Events this weekend and more

If you are in the mood for a fair, then you are in for a treat this weekend!

St Augustine's (One Tree Hill, SE23 3LE) Craft Fair will run from 10am to 4pm on Saturday, 26 May. This is a fun, family event for all ages with community stalls, crafts, plants, a variety of foods, games, live music and a community art show including judging of the junior art competition at 1pm. Come along and meet us at our stall.

St George's Church (Vancouver Road, SE23 2AG) are also running a Craft Fair from 11am to 5pm on Saturday, 26 May. They will have 32 stalls including jewellery, cake, food, face painting, story telling and ice creams

Horniman Primary School's PTA (Horniman Drive, SE23 3BP) will be holding their Fete and Craft Fair at Horniman Primary School from 2 to 4pm on Saturday, 26 May. There will be craft stalls as well as bring & buy clothes, toys, books and bric-a-brac for sale, plus there will be a bouncy castle, May pole dancing and refreshments available. Entry Fee: Adults £1, Children: 50p

We will be running the next Food Fair at Forest Hill Station on Sunday, 3 June from 10am to 2pm. There will be a few more stalls but, unfortunately, some of the stall holders from last time are unable to make it. However, we have plenty on offer, with stalls selling breads, cakes, pastries, chutneys, cheeses, olives and meats as well as Indian, Polish and Fleisch's hot food offerings. (Hot Food and music will continue until 4pm)

On Saturday, 16 June we will be replanting the large containers on the pavement in front of the Job Centre as an extension of our participation in the RHS In Bloom and Lewisham In Bloom entries. If you are interested in doing a bit of gardening in order to help make Forest Hill a more pleasant place in which to live and work, please come along between 2:30 and 4:30pm. Bring a trowel, gardening gloves and a spare plastic carrier bag.

We will be having our General Meeting at 5pm on Saturday, 23 June at All Inn One (53 Perry Vale, SE23 2NE). We are hoping to have the pools operators there to answer any questions you might have. There will also be a barbecue, with 50% off on production of your membership card, so become a member now! bit.ly/JoinFHSoc

  

Other happenings are:

This week has seen the first One Tree Hill Festival of classical music at St Augustine's. If you haven't made it, there is still an opportunity to go along to one of the remaining events. All ticketed events can be booked online or purchased on the door on a first come first served basis, subject to availability. For more information visit their website www.augustineonetreehill.org.uk or call the parish office on (020) 8699 0172.

Saturday, 26 May at 7.30pm (£5, £3 concessions)
The Hills are Alive! featuring All Souls Orchestra & West end singers
Noel Tredinnick and the All Souls Orchestra present an evening of musical theatre classics and toe tapping orchestral favourites. Enjoy the delights of Broadway show music, offset with 2 of J S Bach's most popular Brandenburg Concertos - No. 2 and No. 4. Back by popular demand after their autumn concert at St Augustine’s last year, Noel brings his wonderful wit and charm to entertain and lead us through another uplifting musical journey. He will also be joined from London’s West End stage by David Erik, Kelly Rainham and Lisa Olsworth-Peter promising an evening full of excitement and energy!
Sunday, 27 May at 10.30am FREE
Festival Service to celebrate St Augustine’s
An opportunity to celebrate and give thanks for the local community and the life of St Augustines. Come and join us in worship as we are joined by guest musicians from the festival.
Sunday, 27 May from Noon-2pm FREE
Community Picnic (bring a rug and your favourite food!)
Enjoy the beauty of One Tree Hill by picnicking in the grounds of St Augustine's. Bring your hampers and rugs to enjoy with old friends and make new ones!
Sunday, 27 May at 3pm (£10, £5 concessions - all proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the Children's Society.)
Orchestral Concert by members of the European Doctors Orchestra, conducted by Rupert Bond.
The European Doctors Orchestra will perform a concert conducted by Rupert Bond with pieces by Haydn: Symphony No. 101 ‘The Clock’, Bach: Double Violin Concerto [soloists Helena and Richard Gullan], Mozart: Overture ‘The Magic Flute’ and Schubert: ‘Unfinished’ Symphony.

