Column: March 2019

The Golden Baggers AGM always raises the bar in the dull-but-necessary meeting category. The homemade cake on offer is superb (this year a yummy ginger parkin), making it a truly pleasurable way to start planning for the growing season ahead.

The allotment project is now in its ninth year, yet the energy and enthusiasm for progress never flags. The scheme is based around 42 wooden planters (it started as one-tonne builders’ bags, hence the name Baggers), which residents can rent for an annual subscription of £20 ('Friends’ can join for £5).

Membership is open to all residents, experts or beginners, and on the first Sunday of every month they share more scrumptious home baking at their Social Sunday events.

I was especially disappointed this year to learn that one of our Hatfield House residents and veteran Bagger has gone to live in America. He was always very generous in sharing his show-stopping tomatoes, so I never needed to grow any of my own.

Key issues at this year’s AGM were the election of a new Chair and the agreement of a new constitution, the need to attract more ‘Friends’ and to promote the project’s core community values.

We also discussed the failed attempt to save the trees that border the allotment but will soon disappear as part of the development of the former Richard Cloudesley School and suggested locations for this year’s annual outing. Last year’s trip to Turn End house and gardens in Buckinghamshire will be hard to beat. Anyone wanting to join should write to goldenbaggers@gmail.com.

The Golden Baggers is clearly the most successful resident-led project on the estate and its example is proving influential, most obviously in the activities at our refurbished community centre. 

The Christmas Day tea party was a riot of festive fun and the recent jumble sale added to the feeling that residents revel in the chance to do things together, preferably with cake included.

Jumble sales are a great chance to hone your people-watching skills. One minute residents will be chatting amicably about family fortunes and local issues; the next they will be cutting a tough deal for that old teapot, holding out for the last 50p.

If anything can take the shine off this neighbourly bliss it is the clumsiness of the council. A number of residents met recently with housing chief Paul Murtagh, who arrived in a foul mood to explain and apologise for the City Corporation's stuttered response to a potentially deadly gas leak at the building site next to Basterfield House.

He’d hoped to make his task easier by fixing the meeting (two months after the event) as a drop-in rather than a full-throated Q&A grilling from the residents most affected. Unfortunately, his plans went awry when some canny individuals promptly rearranged the set-up and started firing their questions. Mr Murtagh looked more and more uncomfortable as the volleys of verbal shots whistled his way.

While admitting that the City Corporation had failed residents and was searching its soul for “lessons learned”, he stuck to the script that the site work met with all existing laws and regulations. He expressed this forcefully, but tripped slightly when it came to evacuation policy and revealed that, unlike almost every large building in the developed world, there are no emergency muster points or marshalling for the Golden Lane Estate.

On the day of the accident back in December, it was residents, acting on advice from the gas board, who cobbled together a plan of action until the emergency services arrived to offer some leadership. Confused residents eventually found a safe point at Prior Weston School, shaken and feeling sick.

Mr Murtagh told the meeting that the City Corporation's advice when faced with an emergency is to sit tight, keep calm and carry on until help arrives. Yes, even if, as has happened before, an unexploded wartime bomb is uncovered! It later emerged that the City Corporation is reviewing how it handles “events such as this one”, but is unable to share or publicise the findings.

The Square Mile's emergency plan to swerve Brexit appears to have paid off with a hush-hush deal in Paris last month to make sure all the City's hedge funds and derivative thingies do not turn to dust at midnight on March 29.

The best revelation about this mysterious caper would be proof of my suspicion that the audacious plot was hatched not at the Bank of England but here on Golden Lane with the help of Bayer House resident and YouTube sensation Elly Space, whose infectious Europop anthem 'Cancel Brexit’ is powerful enough to turn the tide of history. If you’re still in doubt, go to https://youtu.be/mf4mqPGwtN4 and turn the volume up to 11.

Billy Mann lives in Basterfield House on the Golden Lane Estate. He is a teaching assistant, a City of London Community Builder and blogs at scrapbookbilly.blogspot.com. Write to him at goldenlanegazette@gmail.com.

An edited version of this column appeared in the City Matters newspaper, edition 093

Diary: February 2019

2 February 2019, London

I used to remember my dreams, but not so much since I was visited by You Know What.

2 February 2019, London

Séan and Jane were grabbing the air in front of them at this.

5 February 2019, London

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Absorbing, very funny and not a duff performance. Hard not to recall Withnail when Richard E Grant turns in one of his overcamp romps.

9 February 2019, London

Golden Lane Jumble Sale. We made £30.

10 February 2019, London

There is a lot of talk in the media of how the big two political parties are packed with internal conflict. Political commentator Andrew Rawnsley states in the Observer that their problems are a symptom of an old voting system that breeds tribalism. He urges reform. The piece made me wonder what British politics would look like if the parliamentary whipping system was scrapped and every MP had a free vote. Would this force political rivals to engage in a more meaningful dialogue and negotiate on behalf of the citizens they represent?

11 February 2019, London

If Beale Street Could Talk. A quite intense love story, beautifully played and photographed.

14 February 2019, London

At Headway reading group today SD told us about his “psychopathic Irish girlfriend Mo” and the poor-man's Valentine's gifts he lavished on her back in 1989. Feet were among them. SD and Mo were so poverty-stricken that Valentine’s Day became an embarrassing reminder of their dire straits. SD says he got some old cardboard, made a box and in it he put small drawings of the things he knew Mo would like but he could not give her: chocolates, bits of jewellery and the like. Mo suffered with her feet, so SD sketched a new pair of feet for her.

