From Couch to 5km

By Michael Abrahams

Last year, as we entered the second main lockdown, I took the decision that if I was ever going to find the time to do exercise, now would be the time, even if I was 46 years old.

I had joined a gym, 10 years ago, but gave up after a few months as I hate exercise, found it incredibly boring, and didn’t have the time. But with lockdown I knew I could find 30 minutes a day to get some exercise rather than commuting. I had heard about Couch to 5K (C25K), an app designed for complete beginners to build up their stamina and run for 5km (3 miles) non-stop. That was exactly what I needed. I have always been a reasonable runner (in my opinion), but only for about 30 seconds, after that I collapse in a heap, so slowing down and improving my stamina was what it was all about.

The free C25K app has been developed by the NHS and the BBC and is a nine-week program of running 3 times a week. It starts with plenty of time to recover, with 60 or 90 second runs, and builds up to running non-stop for 30 minutes. The app gives you encouragement and you know that if you can complete the last run, then you are capable of achieving the next run with just a little more effort.

I stuck with the program, taking each week as it came, and trying not to look at what I was expected to accomplish next week as it would only put me off. The hardest part was finding flat places to run in Forest Hill. For my first run I made the mistake of thinking the Horniman Gardens would be suitable − but even the slightest hill caused me difficulty, the paths are too uneven and there are too many other people just enjoying the park − so I learned my first lesson, plan your route. And the second lesson was − buy a decent pair of running shoes − your feet deserve it.

I found the east side of the railway much more suitable − starting from Perry Vale and running towards Mayow Park. As the weeks went by, I tested out a few alternatives including one run that is almost all downhill − starting from the roundabout at the top of Kirkdale/Sydenham Hill, I ran towards Wells Park and gradually descended to Kirkdale and Sydenham Park Road.

By the end of ten weeks, I was able to keep going for 30 minutes without stopping and covered about 4km. In the last week I pushed myself to keep going for 38 minutes and was able to complete my first 5km.

After completing the 5km, I wasn’t sure what to do next and without the app I lost motivation. This was cured by joining Strava, a free app that allows you to see your friends and for them to see you, and to give each other ‘kudos’. Now I had an audience and an app measuring me, I regained some motivation. Investing in some wireless headphones and running shorts helped to make the run more comfortable.

I’ve learned that planning a route is important, especially when you live on a hill. There is a simple 5km route along Wood Vale, Brenchley Gardens, Eddystone Road bridge, and back down Grierson and Garthorne Roads to Stanstead Road. The advantage of this route is that it is mostly flat and has very few roads to cross as it follows two railway lines (one of which no longer exists). I’ve pushed myself to run to the Thames (4 miles or 6.4km to the Deptford Creek) it is hard work, but all downhill! And I’ve also taken to running along the railway and getting the train home − from Norwood Junction, New Cross Gate, or Surrey Quays.

Another enjoyable route is Bell Green to Ladywell Fields and back along the river, or you can just run the roads between Stanstead Road and Woolstone Road which are generally flat and straight.

After a year running, I try to go out at least once a week and cover 5km. I’m not very fast and I might not go far, but it is still a good routine for somebody who hates exercise.

Leslie Eveleigh − Pioneer of the Silent Film

By Gary Thornton

Born in Deptford in 1890, Leslie Eveleigh was one of the early silent film makers whose names have largely slipped into obscurity, but who still retain an important place in the history of British cinema. Eveleigh lived and died in Forest Hill and is buried in Brockley cemetery.

Eveleigh’s life is not well documented, although it is known that he served in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. His film career is best traced through the BFI historical archives. There, his first film credit dates from 1913, where he is listed as a cameraman on Sixty Years a Queen, a dramatised version of the life of Queen Victoria, based on the book of the same name by Sir Herbert Maxwell.  The film was made at Ealing Studios, which had been founded in 1902, and was directed by Bert Haldane, who made over 170 films in his short 10 year career. In 1915 Eveleigh is again found working with Haldane as photographer, this time on Jane Shore, another of the hugely popular historical dramas which were the mainstay of this early film industry. Jane Shore is notable for its scale − probably the first ‘epic’ British film, it used thousands of extras in its crowd scenes, and has been compared to D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation in its scope and ambition.
 
