Hornet.

The photo above - click on it to see a larger view - shows The King's Arms pub in Bexleyheath Broadway, opposite the large Asda supermarket. The popular pub has been nominated for two national awards; one for the best urban pub. The Kings Arms is also nominated as the Best Pub for Entertainment, alongside The Phoenix Arts Club in Soho. When it comes to specific pub companies, Guy Earl of Warwick in Welling is nominated for Greene King Pub of the Year. The Great British Pub Awards ceremony will take place on September the 19th at Victoria Warehouse in Manchester. One local pub which seems to have been sadly overlooked for a national award this year is the utterly superb Robin Hood & Little John in Lion Road, Bexleyheath. My personal favourite pub anywhere. 

The problems suffered by Morrison's supermarkets continue; the poor performance of the large chain compared to their competitors seems to be getting even worse, to the point where Morrison's are now starting to close their worst performing sites. It was confirmed on Wednesday that the Faversham branch of the supermarket will bring the shutters down for the last time on September 17th; it will then be sold. With just under 500 stores in the UK – with 13 of those superstores in Kent – Morrison's is yet to confirm if any other stores in the county could suffer the same fate. It has been noted that When Sir Ken Morrison retired in 2008, net debt had fallen by more than £200 million in a year to £543 million while profits had soared to £612 million. He said that Morrison's would "continue to prosper as long as it remains true to its founding principles". In February this year the gross debt stood at £7.5 billion. Rumour has it that Morrison, who was knighted in 2000, was once spotted rooting through the bins behind a store to check whether fresh food was being wasted. When the Yorkshire man rolled out new shops, he prided himself on funding them with profit rather than debt. When the private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice won the auction for Morrison's with a bid that was 60% higher than its stock market price, it promised that it had no plans to sell off a significant chunk of its valuable store estate to raise cash. Those promises – which were not legally binding – are starting to look hollow. Retail experts say Morrison's is looking to raise up to £1 billion from asset sales to reduce its debts and fund investment. The announcement of the closure last week of the Faversham store may well be the start of many such sell - offs. Aldi and Lidl grabbed more market share from Morrison's last year. As the German-owned discounters open dozens more stores a year across the UK, the Yorkshire-based retailer lost its spot as the UK’s fourth-largest grocer to Aldi and is expected to be overtaken by Lidl within a year. What do you think? Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Since the release last week of Christopher Nolan’s biopic of Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who led the Manhattan Project team at Los Alamos to create the first three atomic bombs, and his subsequent post - war fall from grace when he was suspected of being a Soviet spy - or at least of holding communist sympathies, there has been much interest and subsequent press coverage of that time in 20th century history directly as a result of the release of the movie. Debates about the morality of creating atomic weapons, and discussions about nuclear proliferation as a result of The Manhattan Project have been high in the public consciousness as a result. There have been questions raised as to how the Soviet Union was to build their own atom bombs so shortly after the USA did. Some atomic secrets were indeed stolen by Soviet spies directly from the Americans at Los Alamos, but the reality was far more prosaic, and far less glamorous. In fact the actual person who leaked most of the allied nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union was a quiet and mild mannered housewife from Bexleyheath. Back in 2014, a large number of documents were released from the Mitrokhin Archive relating to Soviet espionage over the last eighty or so years. The archive has been the property of the Churchill Archive Centre at Cambridge University since they were handed over by MI6 after they had been analysed in the late 1990’s. At over two thousand closely handwritten pages, the Mitrokhin Archive is the largest academic record of Soviet era spying known to exist. It was created by KGB Major Vasili Mitrokhin during his thirty years as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Directorate. When he defected to the United Kingdom in 1992 he brought the archive with him. One of the conditions of Mitrokhin’s defection was that the documents were to only be released into the public domain when they were no longer likely to endanger any operations. This happened some years ago, and much historical detail concerning KGB operations in the West is now open to public study.  