Camberwell Archives - Page 4 of 5

Featured local business - Clubtek

Forest

SE23

Hill

I was already a regular visitor to Clubtek’s DJ shop when it was in Penge, but now they're even handier in Stanstead Road, just a few doors down from Shannon’s Garden Centre - another old favourite. It’s by no means just for DJs and bands...

The Paying Guests – a novel of 1920s South London

Nov

2014

Sarah Waters' latest novel, The Paying Guests (Virago, 2014) is set in 1920s South London, where a mother and daughter fallen on hard times after the First World War take in lodgers in their once grand home on the Camberwell/Dulwich borders: 'Champion Hill, on the whole, kept itself to itself. The gardens were large, the ...

Peckham Black Womens Group 1985

Jul

2014

From Bishopsgate Institute on facebook, a 1985 flyer for a Peckham Black Womens Group 'Black Womens Open Day' at the St Giles Centre in Benhill Road, Camberwell. Line up included 'Asian Women's Dance plus dub poetry and song by Lioness Chant'.Peckham Black Women's Group later opened Peckham Black Women's Centre at 69 Bellenden Road, SE15. ...

Undercover: police spies in South London

Mar

2014

'Undercover: the True Story of Britain's Secret Police' by Rob Evans and Paul Lewis is primarily about the work of the Special Demonstration Squad, a London-based police unit set up to infiltrate radical and not so radical movements. Of course the police Special Branch and other agencies have been using informers and undercover police officers ...

Hanuman Mural in Camberwell

Feb

2014

This mural, apparently showing the Hindu monkey-like deity Hanuman, is at 5 Camberwell Station Road SE5. A quick google search shows that it is (or maybe was) the office of Hanuman Solutions - an architect's practice I think.

Knocked ‘Em in the Old Kent Road

Feb

2014

Former Hollywood child star Shirley Temple (1928-2014) died this week. Once upon a long time ago she sang a South London song in 'The Little Princess' (1939), loosely based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Fallen on hard times as a servant girl, she searches the Veterans Hospital for her missing father, entertaining the ...

Music Monday: Coil – Lost Rivers of London

Jan

2014

An oldie from 1996, one of the great evocative London pyschogeographical tracks from Coil (RIP Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson and John Balance). With the exception of the opening and closing 'drown myself' lines, the words come from Hubert Montague Crackanthorpe's Vignettes (1896), actually from several pieces in that short book.'I'm gonna drown myself in London's lost ...

Maoists in 1970s South London

Nov

2013

Today's revelations about the so-called 'Lambeth Slavery' case have linked those arrested to the remnants of a small Maoist group that operated in Brixton in the 1970s. The central allegation seems to be that supporters of the group formed a collective that degenerated over time into an abusive scenario where several women felt themselves to ...

Commonweal: late 19th century socialism in South London

Sep

2013

The Socialist League was a significant force in radical politics in the late 19th century (it existed from 1885 to 1901), most famously associated with William Morris. Its newspaper Commonweal is now largely online and is a fascinating source for London politics in that period, with its listings of meetings and branches. For instance in ...

Socialist artists and Third World Books in 1979 South London

Jul

2013

Looking through an old copy of Photography/Politics: One, published by the Photographers Workshop in September 1979, I noticed a couple of interesting South London small ads.Sabarr Books was at 121 Railton Road SE24 'Specialising in books on Third World politics and literature'. I believe that Olive Morris (among other things a Brixton Black Panther) was ...

Lewisham Hospital latest – and my tour of A&E

Jul

2013

Still waiting for the outcome of the judicial reviews into the Government's planned reductions in services at Lewisham Hospital. Two weeks ago at the High Court both the Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign and Lewisham Council submitted their cases that the plans were unlawful.Campaigners outside the Royal Courts of Justice on 2 JulyOn 29 June, the ...