Although Ealing, Elstree and Pinewood are considered the hub of the British film industry, once Paul and Acres had made the first British 35mm film in 1895, studios began to appear all over the country, as creative talents sought to exploit the wonders of this new technology. From the creation of Gaumont in 1898 to the onset of the talking picture in 1929, many studios briefly flourished, then disappeared, as a combination of rising costs and the expansion of Hollywood meant that only the largest − such as MGM or Rank − continued to enjoy success. Of the 640 production companies registered from 1925 to 1936, only 20 remained in 1937.

One of these short-lived companies was British Filmcraft, which was founded in 1926 by Eveleigh and the film producer George Banfield, along with cameramen Bert Ford and Phil Ross. They took over Walthamstow Studios and operated from there until 1931.  Interestingly, their predecessors at Wood Street, Broadwest, also used studios at Southend Hall in Catford, located at what is now the junction between Bromley Road and Whitefoot Lane.

With British Filmcraft, Eveleigh was elevated to director, sharing duties with Banfield on a number of productions through the second half of the 1920s. Although the company made only a few feature-length films, they made numerous short films and serials, including six films featuring the detective Sexton Blake, and a further series on the life of Dick Turpin, filmed on location in Epping Forest.

Perhaps his best known work is a 20 minute short film, The Lady Godiva (1928), based on Tennyson’s poem. Thanks to the work of the BFI archive, a restored version of this is available, the story filmed on location in the historic medieval centre of Coventry, later destroyed during the Blitz, and starring Gladys Jennings as Lady Godiva.
 

Scene from The Lady Godiva (1928 − BFI)

The advent of the talkie, Hitchcock’s Blackmail (1929) usually considered the first British example, sounded the death knell for many silent film-makers. British Filmcraft’s last production (and Banfield’s last film) was made in 1930, and Eveleigh has only one further final film credit, an advertising documentary for the manufacturer Mabie Todd & Co., Making a Swan Pen in 1940, released after his death.

As a young man, Eveleigh had married Nellie Evit in Thatcham in 1913. He is recorded as living in Kentish Town in 1930, but they subsequently settled in Forest Hill, at 6 Woodcombe Crescent. In a rather macabre turn of events, however, Eveleigh met an unfortunate end by his own hand, aged just 49. The Birmingham Mail of 4 December 1939 reported that Sydenham police had received a hand-written letter from him containing a garage key. When the local sergeant attended the scene, he found Eveleigh kneeling behind his car, with the exhaust and his head both covered by a mackintosh. The ignition was on but the engine was no longer running. The death of his wife just a few months earlier appeared to have led to his suicide, and the coroner ruled that he took his own life while the balance of his mind was affected by ill-health.

Thanks to Mike Guilfoyle from the Friends of Brockley & Ladywell cemeteries for alerting me to this story. Mike has recorded a series of fascinating podcasts on other cemetery residents (including Louis Drysdale) which can be found here:
https://tinyurl.com/london-epitaphs

 

 

6 Woodcombe Crescent (photo by May Teo)

Asterley Bros − The Spirit of SE23

By Gary Thornton

An industrial estate on Dalmain Road isn’t the most obvious place to find Mediterranean-inspired treasure but, hidden away in a shed outside the Keynote Studios, you’ll find brothers Rob and Jim Berry carefully crafting a range of vermouths, amari and cocktails − inspired by traditional Sicilian recipes, but nurtured in Forest Hill.

I caught up with managing director Rob Berry to find out more.

Where did it all start, and how did you end up in Forest Hill?
We had both always worked in hospitality, but I married into a Sicilian family in 2009 and, like many families in the region, they had their own recipe for making Amaro, a herbal, bitter and sweet spirit commonly drunk as a digestif after meals. We started to make it ourselves, but then thought that as recipes for Amari differ from place to place, we should do a London version, using botanicals that are found locally rather than in the mountains around Palermo.

Using Culpeper’s London Dispensatory, we came up with our own recipe for Dispense Amaro in 2014, which uses some of the herbs and botanicals which are common in the area, such as chickweed, hops and yarrow. These produce a more medicinal, less sweet flavour which we think captures the essence of our region.

As we both live in Sydenham, we wanted to find a base nearby, and we moved into the Keynote Studios in 2017.