The Devonshire Road Nature Reserve (170 Devonshire Road, SE23 3SZ) is open this Sunday, 27 May from 2pm to 5:30pm as it is the last Sunday of the month. They are also holding a community workshop on Saturday, 2 June from 10am to 4pm followed by the the toppping out of the Green Oak Shelter built by volunteers on Monday, 4 June from noon to 5pm. There will be music, food and refreshments available

On Monday, 4 June, the Sylvan Post (24-28 Dartmouth Road, SE23 3XU) are having a family day. They have booked a Magician from 2pm who will be there until 3:30pm and are hoping for other activities too.

The Friends of Albion Millennium Green (Albion Villas Road, SE26 4DB) have a couple of events. 'Bird Boxing' is on Sunday, 10 June from 2pm to 4pm. Not Quite an olympic sport, 'Bird Boxing' is a new comedy. Ros and Bruno return to rummage a bit in Albion Millenium Green. Audience members will have the chance to build their own bird boxes under strict rules and guidelines in a race against time. Suitable for families, foragers and freeloaders... This will be followed by 'Find A Theatre' from 5pm to 6pm. Are you excited by the idea of a new open air performance space in Forest Hill? Come along and explore Albion Millenium Green and share your ideas and opinions about how we can create something wonderful in the heart of the community.

Finally, Crofton Park and Sydenham are holding their Local Assemblies on Thursday ,14 June from 7pm to 9pm. The Crofton Park assembly will be held at Beecroft Garden Primary School, Beecroft Road, SE4 2BS, while the Sydenham assembly will be held at the Naborhood Centre (next to Post Office), 44a Sydenham Road, SE26 9EZ.

A Traveller's Tale

With recent reports that ridership on the East London Line has increased from 40,000 per day in June to 70,000 in October, we thought we would see how the morning commute had changed since the introduction of the Overground services. Are trains any less crowded? The Chair of our Transport Committee, Andrew Reid, decided to see for himself.

08.14 – Honor Oak Park Station. My wife and I boarded the rear carriage of the 08.14 Southern service to London Bridge. She took the last available seat and I was left standing with a number of others. The back of the train was not overcrowded but I was told the front would be. Certainly, the opening of the Overground has relieved pressure on Southern services and, whilst pretty full, the service is generally acceptable except when they run short trains.

08.24 – New Cross Gate. I needed to change onto the Overground at New Cross Gate. I found I couldn’t get on the packed 0824 to Dalston Junction from Crystal Palace and was left, with others, on the platform. The next train, the 0832, had come from West Croydon and was also packed – this time, no doubt, with the lucky people of Anerley and Penge who have seen their service level triple from 2 trains an hour to 6. We all just managed to squeeze on at New Cross Gate but we left people standing on the platform at Surrey Quays. Frightening that this service, open for just 6 months, is already running beyond capacity during the morning peak. Opening the service to Clapham Junction in 2012 will result in more trains running on the core section of the East London Line – but will more travel options reduce congestion? I doubt it.

08.37 - Canada Water. I found I was standing on the train just opposite the single escalator down to the Jubilee Line platform. The carriage emptied in a flash as passengers sprinted for the escalator in order to avoid the crush and get to the front of the queues for Jubilee Line trains. There were queues to board trains in both directions with staff valiantly trying to get the doors closed and the trains despatched as people shoved to get on their way to work. I didn’t envy them and didn’t join them. I made my way back to Forest Hill station to confirm that, despite all the promises, the lights on the northern side of the subway were still not working!

Rest assured, the Transport Committee is doing what it can to improve the lot of Forest Hill and Honor Oak Park travellers. If you have any comments or issues you would like pursued, please email me at Andrew@ForestHillSociety.com.

