Jump to content

Spitalfield Life website


yen_powell

Recommended Posts

10 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

Dartford, if anyone even just looks at the bridge or tunnels in a funny way then the whole area comes to a grinding halt.

I was supposed to drive to Aveley last week just north of the bridge and just before I was due to leave I checked google maps for the traffic situation. Everywhere around there was black with standstill traffic (might have been dark red, but colour blind and all that). I had to grab all my stuff out of the car and start strapping it to my bike at the last minute.

Yeah, my mum lives not far from the crossing and it's regularly gridlocked around her place. 

I had a zoom call arranged with one of my mates last Friday evening,  but I got a message to postpone it until the weekend as he was stuck trying to get back from Kent! 

It's a nightmare!

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, XTreme said:

So you're saying that potentially you come from the same gene pool as Six then? :classic_unsure:

Sorry to hear that Bob! :classic_laugh:

I came from the respectable side of the pool though, Pete! 😉😂😂

  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 25/08/2021 at 14:31, Tango said:

I know people and even have relatives that have never been out of the country! One girl I worked with many years ago had never been outside the town she was born in!

Yeah, some people don't want to travel and that's fine by me, but then they want to stop or make it difficult for those who do want to! I just don't get that mentality. 

When I first got involved with the bike club here there was a guy from Avallon who, at the age of 55 had never been further a-field than Dijon. he came with us to Strasbourg, to the Jura mountains, to the atlantic coast, the Puy de Dome, and so on and so forth. Each time he was like a little kid with a new toy, had no idea the country was so big or so varied...

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
6 hours ago, yen_powell said:

Photographs of East London 2 years before the 1st World War (unless you are American, then it is 5 years before WW1)

https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/09/23/c-a-mathew-photographer-x/

Interesting that nearly everyone, including kids, wore a hat! My grandad wouldn't leave the house without his hat on. He had his working hat and his Sunday best hat! 😂😂😂

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Tango said:

Interesting that nearly everyone, including kids, wore a hat! My grandad wouldn't leave the house without his hat on. He had his working hat and his Sunday best hat! 😂😂😂

You've got to have the right ears for a hat. I have to decide whether to tuck them in or outside the hat.

When it is compulsory to wear a hard hat on some sites I hate it, I always feel like a poor man's Village People clone.

  • Like 1
  • Haha 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Tango said:

Interesting that nearly everyone, including kids, wore a hat! My grandad wouldn't leave the house without his hat on. He had his working hat and his Sunday best hat! 😂😂😂

 

 

  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I met this lady a few times between 2015 and 2017 when she sadly passed away.

I went to a meeting of residents in an area near Shoreditch to talk about their traffic concerns and it turned into a how can we stop drug dealers and crime in the area etc. This lady had dominated the meeting using nothing but gentle charm. She side lined me afterwards and we spoke about a scheme I wanted to design that might benefit the estate next to her house, but which had no funding available. She had me on side in about 10 minutes, but when I went and spoke to the money people in the office the answer was still no. So I asked if they would meet this lady and tell her that directly to see if her magic would work on them. Sure enough they all came back from the meeting with a glassy stare and chanting, "We must do what Ms Khan says" over and over.

So I got my funding and every time I went on site she would come and chat. She showed me where she had designed and built a play area for small children and  where they could be seen by their parents from the windows of their flats, she'd had a concrete table tennis table installed next to it, convincing the Olympic people to pay for it, she had plans to rent out the disused underground car park under one block to artists so their presence would put off criminals using them and was getting lighting installed in any dark corners of the estate. She made me laugh when she told me that drunk pub goers occasionally used her drive for a piddle or a dump on their way home.

The last time I saw here i was half way through my scheme and she looked tired and made a quiet comment that she hoped she would be around to see it completed. I heard she had died a month or so later. Then this turned up in Spitalfields Life a while after and I finally learnt her story, totally unexpected, I had her down as a posh lady from an old English landed gentry background, the truth couldn't have been more different.

https://spitalfieldslife.com/2017/06/09/so-long-naseem-khan-obe/

  • Like 4
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

I met this lady a few times between 2015 and 2017 when she sadly passed away.

I went to a meeting of residents in an area near Shoreditch to talk about their traffic concerns and it turned into a how can we stop drug dealers and crime in the area etc. This lady had dominated the meeting using nothing but gentle charm. She side lined me afterwards and we spoke about a scheme I wanted to design that might benefit the estate next to her house, but which had no funding available. She had me on side in about 10 minutes, but when I went and spoke to the money people in the office the answer was still no. So I asked if they would meet this lady and tell her that directly to see if her magic would work on them. Sure enough they all came back from the meeting with a glassy stare and chanting, "We must do what Ms Khan says" over and over.

So I got my funding and every time I went on site she would come and chat. She showed me where she had designed and built a play area for small children and  where they could be seen by their parents from the windows of their flats, she'd had a concrete table tennis table installed next to it, convincing the Olympic people to pay for it, she had plans to rent out the disused underground car park under one block to artists so their presence would put off criminals using them and was getting lighting installed in any dark corners of the estate. She made me laugh when she told me that drunk pub goers occasionally used her drive for a piddle or a dump on their way home.

The last time I saw here i was half way through my scheme and she looked tired and made a quiet comment that she hoped she would be around to see it completed. I heard she had died a month or so later. Then this turned up in Spitalfields Life a while after and I finally learnt her story, totally unexpected, I had her down as a posh lady from an old English landed gentry background, the truth couldn't have been more different.

https://spitalfieldslife.com/2017/06/09/so-long-naseem-khan-obe/

Amazing woman! She didn't look part Indian though?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Amazing woman! She didn't look part Indian though?

No, not at all, nor did she look like a sausage nosher.

Arnold Circus which she is mentioned in helping get restored is the centrepiece of a housing development which took the place of the most deprived and poverty stricken area of London. To help the old locals better their living conditions they moved them all out and flattened a large area. I really mean flattened as well. When I look back through the OS maps for the area a huge section is just white space for a few years. With the rubble from the demolition they built a large mound, planted it up and then put a bandstand on it. They then moved in only new respectable people with good employment records and made them leave if they didn't behave and the old residents were shuffled off to some other slum.

image.png.6c937d2819fd8d347c26fa485cf5a47f.png

image.png.5be9b56a8c4fcbd1e56e6c6568387bd5.png

image.png.5670b931751390d54b55eaa8c1b6260d.png

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

She went to Roedean so she was from posh old money. She wouldn't have been able to get in otherwise. UK Public/private schools still require references from people of standing now, simply having the cash won't get you in. You have to be 'the right sort'

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

She went to Roedean so she was from posh old money. She wouldn't have been able to get in otherwise. UK Public/private schools still require references from people of standing now, simply having the cash won't get you in. You have to be 'the right sort'

My last girlfriend/partner's mother went to Roedean, which during the war was moved to a hotel in Keswick. They still had a school photo with her in it when we visited. Moved back down south after the war.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

Some fascinating photos from that PC, obviously you wouldn't be allowed to use this bog Yen :classic_laugh:

19905248_10156463389017501_52346406534428923_n.webp.33fc44b6e4877482794ce69f3dd29daa.webp

It does look a tad too posh for the likes of scum like me.

  • Haha 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Privacy Policy