The mystery of the vanishing scrap vans.

The photo above was taken at around half past eleven yesterday morning in the main assembly hall in Trinity School, Erith Road. It was the site of the second consultation event undertaken by the property developers and their public relations consultants in respect of the proposed housing and school development on the old Erith Quarry site, that has lain fallow and unused for at least thirty five years. A mock - up of the proposed layout of the new development can be seen below.

The turnout of local visitors to the event was impressive; when I arrived and took these photos the doors had only just been opened, and the event was due to run until around 4pm. I had detailed discussions with the development consultants, and was given the very strong message "we are in this for the long run". Subsequent to the first consultation event a couple of months ago, the feedback was generally very positive, but some concerns were expressed about the sheer number of houses and flats that were going to be constructed on the site; the number has consequently been reduced from 700 dwellings to 600, and the amount of space dedicated to open land and woodland has been proportionately increased. The circular structure that you can see on the mockup above (click on the photo for a larger view) is the proposed primary school. The green area next to it will be the school's all - weather sports pitch, underneath of which will be the staff and visitors car park - a very clever space saving design.

Most of the visitors were broadly in favour of the development of Erith Quarry, well aware of the jobs and opportunities that the former loam and gravel pit development would bring; one rather senior lady was having none of it though - she was walking round the room trying to get visitors to sign her petition to get the development banned. When I saw it, she had two signatures, one of which I suspect was her own. I suggested to her that she would probably be better off helping the campaign to prevent the Upper Belvedere water splash park from being closed by the council - all to save a measly £20,000. She thought this was an excellent idea, and left with a spring in her step. Sometimes it does not take much. What do you think of the proposed development? Leave a comment below or Email me on hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Since June, the road traffic around Erith and the surrounding towns has changed markedly since then. I was chatting to my builder whilst he carried out some work in the kitchen at Pewty Acres and he commented on how the once very familiar scrap collecting vans had all disappeared, almost overnight. He was entirely correct; before the start of June, the roads of Erith were flooded with “Scrappies” – small vans, usually based on a Ford Transit chassis that were crewed by a wide variety of people – but always men. I have never seen a female scrap van driver. If you walked down Manor Road at around 7am on a weekday morning, you would see whole convoys of these vehicles as they left their depot on the Wallhouse Industrial Estate on the Slade Green Marshes. The biggest local scrap company by far was City Scrap; I would have said that prior to June, around eighty five percent of scrap vehicles in the area were theirs. As you may recall I wrote at the time, Police and Revenue and Customs officials raided the offices and yard of City Scrap after finding strong evidence of a series of frauds and tax evasion, including an insurance fraud worth around £30,000. On top of the list of forty five offences the owners were charged with were making a false statement to obtain insurance, perverting the course of justice, and making a false statement to obtain  a scrap metal licence. I also understand that many of the scrap lorry driver / operators were claiming benefits whilst working, as well as other offences. All in all the closure of City Scrap was a necessity; they were operating well outside of the law. What surprises me in the four months since City Scrap were officially wound up as a company, no other scrap dealer has emerged to occupy the void left by the once dominant, if corrupt firm. Metal recycling is a vital part both of the local economy, and it also has great environmental benefits, so a new company taking over the business makes sense in a number of ways. Before June, if you left a scrap of metal anywhere in Erith it would disappear in moments. I recall that back in 2009 I had a new central heating boiler installed. Part of the process involved flushing the existing radiators of accumulated sludge and treating them with a rust inhibitor; a special pump had to be fitted to the lowest point in the heating circuit – in my case, one of the radiators in the living room. This was carefully removed and taken outside by the heating engineers. Despite the radiator being laid on a tarpaulin and two heating company vans being parked outside, in the space of the two hour flushing period I had a total of seven scrappies trying to take the radiator, even though it was obvious it had only been temporarily removed whilst work was carried out. One even accused me of taking food from his children’s mouths when I caught him trying to steal the radiator. He soon shut up and ran off when I told him that he was being recorded on CCTV! Nowadays it has all changed – a friend had a dead fridge freezer and left it in their front garden for four days before a scrap dealer removed it. The local scrap market seems to have dried up - which is not good news for those wishing to recycle old appliances and the like, and is not good for the environment. I will be further investigating the situation, and will report back in a week or two. 

Has anyone noticed that there are a number of old red double decker buses parked in the car park of the Europa Industrial Estate in Fraser Road. They are not visible from the road, but if you stand on the London bound platform at Erith station, you can clearly see them. I don't know who owns them, or what they are actually doing there, but they have been there for some time. One in particular has been extensively vandalised – the windows have all been smashed and graffiti scrawled all over it. Does anyone know who owns the buses, and exactly what they are doing there? I have heard all sorts of wild theories, such as they are part of a plot by a “Happy Shopper” style sub Bond villain to take over Lower Belvedere and Thamesmead with a fleet of second hand double decker buses. Do you know better? Then let me know.