The Englishman who Posted Himself

by John Tingey

This recently published book describes the exploits of a little known but endearingly eccentric Forest Hill resident. The local historian, Steve Grindlay, has been reading it.

In 1898 Willie Reginald Bray began a detailed study of the Post Office Guide which contained the regulations defining what could and could not be sent through the post.
Bray decided to put these regulations to the test and so he posted, mostly addressed to himself, a wide variety of unwrapped items including a shirt collar, the sole of a shoe, a bicycle pump, a turnip and a hat. Eventually he posted himself, and the long-suffering postman dutifully delivered him to his home in Devonshire Road.

Bray then turned his attention to autographs. He posted thousands of personal requests to the famous, infamous and largely unknown ranging from Churchill, Hitler and Santa Claus to the station master at Forest Hill station. Bray declared himself “The Autograph King” and few could dispute this. He sent out over 32,000 requests and received some 15,000 responses.

Reggie, as he preferred to be known, was born in Stanstead Road in 1879 and educated at St Dunstan’s College. His family moved to Devonshire Road in 1899 and in 1912 Bray moved to Queens Garth, Taymount Rise where he lived until 1939.

This meticulously researched book (in which Steve played a small part) describes Bray’s life in Forest Hill, and lists many of the challenges that he set the postal service. It is beautifully illustrated with many examples of both the objects that Bray posted and the autographs that he collected.

The book is available from Kirkdale Bookshop, 272 Kirkdale (020 8778 4701) and further information is available from the publisher and elsewhere  online.

Chair's Report

Thank you to everyone who came along to the AGM in October and to those who volunteered for the various committees. 

With budgets being cut, we’re relieved that the new swimming pools appear to be secure. However, the Horniman’s future is less clear. Although the Department for Culture, Media and Sports has ring-fenced the funding for the Horniman Museum until 2015, it is one of seven non-national museums for which they are hoping to find alternative sponsors by April 2011.  Contrary to initial rumours, there is no question of cutting these museums adrift without any financial support in the unlikely event that no new sponsorship arrangements can be found, but it will be difficult to arrange equivalent funding.
 
On the transport side, it has just been announced that the Thameslink programme will go ahead in its entirety but that the rebuilding of London Bridge will not be complete until 2018, instead of the original 2015.  This is a mixed blessing; a long term benefit with the Southern services from Croydon being replaced by direct Thameslink trains through to St Pancras (via London Bridge), but the delay will make it more difficult to get the Charing Cross service reinstated.  We will continue to lobby for this.

We have had a meeting with Tfl, LOROL (the people who run the new train service) and various politicians to discuss the Red Route.  There have been some changes as a result and a promise to move and fence off the commercial bins outside the station which should improve the appearance of the station forecourt. 

I know many of you prefer traditional methods of communication, so you can write to the Society at: Forest Hill Society, c/o 2 Perry Rise, LONDON,  SE23 2QL.  For those who are internet savvy, we are in the process of adding PayPal as a means for payment of your subscriptions; we will add the appropriate button to the website as soon as this is available.  If you have not paid your membership since October, then your membership is due now.  Please contact Belinda at the above address or email Belinda at membership@foresthillsociety.com if you are not sure whether your subscriptions are paid up. 

Wishing you a very festive holiday.

Little Russets!

How do you celebrate the birth of a child?  Sara and Tom Russet came up with a very special idea which benefits the whole community.

On the 13 June our first child, Nell Margie Russet, was born. Trying to think of an apt way to celebrate her arrival we happened upon the idea of planting a tree.  We wanted to bring our name into the equation so we decided upon a Russet apple tree. Living in a flat with little garden space, we thought that Albion Millenium Green was the perfect location as it is a lovely public space that we could visit even if we had to move away and the tree could be part of a bigger, community project. To this end we have ordered two trees which will arrive in the last week of January. As we need to clear the undergrowth towards the back of the orchard prior to our planting, it looks like we'll probably do it the first weekend of February.

