‘Jews in Lewisham Fight’: a 1936 punch up with Hitler fans

A street fight in Avenue Road,  Lewisham in 1936 seems to have started out with a visit to the local Lyons coffee house where Jewish customers were subject to antisemitic abuse. Edward, Benjamin and Victor Ansell, brothers from Clapton, were out with Rene Low, a young woman from Rembrandt Road in Lee. They got into ...

Lewisham Teachers Strike Rally

On a day which saw the largest number of workers strike on one day for many years, hundreds of striking teachers and their supporters held a rally in Lewisham before heading into central London to join a demonstration there.Speakers at the rally next to the Glassmill leisure centre included teachers as well as a Royal ...

Lewisham Diggers 1968

Browsing through the interesting Reveal Digital 'Independent Voices' archive I came across mention of the 1960s Lewisham Diggers, inspired by the counter cultural San Francisco Diggers who were in turn inspired by the Diggers of the 17th century English revolution.A 1967 notice in the international Equality journal from Mike Malet of Lewisham Anarchist Group talks of ...

Malcolm Hardee sets himself on fire as a teenage DJ

The famed South London comedian Malcolm Hardee made his name in the 1980s, including opening The Tunnel comedy club next to the Greenwich entrance to the Blackwall Tunnel and then Up the Creek in Creek Road, Greenwich. He went on to the run The Wibbley Wobbley floating pub in Greenland Dock, Rotherhithe, near to which ...

Celebrating Sanctuary at the Horniman Museum

The Horniman Museum has won the 2022 Art Fund 'Museum of the Year' award and it is certainly one of the great treasures of South London (and indeed all of London).Last month (25 June 2022) it hosted the 'Celebrating Sanctuary' Lewisham Refugee Week Festival. The festival marked 'Lewisham's status as the UK's first borough of ...

Celebrating Sanctuary at the Horniman Museum

The Horniman Museum has won the 2022 Art Fund 'Museum of the Year' award and it is certainly one of the great treasures of South London (and indeed all of London).Last month (25 June 2022) it hosted the 'Celebrating Sanctuary' Lewisham Refugee Week Festival. The festival marked 'Lewisham's status as the UK's first borough of ...

Little Amal comes to Deptford

At least a couple of thousand people turned out last Friday (22/10/2021) to greet 'Little Amal' to Deptford: a 3.5 metre-tall puppet of a young refugee girl that has been travelling  8000 km across Europe from the Turkish-Syrian border. Created by the Handspring Puppet Company (famous for The War Horse among other projects), the puppet ...

Dub London – nights of raving

'Dub London: Bassline of a city' closed last week at the Museum of London, a small exhibition documenting the impact of reggae sound system culture in the capital. Exhibits included a speaker stack from Channel One sound system, photographs and a vinyl selection provided by London reggae record shops. Naturally, South East London featured prominently, with ...

Black Lives Matter in South London, one year on

'ACAB' 'Floyd' - Albert Embankment SE1, April 2021A year ago today the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis sparked off the latest round of the global Black Lives Matter movement. The UK movement really started off with a march in Peckham on the 30th May and today Black Lives Matter activist ...

Lewisham Museums of Migration and Neoliberalism

With museums and galleries reopening let's celebrate two small but perfectly formed and radical museums in the borough of Lewisham, with a few photos from pre-lockdown period.The Migration MuseumThe Migration Museum in Lewisham Shopping Centre reopens on 19th May 2021. I visited in that brief inter-lockdown window in Summer 2020 and saw The Singh Twins great ...