15 February 2019, London

Brexit metaphors are all over the place, so I thought I’d give it a crack. The swivel-eyed loony Tory fringe are like six Premier League fullbacks refusing to play unless the offside rule is changed.

16 February 2019, Brighton

I just got a message from Facebook telling me I posted this illustration three years ago. I remember its origin. I’d read an inspiring article that claimed that the 21st Century would become the Century of Sharing. I liked the sound of those words. They had a ring, so I started to think how I might illustrate them.

I also liked the sentiment, the idea that a more caring, sharing society might become a model for future generations to aspire to, blah, blah. I’m writing this diary entry because yesterday thousands of schoolchildren in Britain went on strike to protest our government’s failure to tackle climate change.

The sharing symbol/pictogram from internet browsers I ended up using was a shameless act of theft. I do like it, though. It looks like a molecular model for water, H2O, which gives the concept a natural, elemental flavour. In the studio, I later created a sculpture of this idea with three plastic footballs from Poundland, two cardboard tubes, some scrunched-up newspaper and a lot of Modrock. I painted each of the balls red, green and blue (RGB).

In the sculpture, the concept shifted to a more political one. The two satellite balls were each marked MARKET and STATE. The central core ball was marked SOCIETY; the idea being that Market and State can only communicate with one another by journeying the length of the ‘bond’ to and from Society. Society is thus the key to a better world. Everything must pass through Society, so build a good one that can handle the different types of traffic. Stupid, eh?

17 February 2019, Three Bridges

Is there a New Barbarism trend emerging, just in time for post-Brexit Britain? A nation of gentlemen and white savages?

18 February 2019, Liverpool

RIP Sylvia, age 91. Holy Trinity Church, Breck Road/Richmond Bowling Club.

18 February 2019, Liverpool

What if … across the political spectrum, MPs simultaneously resigned their party's whip and united around a Deal Us In coalition to secure a fruitful future relationship with the 27 countries of the European Union?

19 February 2019, London

I finally got to meet the Rotary Club of Gants Hill. I won't pretend it was a long-held ambition. I was there, at Kanchans restaurant, with fundraiser Rosy from Headway and we were on a mission to secure some kind of donation. Four women, four men, they were charming and showed genuine interest in our pitch. I didn't tell them that last Thursday, in preparation, I had discussed their organisation with SD at Headway. We noted that the Rotary Club logo is a wheel with six spokes and 24 cogs. We didn't quite know what to make of that. It wasn't exactly a Satanic code. Not that we could see, anyway. When SD pointed out that there were 5 gaps between the spokes, our imaginations quickened, but only briefly. I think it might just be a wheel. I sat in a Turkish coffee bar called Gold's for half an hour before the meeting, sipping camomile tea and reading the introduction to 'Theft by Finding’ by David Sedaris. A Turkish music TV station was playing in the corner throughout. In preparation, I also had this about Gants Hill up my sleeve: “The name could have originated from the Le Gant family, who were stewards of Barking Abbey. The name Gantesgrave appears in records as early as 1291. Alternatively, the name may be derived from 'Gnats Cross' in reference to the insects.” Named after a transposition error, that’s quite cool.

19 February 2019, London

An unusually shaped Plane tree outside the British Council, Trafalgar Square. Planes are normally trimmed for upward growth since they pump tons of life-giving water and oxygen into polluted city centres. This one has gone all horizontal.

19 February 2019, London

To the Mall Galleries off Trafalgar Square to see the British Life Photography exhibition of those recently awarded prizes. Included were three by Paul, one of them, from Brighton beach, in the 'Rural Life' category.

20 February 2019, London
On Twitter.

21 February 2019, Hackney
A bit of promo text for Michelle flogging a collaborative piece called ‘Love London’.
The heart of London is big and generous and full of love. It beats strongest when its people do their daily dance to the city's sounds. Its smells never fail to entice. Its rhythms guide us powerfully through every step we take. We instinctively feel the warm throb of the metropolis and slip easily into its hustle and bustle. From north to south, east to west, the London we know and love is above all a creation of its people. They come from all over the country and from across the globe in search of London's passionate embrace. They yield to it and give their hearts back in return. This collective work celebrates that beautiful relationship, of London and its people and the partnership they have forged to make our city the envy of the world.

23 February 2019, London
We went to a Headway/Hackney Roots fundraiser last night in Chats Palace, a community centre near Homerton Hospital. Members of Headway Music Group performed with jazz entertainers the Grand Union Orchestra.

They had a showman trumpeter, Claude, who was good at engaging people, a young hip dude on a very cool semi-acoustic electric bass guitar, a very senior citizen on trombone and electric piano and a senior saxophonist who Jane said resembled the Lady In The Van. A smirking drummer completed the line-up.

It was an enjoyable evening, mostly because so many Headway members turned up, either as performers or spectators. Seeing them out in the real world having fun was a joy. The event probably didn't raise much money but it momentarily elevated Headway members from their daily struggle with brain injury.



Check out @HeadwayELondon’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/HeadwayELondon/status/1099416704441090048?s=09

25 February 2019, London

Keith has just pointed out on Instagram that this drawing I posted was a bit phallic. I honestly never noticed until now, but he is dead right.



26 February 2018, London
I'd forgotten how sensual this film is. Lots of acting with the eyes and lots of touch. Even the sound is powerful, the soft piano, the waves, the rain, the squelching mud, the tribal noises.

29 February 2019, London
Couple of digipix.

Plus a marketing idea.