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In this issue

Cover
The Hole Problem
Diane Abbott writes
Stokey Folk
Sarah Ebanja
News in Brief
Stokey Success Story
A Clean Sweep
Write On
N16 First Issue
Festival News
Notes from the 73
Green Money
Locally Grown
Church St. 2000?
Stitched Up
Kids in the Cafe
Tale of 2 Churches
Arts
Steptoes
The Fox Reformed
Food For Thought
Drinker's Guide
Watch Your Step
Food Facts
Camilla
That Scratching Cat
Scam of the Month
Man in the North Bank
Crossword

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Diane Abbott writes...

p3

I meet regularly with officers at Stoke Newington Police Station. In the past, our police officers had a well-deserved reputation for corruption and police brutality. Not to mention a series of deaths in custody. But I want to work with them in the fight against crime. And there are new young officers at Stoke Newington who genuinely want to break with the past. The police recently told me about a gang of young crack cocaine dealers they caught. They operated on Stoke Newington Church Street and would make arrangements to meet their customers by mobile telephone. But, remarkably, they carried out all their activities on bicycles.

So, having arranged to meet somewhere on Church Street, they would peddle up, hand over the drugs and sprint furiously away. They were making £10,000 a day at the height of their activities. So they rode super expensive bicycles which they took pride in keeping immaculate. They washed the bicycles every day in a car wash off Church Street. Crack is an evil drug and no laughing matter. But only in Stoke Newington would crack dealers get around in such an ecologically correct manner.

They came from Stokey

Although many people know that Stoke Newington was home to such literary lions as Daniel Defoe, Edgar Allan Poe and Anna Sewell, and was visited by the likes of Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Samuel Pepys, there are other, more contemporary, well-known figures who were were born and/or brought up in Stokey.

Ranging from Marc Bolan, the rock legend and leader of 70s band T Rex, through the Cockney Sparrer and sparsely clad star of the Carry On films, Barbara Windsor, to the singing teenage sensation of the 60s, Helen Shapiro, the area has given a lot to popular culture.

Marc Bolan's leather top hat

Add to this figures such as Arsenal stalwart and Leeds manager David O’Leary, and Newcastle United full-back Warren Barton, and it can be seen that Stokey also has a connection with the highest levels of British football. And there are many others.

In future issues we will be covering some of these local luminaries, and discussing their connection with Stoke Newington. In the meanwhile, we would be interested to hear from readers who have personal or anecdotal memories of famous Stokeyites. We’ll be happy to print your letters, so long as they’re not too defamatory.

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