November 2014
BRIXTONBugle
COMMENT T
he paper you are reading today has been produced by two editors, one working almost full-time for free and the other fitting Brixton news reporting around a tough, full-time job. It’s also been produced by a very brilliant subeditor, an excellent designer, two arts editors, a sports editor, a food editor, and news reporters who all gave up their time – often full days, certainly weekends – because they believe strongly in the importance of local news. With revenue from advertising in The Bugle, raised by our paid sales guru Jenny, we have recently managed to cobble together just enough to give some money to a few people, who do a day or so a week on some of the work it takes to run a newspaper. Even these guys, juggling young families and stressful lives, put in hours and hours extra. Our dream is to be able to give back to all these people even a fraction of what they are worth and in doing so to ace the biggest challenge of all: how do you make a local newspaper, one which aims to be fair, fun and true to the area, a sustainable project? We believe it’s an important thing for Brixton to have because it keeps everyone informed of what’s happening around them, from the awful Ritzy redundancies to the chance for you all to have a say in what the Brixton Rec will be like. In doing so, it unites a lot of different people who live and work here, who all get impassioned when it comes to their hometown. And it provides a forum for promoting brilliant local organisations like the St Matthews Project, the football club for youngsters whose coach Lee shares his five favourite things about Brixton on these pages. The answer is, we need your help along the way. We’ve just launched a crowdfunding campaign, asking for the community’s help to raise £15,000 to pay a new, experienced part-time news editor. That news editor will be able to focus on expanding our coverage of Brixton stories, from keeping the council and dodgy developers to account to bigging up local organisations like the Foodbank. To contribute, simply go to indiegogo. com and enter the search term ‘Brixton Blog’. There are some rewards to thank you – but the biggest one comes from us. THANK YOU!
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n the spirit of supporting each other, can we all just have a hip hooray for the amazing staff at the Ritzy? We thought it was a cruel joke when we heard the news that the Picturehouse plan to sack around 34 staff following their campaign for a London Living Wage, but nope, it’s true. Apparently it’s based on low customer satisfaction, but we can’t say we have ever experienced a bad vibe from Ritzy staff. We’ll do all we can to help them fight the redundancies and if you feel as outraged as we do, then do shout your support from the rooftops. Seems like it’s November, then, not December that’s all about giving.
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Brixton illustrated LA SCALA, BRIXTON HILL By KAYLENE ALDEr
This month’s Brixton building illustration was suggested by Manda Glanfield who tweeted “The old Scala cinema, 101 Brixton Hill”. It’s shown here as it might have been in the 1930s, when it was known as the New Royalty, one of its many aliases. Manda will receive a free print of the artwork. Tweet your clever clogs suggestions for next month’s beautiful Brixton building to @kpictures.
CRESSINGHAM: A resident’s view In a few months, Lambeth council is due to make a decision on the future of Cressingham Gardens, a popular lowrise estate of some 300 homes, bordering Brockwell Park. In Part Three of a series, join resident Jo Parkes on a journey through regeneration, for an insight into a contentious trend which, for better or worse, is changing the lives of thousands of Londoners. I wrote in Part One of this series, about how I became politicised by Lambeth council’s demolition threat: How my instinct to protect our sacred tribe from their planned pillaging, was lit up way back in September 2012. Since then, it’s felt like falling in love. I’ve wanted to be with the campaign all the time. And last Saturday’s ‘@savecressingham’ demonstration was the wedding. Now, the campaign’s in a reflective honeymoon phase and excited about married life. We’re poring over the photos and videos, which help us grasp that it really did happen. We came together as agreed, and somewhat noisily, tied the knot. The parallels are almost endless: The street procession from home, down the aisle of Tulse Hill, to the steps of Lambeth Town
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Hall. Instead of prayers, we chanted to the borough’s God, Lambeth council: ‘Repairs, not demolition!’ We’re remembering the excited emotion of the congregation and their palpable hope for our future. Then there’s the confetti of supportive signatures on our petition. One less typical feature of these nuptials was the visit by three young Brixton police constables, who were checking we had permission to be there. Even more of a surreal departure from the norm, was our memorable day making the lead story on the ITV London news that evening. The growing media attention, and the boost we’ve had from the Lambeth Green Party, will hopefully get the council thinking twice. In case you weren’t in Brixton that day, around 70 of us protesters - aged from eight months to 80 years - assembled mid-morning on the lawn in front of the Rotunda - our community hall on the estate. We marched off into the road waving banners, sounding vuvuzelas, whistles and drums, before arriving at the town hall at around midday. The councillors we were aiming our protest
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at weren’t around, but they will have got the message. Since then, the regeneration team has extended our consultation period from December this year to February 2015. They at least want to seem like they’re giving us time to find the best solution. By coincidence, we chose the same day to march as the Britain Needs a Pay Rise demo in central London, but rather than being an unfortunate clash, the zeitgeist was wellcaptured. People all over the country are sick of being squashed by their elected politicians and some are desperately trying to let their oppressors know. Fortunately, Brixton Police facilitated our action, which they are legally obliged to do - with the appropriate amount of notice. Not so for Tuesday’s Occupy London protest in Parliament Square, where peaceful protesters got arrested. A fence was then being erected to prevent them returning to ‘spoil the grass’. Many a time has Cressingham’s voice felt similarly trivialised. It’s the kind of attitude that causes marriages to break down. For more on the ongoing campaign, catch up with the remainder of the series in the Brixton Blog.
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