Long time readers may recall that I have written about Nursery Avenue in Bexleyheath resident, British communist and covert KGB spy Melita Norwood on a couple of occasions in the past. At one point it was thought that she was not really very important and that MI5 had not had her arrested as they felt that she was not a high risk to security – they had only found out about her spying activities in when the Archive reached their hands, by which time Norwood was an old lady (she died in 2005). Norwood worked as a secretary at the Tube Alloys project; ostensibly this was a group of Anglo – Canadian scientists, engineers and metallurgists carrying on research into materials which could better resist heat and corrosion for use in both defence and civilian  industry. Actually most of this was a cover for what the project was actually dedicated to, which was the creation of Britain’s first atomic bomb, and a few years later with the creation of a British Hydrogen bomb. Contrary to much of received opinion, Britain was not privy to much of the nuclear research the Americans carried out after the end of World War II. The Tube Alloys project actually began in 1942, before the Americans began the much more widely known Manhattan Project. Many Tube Alloys staff did join their American counterparts at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge during the war, and contributed much to the creation of the prototype implosion bomb, The Gadget, followed by Fat Man and Little Boy – the weapons used to destroy Nagasaki and Hiroshima respectively. In the film Oppenheimer, the scientist is accused of being a secret communist - and indeed a number of people who worked on the Manhattan Project did pass atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, but in reality far more damage was done by Melita Norwood, as has now come to light. Once the war had been won, politics took over and the non – US teams were repatriated, and the sharing of atomic information all but ceased under the terms of the McMahon Atomic Energy Act of August 1946. (Ironically the Soviet Union got more British nuclear bomb design and construction information from Tube Alloys via the spying of Melita Norwood, than the Americans did by conventional means. The specific project to create a British nuclear weapon began in 1947 and was code named “HER” – which stood for High Explosive Research. Melita Norwood had access to the safe that contained documents graded as secret and above, and photographed thousands of pages which were handed over to her KGB masters. The Mitrokhin Archive says that Norwood, far from being a minor and not very significant figure in Soviet espionage, was actually the most important and highly regarded female spy in KGB history. She had been secretly awarded The Order of the Red Banner and granted a lifetime pension of £20 a month. It seems to me that the KGB would not have given her this very prestigious award simply for passing them information on rusty warships.  The Order of the Red Banner was the highest award of Soviet Russia, subsequently the Soviet Union, until the Order of Lenin was established in 1930. Recipients were recognised for extraordinary heroism, dedication, and courage demonstrated on the battlefield. The order was also awarded to individuals as well as to military units, cities, ships, political and social organisations, and state enterprises. In essence the award was not given lightly. Despite the contradictory evidence, I find the claims that Norwood stole many of Britain’s nuclear secrets and enabled the Soviets to create their own nuclear weapons to be very credible; it is ironic that this person, acknowledged by the KGB as their finest female spy would live for much of her life in a comfortable if unremarkable semi detached house situated in Nursery Avenue in Bexleyheath. After her story came out and Melita Norwood gained a degree of infamy, my Mother saw her on a local bus on a couple of occasions, and felt sorry for the old lady who was often the target of loudly whispered gossip by fellow travellers. She did what she did for ideological reasons, and was quoted as saying “I did what I did, not to make money, but to help prevent the defeat of a new system which had, at great cost, given ordinary people food and fares which they could afford, a good education and a health service”. It is not known if at the time of her active spying career if she knew of Stalin’s state sponsored programme of mass murder or the millions he consigned to Gulags, or indeed the incredible repression and shortages undergone by all but the political elite. It may well be that she was naive and credulous – as many Europeans were prior to World War II.  Whatever the reason, she went to her grave knowing that communism was dead and the belief system it engendered was thoroughly discredited. Several books have been written on the subject of Melita Norwood and her long career as Russia’s top female spy; the best account is in my opinion “The Spy That Came In From The Co-Op” by Andrew Pierce. He conducted a series of interviews with Norwood in her house in Nursery Avenue, Bexleyheath from the day the spying story publicly broke in the spring of 1999 (he had been travelling to interview her on another subject, but the news story meant that he had a whole more important book to write than that he had intended). Over the course of a few months and many cups of weak and milky Co-Op 99 brand tea – purchased from the Long Lane branch, she told him her complete story, whilst sipping from her Che Guevara mug. Like many traitors, Melita Norwood had a very selective memory, and her politics remained those of the extreme left until her death in 2005. The fact that MI5 and Special Branch used the excuse that she was too old to prosecute is surprising – although the real reason is that she would have probably spilled the beans on other spies that the authorities had also failed to detect for decades. Intelligence historian and writer Nigel West (the pen name of Rupert Allason) has given the opinion that Melita Norwood did more damage to British and also American defence interests than the far more well – known Cambridge five group of KGB spies. Perhaps to protect their own already shaky reputations, the security services thought it better to let sleeping dogs lie.

