Eid

Continuing Themes

This morning I strolled into the footpath leading up to the mosque; skirted the London Road edge of Morden Park; crossed this road into Central Road; bore right into Green Lane; wandered through the Haig Homes estate; travelled back to London Road; and returned to Links Avenue via the park.

Cars were streaming down Links Avenue and into the path by the side of the railway. People were pouring into the mosque in their thousands. Jackie tells me that the view of this sea of people from the eleventh floor of the civic centre was amazing. At the entrance to the worshippers footpath, another young man was standing with a board announcing that the Eid (15th. August) car park was full. A very well organised and friendly group of young men, many using mobile phones, were directing the swarming traffic to the meadow I had seen being mown on Friday. The reason for the mowing was now clear. It was a vast overflow carpark. The marquee I had seen being erected was in fact three. These were filling up fast. As in the mosque itself (see post of 18th. May), there was separate accommodation for men and boys and for women and girls. I thought I’d best not photograph the women’s tent. This is a pity, because they were all wearing splendid attire. Until lunchtime I could hear singing and speeches from our flat.

I spoke to two Community Support officers who were counting the cars coming into the arena. Like me, they were disgusted at the flytipping which continued. The pile I had seen on Friday was still there, and had been supplemented by another huge heap which had been dumped in what seemed to be an attempt to block the route to the temporary additional parking area. We speculated that anyone caught tipping would probably save money by paying the fine incurred, rather than covering the expense of legitimate disposal. One of the officers pointed out that general rubbish was also strewn among the brambles which were providing one the ingredients, being collected by two women, for blackberry and apple pie.

Another two women, in Green Lane, asked me if I knew St. Anne’s school. I had to acknowledge that I didn’t. There are Haig Homes on either side of Green Lane. Haig Place lies alongside a very well kept estate provided by this organisation. These little houses all have beautifully tended gardens. I chatted with an elderly woman who lived in one. She identified a screeching coming from the trees as the call of squirrels. I had not knowingly heard a squirrel before. She said they are at their noisiest at night. She enjoyed the sound. More so than the cranking of magpies.

On 13th. August, I had confessed my own vagueness about Douglas Haig. I had therefore been amused at the response to a question I had put to a small boy on 17th. August. In fact the street sign ‘Haig Place’ was right outside his house. There was a terra cotta plaque on the wall between two semi-detatched houses, one presumably his own. Not even sure myself, I asked him if he knew who the man depicted was. He shrugged and silently indicated that he didn’t know. I’ve since used Google to confirm my supposition. There are Douglas Haig Memorial Homes throughout the UK.

Watch Me curries and Kingfisher completed the day. As usual, this excellent restaurant on Morden Road was also catering for several happy, celebrating, Sri Lankan families, the women in colourful clothing, and the children running about gleefully.

Council Housing

Along the footpath to the mosque this morning a heap of building waste demonstrated that the flytipping (2nd. July) warnings have been ignored. When I returned from my walk, it was still there, and a man was standing at the entrance holding up a board which announced that the Eid (15th. August) carpark was full. There was a queue of hopeful drivers in their cars stretching out into Hillcross Avenue. At the head was a vehicle full of Muslim women. I moved some of the rubble, hoping it wasn’t asbestos, so the driver could park there. A young Muslim man who had just parked alongside it declined to help. After that the other, male, drivers were on their own. Chivalry extends only so far.

Blackberries were ripening, to the delight of foragers. Bindweed was rampant. This menace was the curse of our tiny garden in Stanton Road. I spent many hours as a child chipping away at the sun-hardened soil with a small garden fork, endeavouring to remove the last vestiges of trailing white roots. The Forth bridge wasn’t in it.