What is the origin of the Asterley name?
It’s our mother’s maiden name. We would have chosen Berry Bros, but obviously someone else got there first.

How do make your Amaro?
Our recipe calls for quite a complicated process − we take neutral grain spirit at 96% abv, cut it with filtered water, and use it to macerate citrus and dried fruits. Separately we macerate the bitter herbs and hard spices in another spirit reduction, and the remaining botanicals in English red wine. After a month the three liquids are combined with sugar, to produce the end result.

You sell a Britannica London Fernet − how does this differ from Dispense?
Common Fernets, such as Fernet Branca, are typically a super-charged version of Amaro, with a higher ABV and less sweetness. We have toned it down a little for British tastes, so we include London porter and coffee, making it more approachable and palatable by rounding off the more bitter notes.  

You also make two types of vermouth?
Yes, we have a dry version − Schofield’s, and a sweet − Estate. We again use English wine, a combination of whites (Bacchus, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay) for the dry, and red (Pinot Noir) for the sweet, and aromatics such as lavender, jasmine and camomile. European vermouths typically use a neutral wine, so the role of the botanicals is more important, For us, we wanted something which brings out the character of both. It’s a more playful and friendly version of a vermouth, and drinks as well neat over ice as in a cocktail.

How did the Asterley Bros Cocktail Club come about?
We already had a range of Christmas cocktails, but with the first lockdown in 2020 hospitality dried up practically overnight, and we knew we had to do something different to replace lost sales. As people were stuck at home, we had the idea of creating different cocktails and delivering them to members who sign up for a monthly subscription. We include mixers, snacks and also samples of different Amari from around the world.

How do you come up with the cocktail recipes?
We have different cocktails themed around the four seasons, and they are our own take on classics such as Negroni and Manhattan − the only condition is that we have to include one of our own spirits. We work with Joe Schofield, an award-winning bartender who runs his own bar in Manchester, and he develops and tests each recipe.

The cocktail packaging is very striking. How did you come by it?
It was a deliberate decision to be different from the classical look of the other products. We wanted it to reflect the fun of cocktails, and we found the artist Ryan Gajda on Instagram. Ryan creates a different image for us each season, which appears on the packaging and on a limited edition print which goes out to subscribers.

You have an online shop, but where else can we find your spirits?
They are stocked at places like Hawksmoor, Claridge’s and Harvey Nichols, but also more locally at Two Spoons, The Butchery and Clapton Craft.  

And finally, what does the future hold for Asterley Bros?
We’re raising funds for expansion at the moment, so we can take on more full time staff. It’ll mean moving to larger premises, but we want to remain in Forest Hill.

For more information, and for the online shop visit www.asterleybros.com.

Asterley Bros Cocktails

Cherry Americano
•  25ml Estate Vermouth
•  25ml Doghouse Distillery ‘Doppelganger’ Aperitivo
•  5ml Cherry Liqueur / Creme de Cerise
•  5 Dashes Aromatic Bitters
•  2 drops Citric Acid tincture (20g citric acid / 50ml water)

Method
1.  Add the ingredients to an ice-filled glass
2.  Stir for 10 seconds
3.  Top with soda


Strawberry Spritz
•  25ml Victory Bitters
•  20ml SCHOFIELD’S Dry Vermouth
•  15ml Wild Strawberry Liqueur (Merlet Fraise de Bois)
•  2 dashes Orange Bitters

Method
1.  Add the ingredients to an ice-filled wine glass
2.  Add 75ml tonic or rose prosecco
3.  Stir for 10 seconds
4.  Garnish with a slice of orange

Forest Hill Library update

By John Firmin

Forest Hill Community library is emerging from coronavirus restrictions in good shape. Now open seven days a week, footfall each month is around 6,500 and while this is below the level before the pandemic, the recovery is faster than at other Lewisham libraries. Group meetings have resumed with the popular Rhyme time for the under 5’s at 10am on Tuesdays and children’s origami on one Saturday each month.

Throughout the pandemic, the library continued to receive a steady stream of new books from Lewisham libraries especially in the children’s section, which continues to account for the majority of book borrowing. More children completed the summer reading challenge at Forest Hill than at any other library in the borough. This year, children were asked to review the books they read and post their reviews in the library. Forest Hill accounted for almost half the reviews posted in all Lewisham libraries. Well done to our younger readers! For older children and students, the library provides a safe space to study after school.

