Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea May, 2018, Newsletter (# 107)
- In the weeks before the May 3rd Borough Election, there was very little Council activity, except for preparing for and fighting the election itself, hence this is going to be a short newsletter! I could, of course, try to persuade you all to vote for me and my two Latchmere colleagues Simon Hogg and Kate Stock, but I won’t insult your intelligence by thinking I could change your vote in the last couple of days. Instead as usual I will continue with my normal monthly diary.
- On April 1st my partner and I went to Tate Modern
to see the Modigliani Exhibition. The first thing that struck me was the speed and scale of change in Blackfriars. The Blavatnik extension to the Tate has been open nearly two years but this was the first time that I’ve had a close look at it! To say the least it’s striking – it also blends well with the old Bankside Power Station, which is now the Tate Modern.
- As for Modigliani, he was extremely popular fifty years ago but not so much today. Perhaps, at least to the casual observer, he appears a bit effete. Certainly, I am sorry to say, of his famous nudes that I thought “once, you’ve seen one then you’ve seen them all”. They were elegant, sensual, ample and well-proportioned but curiously passionless, empty vessels. Didn’t work for me.
- On the 6th we decided to visit two of the buildings that won some of the Wandsworth design awards, which I mentioned last month. The first was for dinner at the Earlsfield pub, built effectively into the wall of the station – we liked it – and then over the road to the Tara Arts Centre for an evening of Indian music, the Easter Ragas. The Tara Arts Centre is a small performance space, converted from a Victorian terrace, right alongside the mainline railway. I definitely recommend a visit.
- The “Indian” music was simply
stunning – apparently a fusion of “Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Indian musical traditions”. It was, in the words of the MC, the music for whirling Dervishes – the “Whirling Dervishes” were a Turkish Sufi cult, who achieved notoriety in Victorian England. At the concert, the outstanding performer was Abi Sampa, her singing and the intensity of her presence and of her band bowled over the whole audience.
- The April meeting of the Planning Applications Committee was on the 18th, but, to be honest, there was little of note, at least, for Battersea.
- Last month, I said I would represent the Labour Party, on the 24th, at the Battersea Society’s election hustings meeting in York Gardens Library Hall.
In fact, Wandsworth Labour Leader, and fellow Latchmere councillor, Simon Hogg, second from right, took the role. Thanks to the Society for staging the hustings but, I thought that the meeting, with an audience of only 40, was a bit flat. The fact is that it was a very polite, very quiet audience; nor was it very representative of much of the local Latchmere population. The evening could have done with a little more “edge”.
- To City Hall on 27th April, to a meeting
of ACAN, the African Caribbean Alumni Network. As I said, last month, you might well be surprised at that (as indeed, I was when I received the invitation). But it follows from my contribution to a Black Lives Matter debate held last summer at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich.
- It was a meeting for about 200 black graduates (I was the only white person in the hall) and as such it was absolutely fascinating. These young graduates were a very impressive group, very angry about the current outrageous “Windrush scandal”, very ambitious for the future of themselves and their peers, very positive about how they were going to play a major part in British society. Good luck to them all. We will all benefit from their energy and their positive attitude.
- The following day, the 25th, off to the Battersea Arts Centre to see the world premier of Winstanley Stories, a film made by Falconbrook Primary School’s pupils with, I suspect, quite a lot of assistance from producer Matthew Rosenberg. I thought that he/they did a brilliant history film of both the Winstanley and York Road estates. It can be seen at http://www.winstanleystories.org.uk/film.html, which I whole-heartedly recommend to anyone who has the technology.
- And now on to May 3rd, election day. However,
I can’t let this “old” Council pass without saying a very fond farewell to Councillor Wendy Speck. Wendy has been a Latchmere councillor since May, 2010. Many of you will know her well because Wendy was and still is active in many ways. She was Chair of Governors of Chesterton School and a Governor of Ernest Bevin School, Tooting and a regular at most Big Local events.
- Wendy is chair of St Walter St John Educational Trust and intends to continue in that role. Wendy is also a trustee of Wand Youth Club and of Wandsworth Community Safety Trust. Before being a councillor, she was for 9 years a head of primary schools in Newcastle and Islington. One little known fact is that she has an Anglo-Byelorussian background and is still a mean Cossack dancer. I’ll miss her as a Council colleague.
My Programme for May
Well, the future disposition of Wandsworth Council is very much in your hands, you – the electorate. If Labour wins then, I will be very busy and will be happy to report on what it is like being in a majority party! But if we do not win, then my newsletter will be more of the same.
Do you know?
Last month I asked: Where and when was this
photo taken? And do you know the current use of the church on the left-side of the road?
Easy, but I think the most knowledgeable and accurate answer came from Sue, who I will quote in full.
“It’s St. Paul’s Church, St John’s Hill, looking east towards the Junction and likely to be 1920s because of (the woman’s) cloche hat…Church became Louvaine Area Residents’ Association HQ (LARA) when made redundant – and was used for Battersea LP meetings! – but is now apartments. St Paul’s started life as the daughter church to St John’s, Usk Rd but the latter struggled to sustain its congregation even before it was destroyed by a V2 in 1945 and, in any case, by the 1930s the parish had been reorganised and renamed St Paul’s. It was subsequently combined with St Peter’s, Plough Rd, which despite having had its building demolished twice, is now the only surviving Anglican congregation of the three – hopefully the new church in Plough Road will open soon for them.“
And this month, my questions are inspired by Wendy Speck’s retirement and her governorship of Chesterton Primary School. They are simply:
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- Who was Chesterton?
- What was he to Battersea or Battersea to him?
- What else in Battersea is named after him?
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Tony Belton
Tony Belton 