Now we are seven. We launched the
first issue of N16 Magazine in April 1999 with a party upstairs
at what was then Steptoe’s (now Daniel Defoe), with a view
to discovering if an independent, free, local magazine would catch
on in Stoke Newington. The response was varied but generally favourable,
so we continued with Issue 2. Now we’re up to Issue 29 and
have moved on from a 20-page, twocolour publication to a 44-page,
full colour magazine. So we must have been doing something right.
We’d like to thank everyone – readers, advertisers,
contributors and many others – who have helped to make N16
the undisputed voice of Stoke Newington.
During those seven years, we have been building up and re-designing
our website (www. n16mag.com) to the extent that the site is now
number one in Google and Yahoo for 'Stoke Newington’ and ‘N16’,
based entirely on the average of 700 unique visits we receive on
a daily basis. So we are now also Stokey’s leading website.
As well as containing all our back issues, the website gives comprehensive
information on eating, drinking, music and what’s on in Stoke
Newington, and we are currently developing a full guide to shopping
in the area, which goes online in late March. We have also recently
started taking web advertisements, from as little as £40 a
month, by means of which a visitor to our site can click on the
ad and be hyperlinked directly to the advertiser’s website.
Please contact us with details of any event which you are organising
and we’ll upload it to the appropriate page of the website.
We are now the main internet guide to Stokey and we’d like
to keep it that way.
This issue’s cover photograph is of Pitts,
aged 17 and lifetime resident of Stoke Newington. She went to Benthal
Primary followed by Stoke Newington Secondary School, and is currently
studying A levels at Camden School for Girls. Georgia was photographed
a couple of years ago by Tom Hunter, whose photography exhibition
based around the front-page headlines of the Hackney Gazette currently
graces the walls of the National Gallery, in what is the gallery’s
first ever photography exhibition. The picture was taken by our
regular cover photographer Robert Hind (07976 442161), who has recently
returned from Madrid, having been commissioned by Pepsi-Cola to
photograph David Beckham for a forthcoming ad campaign.
Local cryptic crossword solvers will have been
amused by a clue in Wednesday, 15 February’s puzzle in the
Guardian, set by Audreus. It is as follows: ‘Speaking first
to boy at college, being interrupted by footballer from a London
suburb (5,9)’. Can you work it out? Answer at end of the section.
N16 recently met Alexei Sayle, comedian, writer
and actor, to talk about his new book The Weeping Women’s
Hotel. The book is a perceptive and entertaining novel, based on
a fictitious amalgam of various North London neighbourhoods and
eccentric characters, which, in Alexei’s own words, examines
‘the use of power and personal morality’ and is ‘about
hope and redemption’. He was inspired to write it by the Iraq
War, in particular by ‘the lies that people tell themselves’.
It is also, as you would expect from the author, very funny.
He recounted his early days as a stand-up comic when, as part of
his act, he performed a sketch called ‘What’s on in
Stoke Newington?’ He then picked up a large sheet of paper
with ‘Fuck All’ written on it. There are those who would
argue that nothing has changed, although a trawl through our website
www.n16mag.com will soon dispel such outdated notions.
Shameless plug. While on the subject of books,
N16’s Publisher and Editor Rab MacWilliam has a new one out.
Written in association with golfing commentator Peter Allis, Peter
Allis’s 19th Hole is a small-format miscellany of golf in
all its glory and folly. Priced at £9.99 it’s available
from all good bookshops including, I hope, once they’ve read
this, The Stoke Newington Bookshop.
Former champion boxer Michael Watson is a regular
visitor to Stoke Newington, where he was born. In recent years Michael,
who sustained serious, life-threatening brain injuries in a fight
against Chris Eubank in 1991, has been active in various campaigns,
including the Teenage Cancer Trust (alongside Eric Clapton and Roger
Daltrey), the Spine and Brain Foundation and the Red Cross, as well
as walking the London Marathon in aid of charity. When we last met
with Michael at the end of February, he had just returned from visiting
Nigel Benn, former WBC World Middleweight champion and an old ring
adversary of Michael’s, at Benn’s home in Majorca. Apparently,
they had a lot to talk about. In our next (June) issue, we will
publish an exclusive interview with Michael. This man’s courage
is remarkable. Don’t miss the interview.
Local Quakers, in February, hosted a discussion
led by Heather Brunskell-Evans. She spent three months in Bethlehem
as one of the World Council of Churches’ volunteers, accompanying
people trying to live their lives, such as a mother whose 15-year-old
son has been in prison for over a year for throwing stones at Israeli
soldiers. Heather gave firsthand knowledge of Palestine and Israel
and the views of the people living there. For more on the accompaniers’
programme, ring Quaker Peace and Social Witness on 020 7663 1144.
For local Quakers ring 020 8806 6121.
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