Photo Competition

Horminan Gardens

SE23 is so photogenic with its great views, green spaces and varied architecture. So early next year, we’ll be launching a photo competition with the best pictures being made into a 2012 Calendar.

Horniman Clock Tower

We’re still finalising the details. In the meantime get your cameras ready for those dramatic winter shots of Forest Hill glistening in the snow.

Gridlock on Honor Oak Road

As you can see, some of our members have already sent us their photos.

"Welcome Aboard"

Louise House Memories - Early Years Centre

Sylvia Maguire came across our work on the history of Louise House on our website. For almost 25 years, she managed the Early Years Centre which was housed in the rear building (laundry block). The Centre closed in August 2008 when the whole of Louise House was due to be demolished. She felt that no history of Louise House could be complete without a few words about the Centre:

The Centre served hundreds of local children aged two to five over many years.  Skilled and specialist support was offered to the children, many of whom had special educational needs and/or behavioural difficulties. Support was also offered to their parents and carers.  In 1984, when I started at Louise House, the ‘crèche’, was in the west end of the building.  The other room was a community hall offering sewing classes and childminder pop-ins.  Prior to my time, I believe that there was a luncheon club for the elderly. 

During the 80’s, few schools had nursery classes so the crèche provided pre-school education for the 3 to 5's.  We had an excellent reputation and long waiting lists.  Later, as nursery classes opened, we developed more specialised childcare to support the children who would find integration into a nursery class difficult.  I was told that the crèche had been opened post war, to care for the children of mothers attending the health clinic based in the front building.

Memories of Louise House

The Open Day at Louise House on Saturday 18t September was a real success with all our tours fully booked The highlight was meeting Ethel Roberts, whose mother and aunt had lived at Louise House in the very early twentieth century. Ethel accompanied by her husband, Ted, and her son, Stephen, was visiting the building for the first time and for her it was a deeply moving experience. She very kindly shares her highly personal impressions.

Louise House has been a place of curiosity for me for most of my life and at nearly 85 years of age, it was high time my curiosity was satisfied.

The ‘Open House’ day offered me the chance to visit a place I had first heard about as a child. It was known to me and my brothers and sisters - six of us in all - as ‘the orphanage’ and it was our Mother and Aunt, Florence (left) and Eleanor King (below), who had been in ‘the orphanage.’ They were around ten and fourteen years old when they arrived there.

My Mother rarely mentioned her time at Louise House. On the rare occasions she did, it was clear to me, even as a child, that the memory was an unhappy one. My Aunt, who went on to become a headmistress and to receive an MBE from the Queen (see below) avoided the subject altogether and never told even her lifelong friends about her time there.

However, there was one particular conversation which sticks in my mind. I was about 14 years old and I was sitting in our kitchen with my Mother eating a boiled egg for breakfast. She told me that at Louse House the girls were given an egg for their meal as a special treat on their birthday! I thought even then that if an egg was a special treat, what must the meals have been like the rest of the time? She went on to explain that, when this rare treat happened, you would let your best friend dip her bread in your egg and she would let you do the same when it was her birthday.

My first impression of Louise House when I visited in September was that it was much smaller than I had imagined. The other overwhelming impression was that despite the passage of time, the building still had an air of sadness about it and I could only think of my Mother, Aunt and all those other young children living there, separated from their families. How many lonely tears were shed night after night? What made them happy? It doesn’t bear too much thinking about. After my visit and for the rest of the day I felt quite down and my consolation was that despite the unhappy start, my Mother had a large, loving family in later life who remember her with love to this day. Although my Aunt never married, she had a rewarding life and was loved by her family and those whose lives she helped in the years that followed.

---

Miss Eleanor Martha King, MBE was born in 1897 as one of six children. She was orphaned around the age of 10 years old and was sent to Louise House with her sister Florence. It is likely she had a much better education at Louise House than she would have had if her parents had lived.

