The paradox that is Stoke Newington was vividly illustrated on Saturday 17 July. At the western end of Church Street the Stoke Newington Village Fete was taking place. An enterprising, entertaining and community-oriented day out in Clissold Park - featuring chess and backgammon tournaments, stalls selling local produce and proclaiming the virtues of local organisations and businesses, a kids' Tai Chi competition and a hot air balloon (no doubt fuelled by the energy emanating from local public houses) - were some of the many attractions on offer. Forget the postal code and you could have been in rural Berkshire. At the other end the street, meanwhile, a very different scene was unfolding.
The police had sealed off the High Street after a serious stabbing only a few hours before the Fete began. So which is the real Stoke Newington?

N16 believes that Stoke Newington is generally a pleasant place to live, where the various communities appreciate and tolerate each other's culture, behaviour and lifestyle, and where people make an effort, admittedly sometimes grudgingly, to get along together. There are exceptions to this, but exceptions prove the rule. However, it is salutary - even if it has to take a senseless and brutal attack with a knife - to be reminded that we live in the inner city, with all its attendant problems (to underline this, last month police armed response cars screeched into Church Street when two kids were seen to be carrying guns, which turned out to be fakes). There is a tendency to self-congratulation in Stoke Newington, and N16 is not blameless in promoting this. But we should remember that we are not exactly under the editorial scrutiny of Country Life. Be careful out there.

On Church Street, traders continue to express disquiet about the effect of the impending traffic restrictions on their businesses. The evening and weekend closure of parking at the Town Hall, the forthcoming CPZ area to the south of the street, the arrival of parking meters to the north, the increase in traffic warden activity and the complete ban on parking on Church Street all combine to present a bleak picture for small businesses. Many traders rely on people coming into the area, but where are they going to park? They feel that Transport for London and Hackney Council seem to be intent on throttling the commercial life of the area. If the shops and restaurants start to disappear then the street could well slide back to the dilapidated state of the early 1980s. An urgent rethink is needed.

It's been a bad few months in Stoke Newington. Adam Ward, local resident, sports writer and long-term collaborator and friend of N16 Publisher Rab MacWilliam, was killed in a car crash, just a matter of weeks before his bestselling football book Motson's National Obsession, written with John Motson, was published.

Mohammed Iqbal, one of the brothers who run the Shaheen Superstore on the High Street, also lost his life in a car crash and the front of the store was immediately covered in tributes.

Sunny Cracknell was savagely attacked in Upper Street and died from his injuries. Balloons were released in his memory in Clissold Park. And earlier this month Brendan Kirby, ex-landlord of Steptoe's, died unexpectedly in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. N16 offers sincere condolences to all friends and relatives and indeed to any other reader who may have suffered a recent sudden bereavement.

The Stoke Newington Bookshop last month won the Best Bookshop category in LBC's Living London Awards, in association with the Independent, despite stiff competition from the likes of Waterstone's and Borders. The award, voted for by listeners to the Sandi Toksvig Show, was presented to manager Inger Balderstone at Ronnie Scott's.

'We're really, really proud', said co-owner Jo Adams who opened the store in 1987 with her husband, Mark. 'It proves that independents are still a force to be reckoned with.
Inger is a marvellous manager and we have some very good staff'. Our picture opposite shows one of those staff, Chen Hammond, clutching the award outside Ronnie's.
Congratulations to everyone concerned. Turn to page 24 for the Bookshop's recommended summer reading.

The 73 bendy bus will shortly be a fact of life. Consultation on its introduction has now closed and the new buses will start running in September. Transport for London have cited the Disability Discrimination Act as the main reason for ditching the old Routemaster and claim that the bendy bus has been well received by passengers and drivers. Surely not by the drivers stuck in the logjam on Albion Parade recently when the bendy bus was on a test run? And it must be the least comfortable way of getting around London.

We're going to miss the old Routemaster.

Ska - a heady fusion of boogiewoogie blues, R'n'B, calypso, jazz, mento and Rasta-inspired African rhythms - developed into the first truly indigenous Jamaican music in the early 1960s. Its leading proponents were the Skatalites (who were taught to play their instruments in a convent), and this legendary band laid the foundations for rock steady, blue beat and reggae, profoundly influencing such performers as Desmond Dekker, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Toots and the Maytals and Bob Marley.

Immigration into the United Kingdom from the West Indies in the 1960s helped promote the rapid spread of ska across London, with one of the most famous venues being our own Stoke Newington Town Hall.

On Saturday nights the venue throbbed with this new beat, the sound systems belting out blues and ska across the neighbourhood, then home to a very different social and cultural mix of people to today's Church Street of three-wheeled buggies, designer flats and bijou boutiques.

Tomas Leydon, landlord at the Auld Shillelagh, David ('Thebigknightoutski') Knight, the bar's impresario and Tad Tomlinson, DJ and bespoke leather designer, are leading a campaign to bring ska back to Stoke Newington. On alternative Sundays the Shillelagh is hosting its Ska Bar in the back garden, with Tad spinning some rare, classic records from the original ska bands - including the Ethiopians, the Upsetters, the Heptones and, of course, the Skatalites - while cold bottled beer and cocktails are served at the outside Waikiki Bar. Jerk chicken, snapper, rice and peas and other Jamaican food, prepared by celebrated chef Ethel Minogue, are also on offer.

The first two events have packed the pub, the garden buzzing to the sound of the Caribbean. The next Ska Bar is on 15 August, with another following two weeks later on the August Bank Holiday weekend, and the final event this year takes place on 12 September. Stokey's getting back to its roots.