Ye who have a spark in your veins of cockney spirit, smile or mourn acccording as you take things well or ill;— Bold Britons, we are now on Shooter's Hill!
Some time ago this site included a post on Evey Hammond, a fictional Shooters Hill resident from the graphic novel V for Vendetta. As it turns out its author Alan Moore has a special interest in the area, and wrote a piece of ‘psychogeography’ about Shooters Hill and one of its most talented residents, comic artist Steve Moore.
The piece is entitled Unearthing, and features in the 2006 collection “London: City of Disappearances”. The essay has since gone on to become an audiobook (excerpt above), a photobook, and a live performance.
The folks over at Meridian Radio‘s ‘In the Meantime‘ podcast have agreed for their feature on the latest Woodlands Farm Lambing Day to be rehosted on here; thanks! The podcast itself is transmitted on Queen Elizabeth hospital radio on Sundays, and comes out at some point the following day on their website.
A new local podcast and blog has arrived in the form of a spin-off from the queen elizabeth hospital radio show, in the meantime. Matt the producer has kindly allowed me to re-host his initial show as it includes several reminiscences relating to the wwii history of Shooters Hill. This finely crafted bit of broadcasting comes complete with atmospheric sound effects and neatly connects together of a series of independent accounts. I have reproduced Matt’s credits below.
These accounts, which are voiced by actors, are from Emily and Florence Hunt, FW Condor and Len Perry.
I would like to thank June Balshaw at the University of Greenwich for her generosity.
Also the BBC historical archives, The Woolwich Firepower museum and Reg Weaver and Roy Wilson.
Finally, the producer stresses that In The Meantime is your voice in your local community so feel free to contact the show to express your views on local issues www.inthemeantime.org.uk As I write the site is covering the work-in at ravensbourne, as students and pupils up and down the country ask david cameron to reconsider his massive cuts to education.
I went to the christmas fayre at woodlands farm on Sunday, and to my eyes numbers were down on last year despite the increase in the amount of stalls. In other events this year, the apple day was well attended, the summer show a bit quieter than last time, and the lambing day was absolutely massive this year. On balance I’d say it was a good year for enjoying festivities at Woodlands.
In other farm news, Bella the pig (saddleback I think) had five babies in November. The piglets are very sweet, and they also remind me of the days when the co-op made bacon there.
The accompanying audio is a short clip of some nice multipart harmonies recorded live at the farm, I’m not familiar with the second song, but it’s an interesting arrangement. The date of the event also marked the advent of Christmas, and I am trying out a new christmas pudding recipe which is mainly beeton #1:
hilly's christmas pudding (as yet untasted)
4 oz organic fairtrade muscovado (carbon footprint marks coming soon, will probably be shocking for tropical goods.)
4 oz suet (lawson uses butter)
4 oz sultanas
4 oz raisins
2 oz currants (or dried flies as my dad calls them)
2 oz shredded mixed candied peel (some people hate these, and there are less victorian ways to get the taste of oranges and lemons in)
2 oz of plain flour
2 oz breadcrumbs (now possible to buy these in packets from polish shops, very good for fried fish too)
1 oz almonds (ground, flaked, or best of all hand blanched, peeled and shredded)
The grated rind of a 1 lemon (I didn't have a lemon handy so I just hope the mixed peel did the trick)
2 eggs
½ teaspoon of nutmeg grated (if you like nutmeg then put more in)
½ a teaspoon of salt 1⁄8 pint of milk
1 small wine glassful of dark rum
lawson also puts in couple of ounces of cocoa
pack in a heatproof bowl cover with greaseproof paper and tie with string.
steam for 5 hours.
steam it for at least 2 hours on christmas day, and serve with rum butter.
This is from the well hall pleasaunce fun day last sunday, ok ok it’s not on shooters hill, but the pleasaunce is a nice place to visit locally (apart from the so-called ‘relief’ road[1. Relief roads often turn out to provide little relief in the long run, although i did read somewhere that the rochester relief road had the completely unanticipated effect of reducing traffic trouble on shooters hill, although it’s obvious a new tube station would have given more relief than that brutalist monstrosity]), what with the newly refurbished tudor barn, and the most romantic (ex-)cinema around.
We join the story at the point where a policeman arrives to take mr punch to be hung for beating up his wife and child, only to get a beating himself. Luckily joey the clown arrives in time to save the day, following a bizarre interlude where the bexley basher and the woolwich walloper have a quick boxing match. The show was performed by award winning professor john styles, one of the grandest of them all. He introduced the show by explaining that mr punch hits people, and that anyone of a politically correct disposition might be advised to ‘clear off’ (twirl of the hand), which is curious because a lot of professors handle the domestic violence aspect of the show a bit differently; the guy at the plumstead make merry for example, who pulls of the tricky feat of modernising the show whilst keeping the tradition alive. The problems about violence were pointed out in advance, and the audience were invited to challenge punch’s behaviour. Also, it does have a happy end, mainly thanks to the crocodile, who eats mr punch’s stick, and nearly finishes off mr punch too, who then, having been resuscitated by joey the clown, realises the error of his ways and promises to turn over a new leaf.
This would have been better as a video as it includes lots of visual jokes, there’s the odd decent one on youtube, such as the weymouth beach version.
Well, that’s it for another year of local steam train fun. Sunday was the last public running day on the Falconwood Toy Trains, and it was busier than I’ve ever seen it before – which is understandable considering that Electricité De France, the landowners, might need the land back. Unfortunately a suitable new home has not been arranged as yet, and I get the feeling it’s going to be hard finding somewhere as neatly secluded as the grounds of an electrical substation. The thought of moving must be quite a daunting one, as the track itself is twelve hundred feet long (that’s 386 metres to edf), and that’s before they begin to think about what to do with all the other accumulated steam travel paraphenalia and structures they’ve been adding to the circuit over the last x years, such as the glorious little humpback bridge that takes you over the railway as you enter the enclosure.
In my continuing efforts to present a multi-sensory hill experience I have added a recording of a ride around the track to accompany the photo, and short of coming round to your house and starting a coal fire in front of your armchair and spraying you with steam, I think it goes some way towards reflecting the moment, I deliberately didn’t use video, as sound leaves a bit more to the imagination.
As part of the south east london Green Chain Walking Festival , a guided walk from Eltham Palace to the Thames Barrier is taking place that visits in Oxleas Woods and Severndroog Castle en route, tieing in with the Open House events there and at other stops along the way.
Walk London Audio Guides have been provided for the different sections of the chain, including those that make this pathway; although they go clockwise, this particular trek is being done the other way, presumably as it involves more downhill walking, well it is seven miles long after all! The guides make for curious listening, and even feature cameo appearances from boycie. I’ve put the audio alongside the maps, which include the Green Chain in red lines, and the Capital Ring route in yellow.
well it’s been all hot and steamy of late, so it’s no surprise that a storm was brewing up above, and here’s a recording of it passing across the hill on it’s way west.