Turning right onto London Road, I passed an old milestone. This is a relic of the days of horse-drawn coaches. I walked up to the crossroads and turned left, rounding into Green Lane which runs parallel to it. This wide thoroughfare, with a tree-lined path running down the centre of it, begins in the Upper Morden Conservation Area. It is part of the 1950s St. Helier Estate. This vast post-war housing project contains beautifully built and spaciously laid out properties. I think this was the last period of well-made council housing. Like many other local authority homes, some are now privately owned. It was Margaret Thatcher’s ‘Right to Buy’ policies that made this possible. Undoubtedly this did enable a great number of people who would be unable to do so to become owner-occupiers. It also reduced the amount of housing stock to accommodate those who could not afford to buy. I have mentioned before (28th. June) that I worked in Westminster during the Shirley Porter era. Looking out of my office window, or those of Beauchamp Lodge Settlement, I wondered at the fact that Council owned residential flats were being tarted up and otherwise embellished, for example, with sloping roofs. Some of these, no more than ugly boxes built in the ’60s, could certainly have done with it. Other Council Housing Department properties were being boarded up. Since there were numerous homeless families in the City of Westminster, this was another mystery. What I had not been aware of was the scandalous gerrymandering that was going on. My naive nature had imagined that money was being spent on improving the environment of Council tenants. It was nothing of the kind. Their homes were being prepared for sale to potential Tory voters. Fortunately the worst of this abuse was not implemented until after I had, in 1986, left the Authority’s employment. I would not have been able to stomach the enforced transportation of Westminster’s homeless families to hotel accommodation in other parts of London, to which the borough’s hapless people were being decanted.

Coming to the end of Green Lane, at the Rose Hill roundabout I turned right, eventually reaching Sutton Common Road, where I took another right turn which brought me to Epsom Road. Right again and I was soon able to enter Morden Park and make for home. Along the road from Rose Hill I came across another roadside memorial (see 12th. August) fixed to the common railings.

In Morden Park I discovered a fully equipped Cricket ground in a bucolic setting which I had not noticed before. There is more to this open space than I had imagined; and much to be discovered on one’s own doorstep.

Later, Jackie and I drove to The Firs. We had curries and beer at Eastern Nights.

On this dull and humid morning I had intended to follow Jackie’s suggestion that I take a bus somewhere and walk around there. As I reached Morden bus station, a few drops of rain suggested I should pay attention to the weather forecast, and stay closer to home. I therefore backtracked and made a tour of the derelict school sportsground and Morden Park. I had received an e-mail from Mike Kindred telling me it was even hotter in the village I had just left.

As often, before 10 a.m. when they open, there was a queue outside Merton Citizen’s Advice Bureau. These offices, now found all over London, are charities where people in need may obtain information, and at certain dedicated times, free legal advice. Relying on various sources of funding, their opening hours are restricted. This put me in mind of Charles and Betty Wegg-Prosser. By the time I joined the Beauchamp Lodge Settlement Committee in 1974, Charles was no longer actively involved, although Betty was in the chair, where she remained for some years until I took over the position. She was still a lively and influential member. Settlements are charitable community organisations which either run or house activities, such as Adult Literacy schemes and various projects for young, disabled, or elderly people. There are also facilities for minority groups, often accommodating them until they are established enough to obtain their own premises. As a leading Labour Lawyer, Charles had founded the Paddington Citizen’s Advice Bureau. This was a couple who gave a great deal to the poor and underpriveleged of Paddington.

Passing the concrete slabs, on which I sometimes sit and read in the sunshine, at the opening to the former ILEA sportsground, I noticed three vans parked on the grass. A gang of men were laying something out beside them. Naturally I wandered over to investigate. They were in the process of erecting a marquee which was to house the expected overflow from the mosque which would be celebrating Eid at the weekend. Eid celebrates the end of Ramadin. It is an end to fasting. Although the mosque itself, a tour of which I described on 18th. May, has a great deal of accommodation, it was not expected to cope with the many thousands of people who would be converging on this small suburb at the weekend. Perhaps in preparation for this, the meadows were being mown by two enormous vehicles. This was much more sophisticated machinery than the scythe with which I had romantically cut down our orchard meadow in Lindum House every autumn, taking care not to slaughter that year’s young frogs which frantically leapt out of my way. For a different reason, I also carefully avoided disturbing bees’ nests when I applied the mower to it.

The windows and doors to the derelict building, posted on 29th. June, have now been cemented over, but someone has determinedly broken into two of them and placed an access board against one. The inside is still a complete shambles. The unofficial car parking area has had Flytipping (see 2nd. July) notices attached.

Graffiti artists had remembered the Queen’s Jubilee earlier in the year. The Olympic torch also puts in an appearance.

On a wooded footpath I came across a squirrel burying his nuts. When he had no trouble scampering away, I was reminded of the hoary old jocular definition of a macho man, being one who runs home from his vasectomy. The owner of an interested Alsatian made his dog sit down and watch me walk by. I thanked him. When I arrived back at Links Avenue, the rain was falling in earnest. Probably on Ernest as well, since he was going shopping.

Our repast this evening was a varied salad accompaned by Wickham Celebration rose, 2010