Good use continues to be made of the computers available to the public in the adult section. This service is vital to people without access to the internet at home when most job vacancies require on-line searches. If this applies to you, the volunteers at the library are ready to help you use the computers there.

Most recently, the community library was successful in two NCIL bids: £2,900, which will be used to redecorate and refurbish the busy children’s library; and £2,075 for developing room at the rear of the library.  This will be divided in two to provide a dedicated space for community use and hire and a smaller space for volunteers.  Work on both projects will be completed this year.  Additionally, Library Garden is receiving £9,451, which will enable it to complete landscaping work including raised beds and a seating area”.

The Library Garden Group is continuing to carve out a productive vegetable and dye garden from the space behind Forest Hill Library. The dye garden proved fruitful last Summer and enabled the project stewards to run a series of natural fabric dyeing and sewing workshops.

Through seed sowing and planting out dye plant plugs, the garden was full of bright, profusely flowering, annuals and perennials. There were over 50 sunflowers, ranging from the simple yellow to a Hopi black, and our tallest, at 3.05m won London Harvest Festival's Tallest Sunflower competition. The first raised vegetable bed was completed last Autumn, and planted up with onions, garlic and winter cabbages at a Moonlight Gardening event full of lantern making and folk music.

Looking to the future, Library Garden is taking steps to finish the main infrastructure of the garden, seeking to complete all raised beds and provide a comfortable seating area for volunteers and visitors. After applying to the Forest Hill NCIL ward at the end of last year, the garden has been recommended for enough money to carry out this hard landscaping work. It will be delivered over the course of the next year in one 'Hands-On' session per week, focusing on the more physical aspects of completing the garden build.

A short maintenance gardening course for Lewisham residents is also on the horizon in order to restore the Louise House wildlife garden to a flourishing state (funding dependent). As always, the more volunteers the merrier, so contact hello@librarygarden.org.uk for more information about how to get involved.

From March the library has resumed opening on all evenings Monday-Thursday but does need more volunteers to cover these times. If you can do so, or if you are interested in volunteering at other times you are most welcome. Library volunteers include young adults on work experience and on schemes like that of the Duke of Edinburgh.
 
Future challenges for Forest Hill Community Library include doing more to bridge the digital divide and making the library eco-friendlier with more efficient heating and lighting. Both, however, depend on continued success in grant applications.

The library is self-funding. You can help by becoming a friend (£29 per annum) or a patron (a single payment of £300). And corporate friendship is also available for £99 or a single payment of £500. The library is a registered charity and when made by UK taxpayers donations qualify for gift aid.

If you would like to volunteer at the library or find out more about being a friend or a patron please contact the manager, Stephen Bruce at the library, or on 020 8244 0634 or by e mail to stephen@fhlibrary.co.uk.

Springwatch

By Quetta Kaye

Watch the flowers spring up in your neighbourhood (squirrels and the weather permitting) because before Christmas hundreds of bulbs were distributed by stalwarts of the Forest Hill Society. The bulbs were donated by Energy Gardens and the Forest Hill Society, but the majority came from a Metropolitan Public Gardens Association grant. They went to the Sydenham Society, Kilmorie and Horniman Schools, the Library gardens, planters at Kirkdale, in and around Forest Hill station and nearby street corners, around the trees in London Road opposite the Horniman Museum, as well as to some neighbourhood guerrilla gardeners.

Other hopefuls for Spring viewing will be a white climbing rose newly planted to overhang the underpass, and a new clematis to cover the blank wall on platform 1 at Forest Hill station, replacing those plants cut down when tarmacking of the area took place last year. Wildflower seeds have also been scattered on the waste patch behind the nearby passenger waiting room in the hope of attracting more bees and other insect life to that area.

2022 will see the Forest Hill Society’s Clean Air group pressing forward with acquiring important air pollution data and progressing the plans to limit car parking in Forest Hill station forecourt in order to provide safe pedestrian access and to green up the area. Talks have been held, measurements taken, and things are moving in the right direction − at last.