Several media websites such as Digital Spy have had online discussions in respect of the planned movie spin – off from the popular E4 television show “Misfits”. Since the huge success of the two “Inbetweeners” films, the executives at Channel 4 have been looking for another show to turn into a film, that would hopefully rake in more huge profits.  “Misfits” was chosen as the most likely programme to transfer to the big screen, mainly following the recent spate of Marvel superhero movies that have dominated the box office and on demand streaming for the last few years. I case you were not aware “Misfits” follows the adventures of a group of young offenders on community service who mysteriously get given super powers. They operate in a dystopian world not far removed from that in Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”. “Misfits” was filmed on location in and around the Tavy Bridge area of Thamesmead, and on the old Bexley College campus. Online fan speculation went wild when the plans for the “Misfits” movie were shelved indefinitely – the film is now not going to be made. All sorts of theories were mooted as to why the project had been cancelled, ranging from some of the stars from the TV series not being available, to the script was not good enough. The real reason is far more prosaic – nearly all of the regular locations used in the show have now been demolished – Tavy Bridge has been redeveloped, and the old Bexley college is currently in the process of being knocked down, as you can see from the photo above – click for a larger view. There are no other locations that look more than remotely similar, and the cost of recreating them in CGI would have been prohibitive for what would have been a low budget production. One of the strong points of “Misfits” is the very distinctive production design, typified by the late 1960’s brutalist architecture of Thamesmead that provides the backdrop for the show; this is also its weak point – it is so distinctive that nowhere else can be used as a believable substitute, and recreating it using physical scenery or computer imagery would just cost too much money. Thus the film project has been dropped. Personally I did not care for the show much anyway, but then I was not in the target demographic.

The debate about new Thames river crossings seems to be hotting up both in the local and the regional press. The population of Greater London is set to hit ten million in the next few years, and most of the viable areas for housing development occur in south East London and South Essex, which also happen to be relatively inexpensive areas in which to live when compared with the rest of Greater London. As we have already seen locally, The Erith Park and Erith Quarry developments, as well as a host of smaller building projects such as the Moat Housing Association flats being constructed adjacent to KFC and Morrison’s car park, there is already a great deal of new housing going up. This is only set to increase; historically London increased in population sevenfold between the 19^th and 20^th centuries – and most of this was concentrated in the now wealthy West London, which has been attributed to the large number of bridges spanning the river on the western side of town. The Thames is much narrower in the West, and bridge construction is consequently much more straightforward. The situation in the East is different; when you go past Tower Bridge, the only river crossings are the Rotherhithe Tunnel, the Blackwall Tunnel, the Woolwich ferry and the Dartford QEII bridge and tunnel. The more observant of you will notice that I have not included the “Arabfly Dangleway” – the Emirates sponsored cable car that connects the Royal Docks with the Greenwich Peninsular. The reason for this is that it is not a serious means of mass transit, and it certainly is incapable of moving any cargo. I was searching for opinions on the cable car earlier in the week, when I came across a blog written by the Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire Transport Review (a group whom one would suppose would be particularly amenable to a new form of public transport). Their opinion however was:-“ Many see the Air Line as a vanity project by the London Mayor, with its planned opening by hook or crook for the 2012 London Olympic Games. I didn't follow the story of its inception to completion in enough detail to be able to comment, though the Air Line does seem under-used if yesterday's visit is anything to go by. Yes, it offers another cross-Thames option, but at a price. Even with Travel cards, you're looking at £3.20 one way and both terminals aren't exactly in the throbbing hearts of local communities. To summarise, the Emirates Air Line is OK for a one-off on a tourist's bucket list, but nothing more. This could be its Achilles heel: once you've visited, you don't return. I honestly can't see it becoming a shining example of commercialism through regular commuters. Would I make use of it again? Possibly - if I was with friends who'd not used it before. It's not the easiest attraction to reach for tourists who are sunning themselves in Hyde Park and who spontaneously decide to have a cable car ride, and this is another of its problems”. I think that pretty much sums it up; it goes from nowhere to nowhere, and carries fewer people on a busy day than the Blackwall Tunnel does in five minutes on a quiet one. For me this disqualifies the cable car as a credible means of cross Thames transportation. The proposed new river crossings at Beckton to Gallions Reach and from Rainham to Lower Belvedere are predicted to generate an increase in cross – river communication and trade that would fuel sixty thousand new jobs and around forty five thousand new homes by the year 2030. Public opinion polls broadly support the creation of new cross river links, though of course there are specific reservations; any bridge across the Thames at Gallions Reach would have to be high enough to allow ships to pass underneath, which in itself would cause air navigation worries due to the close proximity to London City Airport – a plane making an aborted landing, or landing due to mechanical problems will find a large road bridge about the last thing they would wish to encounter. In fact, under international air law, it is illegal to build any structure higher than fifteen metres within one kilometre of an airport. On top of all this, there are also plans, which were announced this week by Secretary of State for Transport Andrew Adonis for an additional link, most likely in the form of a tunnel from Greenwich to Newham. Quite where all the money is going to come from for all these cross Thames connections is anyone’s guess. I suppose that they will be privately funded by developers who in return will be able to rake in the subsequent toll fees from the hapless motorist. I get the feeling that the momentum is building up to the point where after years of prevarication and dithering, at least a couple of projects will actually come to fruition. Time will no doubt tell.

