take to dismantle and remove all this fencing, the huge concrete block barriers that line the course, the caging and seating. The published target is to have everything cleared away and back to normal by July 3 (Thursday). Let's wait and see.

Then again, how many more HGV trips will be required - sort of cancelling out the point of the emission-free race cars…? At least locals will be able to get in to watch the events free if they want. Well, that's if they can get hold of  one of the 1,000 tickets given to the council. Normal ticket prices range form £8 to £224.

So, you have to hope Wandsworth Council has made an enormous profit out of this, having deprived its population of full enjoyment of one of its finest open spaces for at least three weeks.

Formula E car racing for Battersea Park - but why not send it to SE19?

Attempting to cycle through Battersea Park a week or two back, was puzzled to find way impeded by huge teams of men and machines resurfacing the wide road that rings the park.

They were going at it with such vigour, and with such precision, that it made one wonder: why here, on this park road, which is banned to normal traffic and is perfectly adequate for the runners and cyclists and skaters who normally use it. Surely there were plenty of potholed roads in the borough of Wandsworth  that were  much more in need of re-surfacing?

This wide, verdant road circling Battersea
 Park is soon to host some much speedier
 action. Come June, the runners, skaters and
 cyclists who flock here will be ousted by
 140mph Formula E electric racing cars

A letter in the Evening Standard brought sudden enlightenment: Wandsworth council has given permission for the PArk to be used for the finals of the Formula E Motor racing season, at the end of June 2015.

The letter-writer was complaining about the impact on  local residents and park users, as well as London's pollution levels.

I immediately prepared myself to go into full righteous indignation and anger mode: how dare this Tory council yet again put the interests of its corporate buddies above those of its own  residents, and the environment of a large area of south west London?

Psyching myself up to unleash a verbal onslaught on the petrol heads of Wandsworth,  I looked up Formula E and felt a bit stupid. This (as you will probably know or  have guessed) is a sort of Formula 1 but for cars powered by electricity.

So there you go - Wandsworth is backing an initiative which should raise the profile of "green" electric vehicles, and pocketing a fair wad of cash at the same time.

But again, it's not so simple. As the letter writer pointed out, the big race will involve hundreds of (non-electric-powered) trucks, vans and cars making thousands of journeys into and out of the park to prepare the circuit and the viewing areas.

The park itself will be closed to the public for at least two full days.

On race day, there will be 30,000 spectators making their way to the park along roads already badly overused and compromised by all the roadworks contingent on the Nine Elms  re-development.

Locals who love this park are already used to finding it wholly or partly closed down for various events. Several big city financial organisations book the whole park for their summer sports days and running events; large tracts of the park are often closed off for film companies. Each year the whole park is sealed off to all except ticket holders for the big firework display.

So, nothing new, but just another, even more annoying thing for those of us who simply want to stroll through this lovely peoples' park without the risk of being flattened by a 140mph electric racing car.  And what about the Buddhist monks and devotees trying to make their way to the Peace Pagoda on the north side of the park? Presumably they don't make the wailing noise of their petrol-fuelled brothers. The race is scheduled for 27 or 28 June, potentially one of the best weekends of the summer.

Back in the 60s, world-famous GP drivers used
 to thunder past the remains of Crystal Palace
 and the BBC TV transmitter. Why not
restore this track for Formula E?

Also - I wonder if the Formula E People considered holding the race at  another south London location, more given to sports of all types and in dire need of revival? I mean Crystal Palace, which still has a twisty little racing track that up until the mid-1960s was a regular location for all types of car and motor cycle racing events. It must be about the same size as the Battersea PArk track, but it has the advantage of going around a large and distinctly under-used National Sports Centre, which would not be disrupted by such an event as it has full access via bridges. It's actually a better, more scenic track, specifically designed for this sort of sport, and it is not (as is the case at Battersea) almost entirely lined by avenues of mature plane trees.

As a kid I was often taken there by my sister and her successive boyfriends; I remember clearly seeking all the stars of the era (Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Bruce McLaren, amongst others) throwing what looked like family saloons around this cute little track at unbelievable speeds. Then they did the same thing even faster in their formula 2 Lotuses and Coopers.

That track certainly would need re-surfacing and probably widening as well - but given the collapse of the latest Crystal Palace regeneration proposals, surely this could have been an opportunity to revive the fast-disintegrating facilities of this famous site?

Losing the will to live (in London)

Sitting here, trying to write, a week ago, feeling glum as the bleakest and longest winter in living memory drags on, look out window, and see a huge pall of billowing, dark grey smoke rising from the middle distance, with an angry snake pit of snapping flames at its roots.

It's a serious fire, and it takes little time to work out where it's coming from - behind that church on Lavender Hill, it can only be the Battersea Arts Centre. No, surely I can't be - the place is so well loved, such a big part in so many lives, it is such a rare jewel in this godforsaken borough - it can't be BAC, can it, please?

