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Dear N16
As a native of Stoke Newington I must say I cringe every time I see or hear the word
'Stokey'. This area, in all its long history, has never been termed so until recent years
when, its existence discovered, it appeared in the Press with this 'jokey' name. Now it
proliferates throughout your otherwise excellent magazine.
While writing, I cannot help but comment on Diane Abbott's piece about the proposed
Chelsea-Hackney line. It would not bring the Underground to Stoke Newington by having a
station at Dalston. True, it would benefit Ridley Road Market, Dalston Shopping Centre and
the folk who live thereabouts. But Stoke Newington Church Street is a good twenty-five
minute walk or seven bus stops away.It is a slightly shorter walk from Manor House
Station, which is on the border of our area, and an even shorter walk from Arsenal Station
at Highbury.
Throughout the years I have seen quite a few proposed new Underground lines, but never one
that came to Stoke Newington. Perhaps that is why we have remained in seclusion until all
this 'Stokey' nonsense started!
With all good wishes for your continued success
Betty Gough, Hawksley Road, N16
The author of the following critique clearly does not have the courage
of his robustly expressed convictions, as he omitted to include his address. We're
printing his letter anyway.
You could rename N16 'Colonial Times' because that's the truth of it. Or 'How to turn a
working class area into your local village'. Your rag makes me puke! It's a pat on the
back for how successfully the middle classes have swarmed in. And your obsession with the
73 bus! Sure, it's big and red and maybe a little fantasy gets projected - but for
chrissakes it's just a bus! You walk around Hackney like it's an old curiosity shop. The
letter in your last issue said it all - 'an interesting cultural mix of people who appear
to live alongside one another harmoniously'. We're not schoolchildren or there to
entertain some fantasy.
A woman said to me in the park once that she wouldn't let her kids watch Postman Pat
because there weren't any black people in it, and I looked around the playground and all I
could see was 'wellys' (people from Tunbridge Wells). You're either squatting and calling
yourselves anarchists, or just plain buying up the place. You talk as if it's a community
without acknowledging the fact that you destroyed an ailing community to get what you
want. A friend was outcast from a playgroup because she wanted to send her kid to private
school. One woman said 'I'd rather send my little Harry to a Stokey school and rub
shoulders with thieves than send him private'. You strut around like you're street hip.
You even get Ali G's jokes, but it takes a bit more than sticking litttle Milo in an
Arsenal shirt to be a fan.
Please excuse my lack of grammar, only I'm not pretending. Put that in your e-mail and
freebase it!
Yours most angrily
Mr D Kidmon (?)
PS Have a lovely Festival
PPS Print it. Dare you! (Ha, Ha)
Quoting Hackney North's MP Diane Abbott from her column in our local N16
Magazine...
'If I could do one single thing in the constituency it would be to build the
Chelsea-Hackney Line. The Chelsea-Hackney Line is a long-planned extension of the Jubilee
Line into Hackney. It would come all the way to Dalston. For the first time Stoke
Newington would have an underground station. So you could travel from Dalston down the
existing Jubilee Line all the way along a new extension that would take you to Chelsea.'
I just re-read this and checked it against the original - and I still can't believe it,
particularly the last sentence. It shouldn't need any explanation for Hackney residents,
but the Chelsea-Hackney ('Chelney') Line is a plan that has been in existence since 1930,
which has nothing to do with past plans for, or the current version of, the Jubilee Line.
In fact even if the two lines were amalgamated in some bizarre scheme (which they haven't
been), there is no way that anything from Dalston would be running down the existing
Jubilee Line to Chelsea. And - 'all the way to Dalston?'
Every incarnation of Chelney has it running much further to the North and East -
Stratford, Chingford, whatever - at the very least they'd stop at Hackney Downs, which is
also in her constituency. As an accumulation of errors, this one takes the biscuit.
Fin Fahey, Amhurst Road, N16
Dear N16
Terry Muscat and the Lordship Park Traffic Reduction Group (Write On, Issue Five,
April/May) raise two very important specific issues.
Re-instating one or preferably both of the presently-banned right turns at the Manor House
crossroads is an essential prerequisite to traffic reduction on Lordship Park. It is
something we continue to work on with the Traffic Control Systems Unit (TCSU) which is
responsible for the traffic lights and with the Traffic Director for London who is
responsible for Seven Sisters Road as a Priority (Red) Route. Finding a workable and safe
solution acceptable to all parties is taking longer than we would wish but we remain fully
committed to achieving one.
The addition of a pedestrians-only phase to the traffic lights at the Green Lanes junction
with Lordship Park and Brownswood Road is now planned to be incorporated when TCSU
modernise the complete installation there. These works are programmed for later this year.
Yours sincerely
Roger Blake, Principal Planner, Traffic & Transportation Team, Hackney Council
Dear N16
Regarding the 'Stamford Hill hermit'- during the 1970s and early part of the 1980s, I used
to see someone similar around the Clapton/Stamford Hill/Stoke Newington area. He was known
locally as 'Father Christmas' but we called him 'Mr Natural' because of his resemblance to
the Robert Crumb cartoon character. Dressed in the most fantastic combinations of Indian
print saree lengths and dayglo furnishing fabrics, he was hard to miss. Lots of jewellery
too, anything shiny - I once saw him with a chrome Mercedes hub cap on a string around his
neck. He was old, but ageless really, maybe 70, maybe 80 and always very purposeful, very
focused on whatever his personal hermetic mission was. I tried some conversation once, but
he turned his eyes away and would not speak.
Same person, or someone else?
Regards
Geraint Turner
Dear N16
It's a pretty sad state of affairs (Fanning the Flames, April/May edition) that when
parked cars get in the way of fire engines in Church Street, we seriously talk about
moving the entire fire station rather than dare suggest restrictions on our beloved cars.
Yours bemusedly
Crispin Truman, Lavers Road, N16
Dear N16
I am sending you this letter for two reasons: firstly, to explain to your readers the
facts regarding the selling of alcohol on Festival Sunday, and secondly to give the
authorities, ie Hackney Council Trading Standards, an opportunity to reply. Going back to
the 1998 Festival Sunday, the Church Street pubs were then using 20oz (I pint) and 10oz
(1/2 pint) disposable plastic glasses (as requested by the police in the interests of
public safety) which were tested and proven to be the correct capacity. They were cheap to
buy so minimal cost was passed on to the customer.
Out of 35,000 people attending the festival, 3 complained about the glasses not being the
correct measure. Hackney Council Trading Standards Officers tested the glasses and,
although they were found to be the correct measures, they noticed they were not government
stamped. Official, taped warnings were issued to some licensees and one case went to
court, where the magistrate found against Hackney Council.
However, as responsible businesses we had no option this year but to buy the rigid,
government stamped plastic glasses, at 25p per glass, and to pass this on to customers.
Hence the £3 pint.
Also, although pubs were not allowed to sell bottles over the counter on Festival Sunday,
bottles were available on many of the restaurant tables on the street. Aside from the
public safety issue, and the fact that a restaurant licence is for alcohol sold within the
premises, if there is a law, it must be applied across the board.
So I invite the Council, Police, Hackney Trading Standards, Environmental Health and the
Festival Committee to meet with the licensees to sort out this situation before it damages
next year's Festival Sunday.
Alan Honeyman, 'Steptoes'
102 Church Street, N16 |
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