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 Whatever happened to the Natural Health Clinic at number 154
Stokey Church Street? Now therein lies a story.
The good burghers of N16 will have noticed, when passing this address at any time since 23
September, a rather forlorn sight. Where once there was a bustling little operation, now
only an obviously disused front remains. This place had been up and running for nineteen
years, with up to forty different therapists practising on different days. In other words
in the realm of complementary medicine something quite substantial, and with a substantial
history. And a substantial reputation to boot: many practitioners were high up in their
respective fields, often involved with further education in their fields of expertise.
Residents of Stoke Newington and further afield had benefited from all sorts of wonderful
[and sometimes weird] stuff. Massage therapists had transformed knotted lumps of
stressed-out gristle into beaming individuals floating out of the door. Acupuncturists had
got yings and yangs back into balance when all hope was lost. Shamanic healers had
regressed people into past lives and finally found out why particular siblings/parents
exerted evil controlling influences on grown-up people who had not a clue why one sharp
glance turned them into terrified three-year-olds again.
Cranial osteopaths [myself included, I like to think] helped bodies release subtle
stresses and strains that made life painful and unhealthy. Not only for the patient,
either. Many a parent has been laid low by lack of sleep when their child was in the
throes of colic, often from a birth strain. Many babies from-hell have been transformed
into chuckling cherubs with this work. In short, a lot of what inhibited people from
expressing the wonderful thing that it is to be a human being fully was relieved at number
154. At the time of closure we were very busy. So what went wrong?
A genial chap called David Berg [acupuncturist and healer] set up the original clinic in
the early 1980s. A lot of energy was put into the building by David and the practitioners
he assembled. This continued for many years. A slight tail-off in the general
salubriousness of the rooms was, however, noticed in the last few.
The long and the short of it was that David was getting involved in a number of other
projects and had become distracted from the running of The Clissold Park Natural Health
Clinic, as it was then known. Standards remained high with the treatments but the place
started to look a bit seedy. One Shiatsu practitioner I know became exasperated by having
to move her treatment futon when it rained or her patients would be dripped on by the
leaking roof. Redecoration went from being a good idea to getting on for ‘let’s
just torch the place and start again’. As if in sympathy, the building was leaning
more and more alarmingly off to one side.
When I set up my patients for a standing exam I would have to align them to the pronounced
slope in the floor. Not good. So, all in all, the timing was good just over a year ago
when Ged Sumner and Marcus Fernandez stepped in. The guys were (and still are) running a
successful clinic called the Natural Health Centre in Islington. Hence number 154 became
The Natural Health Centre, Stoke Newington. A much-needed lick of paint was applied for
some short-term benefit while we waited for a new building to move to. All was looking
rosy for a while. Alas, this was not to continue. Unbeknownst to patients and
practitioners, and to Ged and Marcus’s huge frustration, urgent efforts to relocate
were being stymied at every turn. They were let down at the eleventh hour more than once.
Efforts to negotiate with the council to renovate the building also proved fruitless. So
it was a huge shock when we were given six weeks notice that the centre was to close. I,
and everyone else, was completely gutted. All the cohesive goodwill and reputation
associated with the building was being scattered to the four winds. Complete, unmitigated
disaster. Or is it?
Call the old number with your practitioner’s name and you will be referred by HLC
Islington as to where they are now working. Quite a few relocated to Islington, quite a
few practise from home, and quite a few have moved to Shine Holistic at
number 52, Stoke Newington Church Street. This last is carrying the baton for a
multidisciplinary clinic locally.
The majority of the osteopaths [including myself] have moved here. I like it. Down below
it seems like a straightforward hairdressers but upstairs lurk some lovely treatment
rooms. They don’t leak, have been decorated in the last decade, and do not slope at a
ten degree angle towards the doubledeckers that roll past the windows. Sorted.
Chris Harris worked as an osteopath specialising in Cranial Osteopathy at no 154 and is
now at Shine Holistic at
52 Stoke Newington Church
Street. Bookings: 020 7241
5033. Enquiries: 07900927692.
 If Church Street is virtually deserted on any given
Saturday night between 7 and 8 pm, I have the explanation: it’s because the world and
her wife (and several of their 2.4 children) have packed into one of Church Street’s
longtime favourite eateries, the Anglo-Asian, for a big-time curry, sit-down or takeaway.
And who’s to blame them?
The Anglo-Asian has been offering locals a good-value selection of curry standards (and
some rarities) for years, and it’s clearly a winning formula.
The Husband is a tad averse to anything other than mince and tatties (poverty-stricken
childhood in the wilds of Scotland, the therapist says), but in the interests of widening
his culinary horizons, and quietly confident that we could find him something tasty
without blowing the top of his head off (although that would have been an option if
he’d turned difficult) we ventured boldly to the AA on a recent Saturday night.
Fighting our way to an empty table (deadlines are deadlines), I warned him off some of the
more adventurous offerings (has anyone actually eaten the Ostrich Tikka?) and chose Butter
Chicken, on the grounds that he recognised both words. It arrived, swimming in a roguishly
red butter, tomato, spice and cream sauce, and he found that the words ‘very’
and ‘nice’ summed it up perfectly. Having overdosed on chappatis and pickles, he
couldn’t finish the rice – but then he never does.
I’d plumped for one of my personal favourites at AA: Murgh Makhani (diced chicken in
a nicely spiced yoghurt sauce, which I chased round the plate with a freshly baked
Pashwari Nan and a robust helping of Sag Aloo), all washed down with a bottle of house
white. Apart from the incident with the hot towel – I tried explaining to my dining
companion that it was a hand-towel, not a face flannel – we left the restaurant
happily replete and without needing a second mortgage. What more can you ask for?
Anglo Asian
60-62 Stoke Newington Church
Street, N16
020 7254 9298/3633
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