Eleanor went into domestic service and on to study at Birmingham University from where she obtained a degree. She travelled and was, according to her niece, Ethel Roberts, “a confident lady, with a strong conviction that she had a job to do.”

She became the progressive headmistress of the Rosemary Street School in Bristol. The school was unusual for its time in allowing the parents to be involved, arranging camping holidays in the countryside for children and their parents. She also ran one of the first multi-cultural nurseries at a time when society was much less tolerant.

In 1953 Eleanor was awarded the MBE by the Queen in recognition of her outstanding service to the City of Bristol.  Miss King died in 1968 and in 1990 the City of Bristol erected a plaque in her honour on the Old Quaker Friars building in the

If you have personal information about Louise House, Stephen Roberts, grandson and great nephew of Florence and Eleanor King, would like to hear from you at stephenfroberts@gmail.com.

Honor Oak Station Improvements

You may have seen that Honor Oak Park Station is looking a bit of a mess at the moment – especially compared with the other slick stations along the London Overground line. The good news is that Network Rail is bringing forward improvement works. This includes renewing the staircase to both platforms, repairing and redecorating the footbridge and resurfacing sections of Platform 2. The bad news is that this work won’t be finished before March 2011 at the very earliest.

The problem is that work was delayed whilst Southwark Council dealt with the waste dumped in the land behind the station. Only once this work has been completed can Network Rail begin the essential job of building a new retaining wall on Platform 1. The whole platform will then be resurfaced. However, landslip behind this platform is a long-term problem and we’ve been told off the record that the job could easily take a lot longer than predicted.

So, whilst the station is in a mess anyway, Network Rail is going to “use the opportunity to bring forward some planned improvement works for the benefit of our customers and to avoid another period of work in late 2011,” London Overground (LOROL) tells us. They go on to say, “This has taken some complex planning which has resulted in a slight delay in the works commencing in earnest.  We hope that you appreciate this short delay will minimise the overall level of disruption for station users.”
As for lift access to the platforms, our advice is don’t hold your breath….

Timetable Changes

No need to rush - there'll be another in a minute

From December 12th, we’re getting two additional trains at 17:24 and 18:24 from London Bridge to Honor Oak Park and Forest Hill.  Unfortunately, the slot for these trains is just three minutes after the previous Forest Hill train so it will make little difference to waiting times.  However, it does mean that if you want to make sure you get a seat, then these are excellent trains to aim for because there should be plenty of room on board!

There will also be a later train from Dalston Junction to New Cross Gate which is timed to coincide with the last Southern train from London Bridge (leaving Dalston Juncion at 00:15, Canada Water at 00:31) and in May 2011, all overground trains from Crystal Palace and West Croydon will continue to Highbury & Islington.

Forest Hill Walking Group

The Forest Hill and Sydenham Societies are planning to start a walking group next year. 

Each walk will consist of a four to six mile walk from points accessible from our railway stations and will be held on the first Saturday of each month.

If you’re interested, please contact quetta@ForestHillSociety.com or call her on 020 8699 2115.  Further details will follow nearer the time, but the proposed walks are:-

5 February 2011: London Bridge- Canary Wharf - option to Island Gardens.  Leaders: Andrea, Pat and Steve.
5 March 2011: Thames Path West - Richmond to Putney.  Leader: TBA
2 April 2011: Rainham to Purfleet LOOP. Leader: Quetta.
7 May 2011: Coulsdon South (Spring flowers) Leader:  Bev.
4 June 2011:  Otford.  Leader:  Bev/Annabel.
2 July 2011:  TBA
6 August 2011:  Waterway link.  Leader: Steve.
3 September 2011: Edenbridge.  Leader: Pat. 

Forest Hill Pools move into Final Stages

Lewisham Council has now appointed the principal building contractor for the new Swimming Pools. Construction firm, Wilmot Dixon, will take over the site early in the new year. This is very exciting news at a difficult financial time for the Council  and confirms the final go-ahead.

