Clapton Pond Blog

New Year Resolve

I'm getting my hyperlocal 2012 pledge in early: I hereby promise to update this blog more efficiently than I have during 2011, even though the coming London elections and Olympics mean that my day job is likely to devour even more of my time than usual. You read it here first. It may turn out to be true. On the other hand...          

A Clapton Pond Christmas

Among the many neglected lessons of history is that Christmas traditions change all the time. I grew up with the one that involves families gathered cheerfully around enormous meals and blazing hearths. It goes back to the days of Charles Dickens, yet if you read his 1836 sketch A Christmas Dinnner (written under his pen name of Boz) many traditional Christmassy things are either mentioned only in passing or completely absent. The sketch pre-dates the popularity of Christmas cards, crackers and trees, while in those days seasonal gifts were usually exchanged on New Year's Day. Father Christmas in his modern form wasn't invented until 1931. He's a transatlantic import, by the way.

Hackney Poppies & More

Sunday morning scene in the St John-at-Hackney church yard: foreground remembrance poppies include wreaths from the Association of Jewish ex-Servicemen and Women; to the rear, Hackney Homemade stalls include clothing, jewellery, spit-roasted pork sandwiches and Muslim school girls selling teddy bears as part of school charity project. The plastic ice rink is a seasonal extra. So were the two men selling Christmas trees (obscured by the memorial), whose merchandise was propped against the church wall. I bought one - price, £50. Two of the kids helped me carry it home.