In recent years, the United Kingdom has faced a growing concern in the form of invasive species. Among these, The Giant Asian Hornet (Vespa Mandarinia) stands out as one of the most feared and dangerous. With its imposing size and venomous sting, this invasive species poses a significant threat to both the delicate balance of local ecosystems and human populations. The giant hornets have already been found in the Channel Islands, and there are well founded fears that the non - native insects may have found their way onto the South coast of the mainland. Bee keepers in Plymouth, Devon have reported an Asian hornet – which can wipe out a colony of bees on its own – has been found in the West Country city. If not stopped, these giant insects can spread throughout the UK - the bee hives located on the Slade Green Marshes could be especially vulnerable. The Giant Asian Hornet is native to East Asia and is infamous for its large size, reaching up to two inches in length. Its queens can grow even larger, sometimes reaching three inches. Sporting a distinct orange and black striped abdomen and a dark thorax, the hornet's intimidating appearance makes it easy to identify. Akin to many other invasive species, the Giant Asian Hornet was unintentionally introduced to other parts of the world through global transportation networks. As they spread across regions, these hornets have shown a remarkable ability to adapt and thrive in various habitats, posing a significant threat to native species. The UK's ecosystems are delicately balanced, and the introduction of a formidable predator like the Giant Asian Hornet can have devastating consequences. These hornets are known to be fierce predators of insects, including honeybees and other pollinators. With their powerful mandibles, they can destroy entire beehives in a matter of hours, causing a sharp decline in pollinator populations. This can lead to reduced crop yields, impacting agriculture and threatening food security. Moreover, the presence of Giant Asian Hornets could disrupt the natural balance between prey and predators, potentially leading to imbalances in local ecosystems. Native insects and invertebrates may face heightened predation pressure, while natural predators may struggle to control the invasive hornet population. Aside from their ecological impact, Giant Asian Hornets pose a significant risk to human health and safety. The venom of these hornets is extremely potent and can cause severe allergic reactions, and in some cases, even fatalities. While these hornets are generally not aggressive towards humans, they will attack if they feel threatened or their nests are disturbed. In Asian countries where these hornets are more common, numerous incidents of attacks have been reported, resulting in fatalities and injuries. If the Giant Asian Hornet population becomes established in the UK, it could put people at risk, especially those with beekeeping or outdoor activities. The UK government, in collaboration with experts and various organisations, is actively taking measures to control the spread of Giant Asian Hornets. Early detection and eradication efforts are crucial in preventing their establishment in the country. Public awareness campaigns are also being conducted to educate people about the identification and reporting of potential sightings. Additionally, partnerships with international agencies and neighboring countries are vital in tackling the problem at its source. By addressing the issue globally, the UK can work towards minimizing the risk of new introductions. The threat posed by Giant Asian Hornets to the UK's environment and human safety is a serious concern. Through heightened vigilance, effective control measures, and public participation, we can minimize the risk of these invasive hornets establishing a foothold in our country. 