Soon our worst fears are confirmed on news websites.

Heart plummets even further - and uncharitable thoughts rise. Why, with all these revolting new luxury apartment blocks going up in this area, why when there are so many hideous, ugly, lousy buildings in this area, does the fire have to choose this one last true beacon of democratic culture, art for all of us, high art, low art, entertainment, yoga -  in the whole of south west London?

Drawn like a sad moth to the flames, by bicycle, this sorry individual cranks up Lavender Hill, which  is still open at this stage though the cops are desperately trying to shoo cars through side streets. Half a dozen fire engines are there, the pavements around are packed with people, not the gawkers so much as people who have perhaps just been evacuated from BAC and neighbouring buildings, many clearly in a state of shock. Some are crying, others wandering around with that terrible look on their faces - grief.

That great angry tangle of flames was so shocking - like seeing some ferocious wild animal stalking prey in the south London suburban streets, a terrifying force, blind greed of those licking  flames. It was amazing to see how much water the LFB can get onto a high roof in such a short time, the thick plume of dark gray smoke lightens as steam replaces the burning wood smoke.

Here, now, a week later we know this story had a relatively happy ending. The brilliant LFB caught the blaze in time, so that only the grand hall is ruined - it is now roofless. But the front two-thirds of BAC is fine and open, and they're busily trying to raise more money…..

Battersea visions: digging deep into BAC's amazing past

Just £1.10 to see the late, legendary beat poet Allen
Ginsberg and friends at the Battersea Arts Centre
 in 1981. It was a great night - so why has
it taken me 33 years to go back?

It took a visit to the Battersea Arts Centre on Lavender Hill to really nail the fact that Battersea is a more fascinating, historically rich and surprising place than any of the surrounding boroughs, and that the BAC itself is the pearl in this particularly gnarled oyster of a south London suburb.

Not that that would be too difficult - the surroundings comprise the high-yup suburbia of Clapham, Wandsworth and Putney. Battersea was always more extreme than these places, even though it has had more than its share of gentrification since the early 1980s.

Was at BAC for - of all things - a pilates class, arrived too early, checked out a tiny exhibition on 120 years of the Battersea Town Hall building which it now occupies. Displays of old leaflets and programmes in the glass-fronted frames around the room, covering the anti-closure campaigns of the 70s, through beat and punk poetry of the 70s-80s and the radical fringe theatre of the 80s and 90s.

But the real shocker for me was to discover that the Allen Ginsberg event I went to happened in 1981. That was four years before I moved to this area, I was living either in Dalston or in Croydon - both quite a hike from Lavender Hill.

The bigger, more shaming shock here was the realisation that I have only been back for one performance since - and that was a children's film club in 1992, when my son was 3, a Saturday morning screening of  old Disney cartoons.

Why was I not at BAC for all those groundbreaking performances and plays? From John Cooper Clark in 1978 to the amazing theatricals of the 1990s, I missed them all, even though - once I'd moved to Clapham - they were only a 10-minute walk away.

IDIOT!

Still, I did enjoy the bar occasionally. Memo to self - make up for this by going to BAC regularly.

The kindness of strangers

The Queenstown Road/Lavender Hill junction, heading south at 5.50pm. An unusually warm late October afternoon, traffic heavy, slide inside two buses to get into the bikes only bit of the intersection in time to turn left into Wandsworth Road when lights change.

The bike's one working brake squeals as I pull up next to a 50-ish looking homeless guy, leaning against the traffic light pillar in a pose straight out of Hogarth. Watery grey-blue eyes, a straggle of long grey hair, jeans trainers teeshirt. He looks exhausted, finished. The hand that's not supporting his wieght seems cupped in readiness for aphantom special brew or at least a fag.

Then the door of the big white Ford Transit van in the outside lane opens, a tall, lean black guy levers himself out and - leaving the door wide open  - strolls across the road towards Sainsburys.

Is he crazy? the lights are about to change, he will never get whatever it is he wants in time.

He's not going to Sainsbury's, but only as far as the guy on the light-post. He hands him this vintage-look suede bomber jacket with a fleecy lining, says a few words, to the effect "can you use this?"

The homeless guy,  surprised,  takes it, blinking,  and as the black boy moves back across the road and into the Transit, the older man holds up the coat he's just been given and mouths a thank-you. Then he tries it on , it fits, it looks good on him.

The lights change, I see the driver - an older black guy, also in working clothes - smile faintly as he  heads off right into Lavender Hill. WHat was it made them do this at that moment, this kind impulse? Or is it something they do regularly?

Whatever, it's just one small random act of kindness that makes today seem a huge amount better than yesterday. Thanks to the two blokes in the white van.