 

 

 

Climate Action Lewisham

By Zaria Greenhill, chair of Climate Action Lewisham

As you may know, Lewisham council declared a climate emergency in 2020 with the stated aim of reaching Net Zero Carbon by 2030. This is an ambitious aim, with good reason, and it asks a lot of the council’s operations, the elected representatives and the communities of Lewisham to work together to achieve that aim. It sounds daunting and demanding, but it’s a great chance for us to work together, to deepen our creativity, our humanity, appreciate our nature, make our streets and public spaces better; healthy, green, clean, pleasant and convivial.

Climate Action Lewisham supported the declaration of Climate Emergency back in 2019 and now support and challenge the council to go further and do better. And we offer events and ideas and projects to the community to help us all learn and adapt. We have Lewisham Family Cycling Library, which has regular public events in local parks where families can try out an e-cargo trike and some children’s bike trailers, and then hire them if they find they like them.

We also organise local litter picks alongside community groups. We have monthly meetings, mostly online, with speakers and themes, and we also do advocacy and lobbying to Lewisham council.

We believe that our resilience, our courage, our creativity and our connectedness will help us play our part in mitigating the Climate Crisis and also to weather its effects.

If you’d like to ride an e-trike, have a clean-up, learn more about sustainability or learn how to speak to your council or MP, you’re welcome to join our mailing list on our website: www.climateactionlewisham.org
www.facebook.com/groups/climateactionlewisham
Twitter: @actionlewisham

Sadiq Khan comes to Forest Hill to launch proposal for London-wide Ultra Low Emissions Zone

In March 2022, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan came to Forest Hill to visit Forest Hill Secondary School and announced his proposal to extend the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) from the south and north circular roads to include all of Greater London.

Back in 2018, when the mayor was consulting about the ULEZ that came into effect in October 2021, at that time the Forest Hill Society responded to the consultation with one clear message: “Recognising the need for action to combat poor air quality, the Society would support a larger ULEZ, extending even to the full extent of Greater London.”

This proposal is particularly good news for South London and for Forest Hill. The south circular is much closer to the centre of London than the north circular. While the boundary in North London is a large duel-carriageway, the south circular is a more modest road that goes right through the heart of communities − as Forest Hill residents know only too well.

By extending the ULEZ to the whole of Greater London, there will be less pollution for miles beyond the South circular and this will hopefully have a positive impact on the health of local residents.

The proposed timescale is ‘end of 2023’, after which time drivers with more polluting vehicles will be charged £12.50 to drive anywhere in Great London – the same charge already applies to vehicles within the current ULEZ.

The Forest Hill Society welcomes this initiative and is delighted that the mayor chose Forest Hill as the place to launch this proposal.

Forest Hill Society Response to Airspace Consultation

In December 2021 London City Airport presented to their Consultative Committee a set of completely new route options for their arrivals and departures over London. They shared detailed mapping of five potential alternatives for arrivals and departures but made it very clear that these were outline only. Before taking these to the next stage of the regulated process they asked Committee attendees to comment on these initial ideas.

In early March the airport gave us an early indication of the major points they are taking from the "27 Committee" and stakeholder responses received. They said that stakeholders favoured:-
-    The sharing of routes to provide respite
-    Planes to be kept higher for longer
-    A reduction in fuel and climate emissions
-    A separation of routes so that, wherever possible, the same area was not overflown by planes from different airports
-    Collaboration with other airports.

It will remain to be seen how the airport takes this feedback and translates it into new concentrated flight paths that will give us fair distribution of paths and associated noise from London City and Heathrow, two airports only 22 miles apart with runways pointing directly towards each other. We are particularly concerned that London City is proceeding to plan its own routes with no reference to Heathrow, when it seems obvious that they must develop plans together from the earliest stages.

The interlinking of Heathrow and London City low altitude routes over us is shown in the map below:-

Heathrow westerly arrivals cross the London City concentrated flight path at multiple points over SE London, from Dulwich/Brixton in the west and at least as far as Eltham in the east. Source flightradar24

 

We have published our full response to the airport here in the interests of sharing locally and in full the general concerns that we have. We have shared this with Environmental Health management at Lewisham and with MPs Ellie Reeves and Janet Daby. To summarise, we covered the following:-

1.    We welcomed that the airport seems to making some effort to understand the issues mentioned above. We expressed a major concern though, that designs seem to be being drafted independently of Heathrow, in the process compressing London City paths into a vertical and geographical space that reduces options for London City departure and arrivals routes and also climbing and descent angles. We believe that a publicly transparent dialogue at an early stage with Heathrow on the joint problems to be solved will enhance public confidence in the processes.