Hilary Renwick, Lewisham’s Head of Cultural Services, has confirmed that construction will start towards the end of January. The current timetable sees the main bulk of the building completed in May 2012, with completion and testing of the services from June to August.  The Council is hopeful that the new facility will open to the community in September 2012. This is a complex site and there are a number of areas which could delay completion, but it is still exciting stuff and fits in very well with the end of the Olympics.

A further piece of good news is that the Council has invited all those on the stakeholder group to an initial meeting with Wilmott Dixon so that they can meet the Contractor's team and enjoy a celebratory drink.  Those of us on the Stakeholder Group very much look forward to continuing to work with the Council and its design team during the construction phase and hope to be able to influence the way that the building will be run and managed.

We will provide regular updates on progress from the New Year.  We are planning a series of interviews with different people involved during the project - from the architect to the site manager - so do let us know if there is a particular member of the team you are interested in hearing from.

Louise House

The other good news is that the contractors have requested to use Louise House, the former Girls’ Industrial Home, as their site office during the build. It may not be the most glamorous of uses for Louise House but it may have some long term benefit. The company says the parts of the building they use would be returned “in the same or better condition”. Importantly it would keep it in use and heated over two winters while the community continues to work with the Council to find a financially viable use for the building.

On further questioning, Wilmott Dixon confirmed that its tender includes redecoration of the areas occupied, services testing and enhancement, with Fire Certification and an allowance for building rates, service connections and consumption costs.

The old laundry block at the back will not be used.

A magical PopUp Night

Tibetan Monks trudging through the snow. Carols wafting out of the shoe shop. Drummers making Robert Stanford’s estate agents rock. Something very special happened to Forest Hill on Thursday, 2 December.
Our town centre was taken over by a ‘community happening’ that saw local businesses become mini performance spaces, local people transform empty shops into Christmas pop-ups, and local pubs and restaurants turn into community networking venues.
We had people sipping cocktails at the old Post Office, becoming rock and roll stars with full band and recording kit at the Hob and then relaxing with a massage at Carers Lewisham.
It all started when Hugh Dames mentioned the idea at our AGM in October. We thought it sounded exciting and ambitious so the Society got on board and worked hard with him to turn this idea into reality.
The snow, ice and cancelled trains forced us to make last minute changes to the schedule. But it all came together and there was a real buzz that night.
Hugh hopes the event “inspired the people of Forest Hill to see themselves as members of a vibrant and dynamic local community with great skills, shared interests, groups and associations, businesses and facilities that benefit us all.”
Richard Hibbert said “This is the largest event the Society has helped organise. The response was fantastic and people are already asking us when the next pop-up is happening!. A lot of people worked very hard in freezing conditions to make this event a success. We are very grateful to them and immensely proud that our community can do this.“

Find out more at popupforesthill.wordpress.com

Sydenham Garden's new Resource Centre

On the last weekend of November, hundreds of residents braved the cold to watch the Mayor of Lewisham, Steve Bullock, open Sydenham Garden’s brand new resource centre.

For over eight years, the award-winning local charity has supported people in Lewisham and Bromley experiencing mental and physical ill health without having its own building from which to operate.

The charity has been fundraising to build the resource centre since 2005 and thanks to numerous grants and donations construction finally began in March 2010. The centre will provide much needed indoor space for therapeutic gardening and art sessions in the coming Winter months.

Chief Executive Jennie Graham says, “the building means we can expand the range of opportunities we provide for our service users.”

The building, which sits beside the garden and nature reserve, was designed by Architype to blend with the surrounding environment with sustainable features including a solar panel, thick insulation and a heat recovery system to reduce dramatically the heating requirements. It also has a bio-diverse roof to provide new habitats for wildlife.

Entrance to the garden is via a wooden access gate on Holland Drive, off Queenswood Road.  For more information about the charity, visit http://www.sydenhamgarden.org.uk/, contact it via email on info@sydenhamgarden.org.uk, or telephone on 020 8291 1650.

