Clapton Pond Blog

Memory of the Mothers' Hospital

One August morning in 1984, my first child was born in a maternity hospital on Lower Clapton Road which stood on the site of what is now called Mothers' Square. The Mothers' Hospital was opened by the Salvation Army in 1913, replacing the Ivy House Maternity Hospital on Mare Street and serving the same purpose, that being to cater for unmarried pregnant women and girls whom most other hospitals spurned.

BREAKING NEWS: Millfields school elects first pupil prime minister after knife-edge election campaign

Pupils of Millfields community school have elected their first prime minister at the end of a week of fervent campaigning and passionate debate. Eleven year-old Cem Owens led his Millfields Mania party to a narrow but decisive victory after votes were cast on Thursday afternoon. Quoted in the Millfields Daily newspaper, produced by student reporters each day, the newly sworn-in PM said he felt "honoured and grateful" and pledged to run an inclusive premiership in which "everyone's voice is heard."

Half our households contain only one adult

I recently learned that around a third of local households rent privately, a substantially higher percentage than in London as a whole. The same 2011 ward profile data also reveal that over a third of local households - by which I mean those in the Leabridge and Hackney Downs wards are one person households and 15% are lone parents households. Add those together and just about 50% of local households contain only one adult.

A police station story

Lots has happened to the now former police station in Lower Clapton Road since last January when I asked if anybody cared that it might close (they didn't). Firstly, it did close as a result of Boris Johnson's review of the Metropolitan Police Service's considerable property estate. Then it was sold for a hefty £7.6m to the government's Education Funding Agency and allocated to an Islamic free school, the Olive primary based for now in Cazenove Road.

Millfields school Christmas fundraising song out now!

The Clapton primary school dearest to my family's heart has released a Christmas song to raise money for doing up its playground and supporting UNICEF's Sing for Syria campaign. Entitled C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S it can be purchased from iTunes and Amazon and - hey, look! - there a lovely video too.

 

As well as buying the song you can donate in large quantitites here. And if you're feeling extra generous you can spend £2 buying my e-novel Roy's Summer of Sport, which has a scene set in Clapton. I'll be giving all the takings from sales of the book between today and Christmas Day to the Millfields fund.

Clapton snow scene

Some lovely young people enjoying themselves. Best viewed from indoors.

Millfields School Year 6 Kids Do Journalism

I recently spent an enjoyable hour with a Year 6 class at Millfields school talking about what I do for a living. I told them about the very first articles I had published and was paid for way back in 1981, when things like blogs had yet to be invented and dinosaurs roamed the Earth. We then had an interesting discussion about how journalism works and why it sometimes - well, quite often actually - doesn't tell the whole truth and tends to exaggerate things (there's been an example of exaggeration in this article already. A big tick to any reader who's spotted it).

Kingsmead Eyes

The Kingsmead estate and its neighbouring primary school attracted an unfair share of bad publicity for a time some years ago. But Claptonite Gideon Mendel, a photographer of great renown, has conveyed a much more truthful image of these places: many images, in fact. He worked with 28 of the school's children over a six month period in which they photographed their own homes and community, family and friends, lives and times. He's also completed his own parallel project in the school and on the estate, which includes individually snapping every one of the school's pupils. The results of Gideon's and the children's endeavours, Kingsmead Eyes, can be appreciated at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green until 7 February next year. They include this beautiful video. Kingsmead has played a special part in my Hackney life as my eldest child, now aged 25, was a pupil at the school when I lived in Homerton before I become a Pond-dweller.    

Joys of Hallowe'en

That nice lady at the top end of Thistlewaite Road topped even her own very high standards this year with this fantastic Hallowe'en creation. The house was constructed from the packaging of someone's new bed, by the way. Genius. And it attracted small ghouls by the horde.

I love it that our neighbourhood embraces Hallowe'en with such enthusiasm. As well as being a lot of fun for the kids there's something valuable and satisfying about families occupying the darkened autumn streets. True, a did feel a cold shiver each time I bumped into a pint-sized and resolutely silent Grim Reaper, but in general the evening bore out the adage that a place feels - and probably is - safer when there are plenty of friendly people out and about.

I'm also grateful to Clapton's Hallowe'en - perhaps particularly the Millfields end of Mildenhall Road, where there seemed to be hideous jack 'o lanterns everywhere - for massively reducing my household's outgoings on confectionary for the foreseeable future.

See what I mean? 

Home Alone

Suddenly, I am without company. Down with school!