Unfortunately, yet another store is closing in Erith Riverside Shopping Centre. The latest retailer to leave the centre is The Works, as you can see from the photograph above - click on it to see a larger view. The shopping centre has already lost - in no particular order - Barclays Bank, Argos, Shoe Zone, Wilkinson's and Mambocino. I would estimate, in terms of square footage available for rent, that Erith Riverside Shopping Centre has lost around fifty percent of its' revenue. Additionally, the shopping centre's dedicated website - https://erith-riverside.co.uk/ - has been closed down and is no longer operational, which does not bode well. I am aware that negotiations are under way with a couple of large retailers to take some of this vacant space, but at present things do not look too optimistic. I sincerely hope to be proved wrong. If you have any information relating to this issue, then please contact me in confidence at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Darryl Chamberlain of The Greenwich Wire website (formerly known as the 853 Blog) is reporting that the government has plans to step in to kick start the development of thousands of homes on the Charlton riverside and Thamesmead – calling the plan “Docklands 2.0”. You can read all about it by clicking here. 

There has been much written in the press over the last week about the 80th birthday of Sir Mick Jagger, and how he and fellow Rolling Stone Keith Richards were born and raised in Dartford. I have written in the past that compared with The Beatles in Liverpool, there is little in Dartford to commemorate the Rolling Stones, apart from The Mick Jagger Arts Centre, and the plaque on platform 2 of Dartford station, which commemorates the meeting of Jagger and Richards, there has been little in the way of a memorial to the two ground breaking musicians. That is about to change. Dartford council is now set to pay tribute to the legendary musicians as it has commissioned bronze statues capturing them together in mid-performance. Leader of the council, Councillor Jeremy Kite said in an interview on Kent Online:- “It is not just about them as important people. It is about sending a message to the people of a small town in Kent that it can produce people who can go and change the world and the message to the young people is that you can do the same. If you have got a talent, keep pushing and go for it and maybe you can do it too. He is a powerful and international figure and it is wonderful to see what his image and achievements can do for the people of Dartford." The photo above - click on it to see a larger version - shows the statues being sculpted in clay earlier this year. The finished versions will be cast in bronze, and unveiled in Dartford town centre in August. 

On a further musical note, Welling born and raised Kate Bush celebrates her 65th birthday today. The end video is from her song "Experiment IV" - it was filmed on location in the Brook Hospital on Shooter's Hill, when the hospital was empty, and before it was partially demolished and rebuilt as luxury apartments. Kate Bush directed the video herself, and said of it:- "This was written as an extra track for the compilation album The Whole Story (1986) and was released as the single. I was excited at the opportunity of directing the video and not having to appear in it other than in a minor role, especially as this song told a story that could be challenging to tell visually. I chose to film it in a very handsome old military hospital that was derelict at the time. It was a huge, labyrinthine hospital with incredibly long corridors, which was one reason for choosing it. Florence Nightingale had been involved in the design of the hospital. Not something she is well known for but she actually had a huge impact on hospital design that was pioneering and changed the way hospitals were designed from then on. The video was an intense project and not a comfortable shoot, as you can imagine - a giant of a building, damp and full of shadows with no lighting or heating but it was like a dream to work with such a talented crew and cast with Dawn French, Hugh Laurie, Peter Vaughn and Richard Vernon in the starring roles. It was a strange and eerie feeling bringing parts of the hospital to life again. Not long after our work there it was converted into luxury apartments. I can imagine that some of those glamorous rooms have uninvited soldiers and nurses dropping by for a cup of tea and a hobnob. We had to create a recording studio for the video, so tape machines and outboard gear were recruited from my recording studio and the mixing console was very kindly lent to us by Abbey Road Studios. It was the desk the Beatles had used - me too, when we’d made the album Never For Ever in Studio Two. It was such a characterful desk that would’ve looked right at home in any vintage aircraft". Comments and feedback as always to hugh.neal@gmail.com.