Dates for Your Diary

Thursday, 16th December 11-2pm - Horniman Triangle hedge-planting. If you’d like to help restore the ancient hawthorn hedge, you are asked to pre-book by emailing Jessica.Kyle@lewisham.gov.uk.

Saturday, 15th January 11am-1pm – Crofton Park Assembly. St Hilda's Church Hall, Courtrai Road, SE23 1PL
Sunday, 16th January - 11– 3pm – Bring and Take at Devonshire Road Nature Reserve. See article for further details.
Sunday, 16th January 3pm – Devonshire Road Nature Reserve. Planning meeting for London in Bloom entry. See article for further details.
Monday, 17th January – 7.30-9.30 — Forest Hill Assembly. Sydenham Girls’ School, Dartmouth Road, SE26 4RD
Tuesday, 25th January – Burns Night. All Inn One, Please book directly 020 8699 3311.

Thursday, 17th February – Time and venue TBC. Perry Vale Assembly.

Forest Hill will Bloom in 2011

The Forest Hill Society plans to enter the ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood’ section of London in Bloom 2011. With a February deadline for submission, the inaugural ideas and volunteers planning meeting will be held on Sunday, January 16th 2011 at 3pm at the Devonshire Road Nature Reserve.

The geographical limit – what “our neighbourhood” will cover – will have to be defined, but we will probably start modestly in our first year, perhaps limited to a small central patch to see how things develop. We might just start with the green area in front of Forest Hill station. But all decisions have yet to be made on what and where to plant; what sponsorship or funding we might attract and generally how we are going to proceed with this new enterprise. So input from the wider community is essential: this is YOUR Forest Hill so we need to know what you think about sprucing it up with flowers.

If you have ideas, this is your chance to be involved in beautifying Forest Hill and greening up our town centre. If you have green fingers and would like to get dug in, would like to learn, or just have some thoughts about what you would like to see, please contact quetta@foresthillsociety.com. Better still, come along on the 16th to help shape our entry.

With a little bit of work, Forest Hill will bloom in 2011.

Bring and Take Event - 16 January

This is a fun event to promote recycling, reuse and reduction of waste. Simply bring along any items you no longer need between 11.00 and 15.00 on Sunday 16 January 2011 and swap them for things you do - completely free! Articles should preferably be easily portable and in good condition. Items such as books, CDs, DVDs, clothes, plants, lamps, kitchenware, bikes and other unwanted goods can find a happy home.

Location, Location, Location...?

We may not all be fans of property shows on TV, but when they feature Forest Hill we feel obliged to take a peek. On 3rd June, Channel4’s “Location, Location, Location” featured arty couple, Ben and Lucy, who thought they wanted a flat in East Dulwich only to discover that SE23 offered a whole lot more.
We got in touch with Lucy to find out what changed her mind.

How did you get involved with the show?
We never really had a huge desire to go on telly to be honest. We just wanted help finding a house but the filming was really fun! The production team looked at loads of properties for us – they really work hard at finding you good places.

You seemed pretty negative about Forest Hill when presenter, Phil, first suggested it. 
I guess we just didn’t know the area that well and I had kind of set my heart on East Dulwich. We were worried that it might not have much of an atmosphere or community feel.

So what changed your mind?
What was great about doing the programme was that we got to spend a few days in the area cycling about and checking out the feel of the place. We went into some nice pubs and shops and went up to the Horniman Museum gardens which I really loved. We got the feeling that this was a friendly place and that people who lived here seemed similar to us.

You missed out on the house on Shipman Rd.  Are you still looking? 
We are actively looking again and have set our sights on moving in the autumn. However, we are finding that prices have gone up quite a bit in the last six months and we may not be able to afford Forest Hill now!! Competition for properties is insanely fierce with many places going within 2 or 3 days of being on the market. It’s really tough but we are trying to stay optimistic!