2.    We expressed a concern that  the new concentrated paths from City and Heathrow will end up crossing each other, with
-    some communities being under both a London City takeoff and arrivals flightpath
-    some communities being under two different London City flight paths in different wind conditions,
-    the same communities being under one or more  London City and Heathrow arrivals paths.

3.    We asked that the unpopular single concentrated arrivals route low over SE London introduced in 2016 be addressed, potentially introducing alternative or ‘respite’ routes. Over Lewisham, a respite route might look like that shown below, to spread or alternate the arriving air traffic.

 

Possible easterly arrivals routes over SE London. Source LCACC meeting Dec 2021.

 

4.     4.    We pushed hard for a steeper approach route over SE London using a Continuous Descent Approach (CDA). Currently arrivals are in almost level low altitude flight from Dartford and then west across SE London. Air Navigation Guidance says CDA is best practice for all airports, yet London City does not practice it.
5.    Air Navigation Guidance also requires that the height of hills is taken into account. With our highest point near Horniman Gardens at 345 ft, City planes are sometimes only 1255 ft above residents in the Tewkesbury Estate. London City does not yet seem to be taking our hilly terrain into account in their route planning.
6.    Finally, both Heathrow and London City have adopted similar route design principles, after consulting with overflown resident groups from across the city.

Heathrow: - ‘avoid overflying the same communities with multiple routes including those to/from other airports’ (draft Nov 2021)

London City: - ‘avoid overflying communities with multiple routes, including from other airports.’ (approved Design Principle)

We asked for early and public evidence that the two Airports are collaborating with each other on three-dimensional airspace design over London, and that they begin with a shared understanding of the impact not only of their individual but also their combined operations in different wind directions.

Finally, we said that only a complex overlay and creation of a very clear explanation of the joint noise and environmental impact on the ground of proposed plans will enable meaningful respite route planning and enable those on the ground - Local Authorities and public - to respond to flight path consultations in an informed way.

It looks as though public consultations will begin in 2023. But meanwhile we continue to try and influence the two airports and encourage them to be transparent in public engagement and consultation while they make plans and submit them to the Civil Aviation Authority.

Events for Your Diary

Subway Cleaning
Saturday 2nd April, 10am-11am.
This may not sound glamorous, and it isn’t, but you’ll be amazed how clean the white panel can become after 30 minutes cleaning by a small team of volunteers. What we can offer is a real sense of satisfaction on a Saturday morning!

The panels were last cleaned a week before lockdown in 2020, so these panels are in need of a good scrubbing.

Bring some gloves, any household cleaner, and an old sponge or squeegee. We really appreciate volunteers for this as it is very fast when there is a team.

Tree Walk
Saturday 14th May, 2pm
Starting from the café in the Horniman Triangle.

Join Stuart Checkley from Street Trees for Living on a tour of 41 new trees planted this winter on the Horniman Triangle. These trees will protect the children's playground from traffic pollution and will restore a part of what was once The Great North Wood. Some of these trees should outlive us and benefit future  generations.

The view from the top of the Horniman Triangle past the new trees and towards the massive mature trees in Horniman Gardens is inspiring.


Havelock Walk Open Studios
14th-15th, 21st-22nd May
www.havelockwalkstudios.com

River Pool Summer Walk
Saturday 18th June, 2pm
Join the Forest Hill Society for a guided walk along the Pool and Ravensbourne Rivers.

Meet at Southend Lane entrance to the Pool River Linear Park (close to the petrol station and car wash).

The route is accessible and suitable for all.

 

Planning Application: Taymount Rise

The Forest Hill Society has objected to the proposal for 20 flats to be built on the site of Green Bank Cottage and Taymount Lodge at the top of Taymount Rise.

Details of the application can be found on the Lewisham planning website (reference DC/21/124859).

Our main concerns for this development are:

1. Proximity and overlooking of existing properties
2. Loss of daylight from existing properties
3. Lack of social housing
4. Parking issues
5. Encouraging Walking / Cycling

 

The full text of the objection can be read here.