And our favourite question here in SE23 - which is better, Forest Hill or East Dulwich?!! 
Ha ha, Forest Hill of course! Now someone sell us your 2 bed flat/house pleeeeease!!

Transport - Not Everything is Rosy

We have the London Overground AND geraniums outside Forest Hill Station (thanks to Shannons Garden Centre) but problems still remain, as Andrew Reid of our Transport Committee explains.

TRAINS Following assurances that peak hour London Bridge trains would be eight coaches long from the introduction of the new timetable, we were surprised to see four and six coach trains running. We were told these were planned and not the result of rolling stock failures.  This makes a mockery of the stated intent to extend platforms to run ten coach trains by the end of next year. 

The petition protesting against cuts in our rail services both to Charing Cross and during the evening peak from London Bridge gathered well over five-thousand signatures and was presented to the Minister then responsible for rail services, Chris Mole, on 23rd March.  We received the standard response that with an additional eight Overground trains an hour, we do not need this capacity to London Bridge.  We disagree and will bring this to the attention of the new government. 

ROADS The results of the Perry Vale Traffic Study are now on our website.  It came up with little hard information on problems, but recommended further studies to analyse the accidents which had occurred, measure traffic and count pedestrians crossing in various locations. 
Many local residents have concerns about traffic in Devonshire Road and we have discussed possible solutions with TfL and Lewisham Council. 

PARKING The plans for Forest Hill Pools provide only a single disabled parking bay. Any further parking will have to be in local roads.  The lack of on-site parking was an inevitable consequence of the cramped site available for the development. We sympathise with local residents. Clearly this is a fine balance and the situation will need to be reviewed once the Pools open. 

...and the London Overground does have some problems which we are hoping to have rectified. The air conditioning seems unable to cope with high external temperatures. Whilst TfL were aware of the problem, they were surprised that it had failed on three of the four trains we sampled on the first day.  They are working on a fix – one test train has been running already.   

We have told TfL that we’d like the Overground to run later in the evening – at the moment it stops running from Canada Water earlier than Southern trains from London Bridge.   We are confident that later trains will be timetabled in future if there is a demand.

There are now only four Southern trains per hour from London Bridge and we do know that this has caused problems for many of you. Others have said that whilst the reduced service is an inconvenience, the opening of the London Overground has meant the trains are less crowded and the journey more comfortable as a result. We shall have to see how people’s travel patterns adapt to all the changes over time.

Pecks in the City

When our Membership Secretary, Belinda Evans, was offered chickens as a birthday present, she immediately jumped at the idea. Fresh eggs for breakfast! Slugs and snails eaten up from the garden! But is the Good Life really possible in SE23? Belinda shares her experience:

After a little research, we decided on a traditional wooden coop and run and found ‘Ark birds and bees’ in Charring, Kent www.arkbirdsandbeeskent.co.uk for hybrid hens and all the chicken paraphernalia we would need for happy, contented hens. 
So Milly, Molly and Mandy came to live in Forest Hill.

Amazingly, one of the hens (we have since found out it’s Milly) laid an egg in the car on the way home. So even before we had unpacked ‘the girls’ from their cardboard box, we were tucking into the freshest boiled egg.  

The girls settled in well and we have had an egg a day since arrival, thanks to Milly.
Every evening when I return from work and during the day at weekends, the girls are out in the garden scratching around, destroying bedding plants and eating my new veg.

But disaster struck early one Sunday morning when an urban fox managed to push through the mesh on the run and carry off Molly. It was really sad as the chickens were showing their personalities and Molly and Mandy were inseparable. But chickens don’t seem to care and an egg was laid within 20 minutes of the massacre and I can be content in the knowledge that Molly’s last day in Forest Hill was a pleasant one.

In typical modern style we have created a spreadsheet that calculates the ever diminishing cost per egg (cost of outlay divided by the number laid). You’ll be pleased to know that as of today every egg has cost us nineteen pounds! That means that last Sunday’s delicious omelette cost us £114 even before we’d added the cheese.