The News Shopper have developed a photographic cliché – whenever they feature a person or group who have a dispute or argument with someone, they always photograph the people with their arms folded in front of them. I suppose that it is intended to indicate that the person is fed up, but it has now become tired and predictable. The current story involves a dispute with the proprietor of “The Real China” restaurant in Bexleyheath Broadway. You can read all about it here. I won't debate the pros and cons of the story; it speaks pretty much for itself. What does interest me is that the customers featured actually went to “The Real China” in the first place. I have walked past it on many occasions – it is dark, dingy and looks grubby and somewhat unwelcoming. When I checked the restaurant on “Scores on the Doors” I was not surprised to discover that it had a zero out of five star score for food hygiene – the place should be closed down, as should anywhere with a score of less than three stars out of five, as I have discussed several times in the past. I predict that with all the negative publicity that "The Real China" has suffered, and the highlighting of the absolutely appalling food hygiene rating the place has, it will go bust and be closed for good in a matter of weeks, and quite rightly so. 

Dana Whiffen of Bexley Neighbourhood Watch Association made the following announcement this week:- "Next Wednesday 22nd October 2014 as part of "Operation Big Wing" there is a Community Crime Prevention Day in the Freemantle Hall, Bexley Village, 51-75 Bexley High Street, from 12.30-4pm. With Christmas approaching its a good time to be extra aware of the increase in theft over this period so why not come along to meet St.Mary's Police Team, Neighbourhood Watch Volunteers, Trading Standards and Citizens Advice representatives. There will be free purse bells, anti theft number plate screws, "message in a bottles" as well as offering property marking advice and UV pens. Why not come in for a chat? There will be teas/coffees and cakes available too. Additionally Bexley Police and Neighbourhood Watch will have a stand in Bexleyheath Shopping Mall from 10.00am to 3pm, similar advice and crime prevention items and reading material will also be available, so if you are shopping in Bexleyheath find us for a chat". Thanks Dana - more details are included in the poster above - click on it for a larger and more detailed version. 

You might not realise it, but Erith was home to one of Britain’s best loved comedians – the late Linda Smith was born and raised in Erith, and attended what was then Erith College. She had an entire line in Erith jokes which to be honest were spot on, but ended up being believed by people unfamiliar with the town, and have ended up creating a bad impression. For example, when talking about Erith’s teenagers she said “People knock ASBOs but you have to bear in mind they are the only qualification some of these kids are going to get”. Most famously she also said “Erith isn’t twinned with anywhere, but it does have a mutual suicide pact with Dagenham”. The News Shopper is reporting that a new night of stand-up comedy is soon to begin at Erith Working Men’s club; the first event will be on Friday the 24th October at 8pm. The evening will be hosted by a group called Runaway Comedy and they will be holding bi – monthly comedy nights at the club in the future. I think this is an excellent idea; efforts were made a couple of years ago to set up a similar stand-up comedy night at the Running Horses, adjacent to Erith Riverside Gardens. A few events were organised, and the feedback that I had from someone who visited was very favourable. The nights seemed to fizzle out after a relatively short amount of time – I don't think that they were particularly well publicised, and the audiences were not very big. I reckon that a well-run comedy club held on a regular basis could be just what Erith needs. I am not so sure that the Working Men’s club is the best of venues though – it is too far from the town centre, and not easily accessible by public transport. I can think of at least one venue which would be absolutely ideal for a comedy club that would have long term viability, be easy to reach, have close parking and slap bang in Erith town centre. The Cross Keys Centre would be ideal for such a club – whilst the ground floor former bar area is currently being converted into a restaurant / coffee shop, the upper floors of the building are complete, or almost complete; as I have previously written, the accommodation and the first floor function room have been converted into office spaces, meeting rooms and a multimedia presentation suite. Originally this was intended to be for the sole use of Anglo American management consultants the Aleff Group – who own the building and have paid a fortune to have it sympathetically restored and adapted for business use. They soon realised the level of interest and support from the local community, and that there was a great deal that they could do to be a socially responsible organisation. Now, local independent traders or small businesses can hire a hot desk or meeting room for a couple of hours, or as long as they require at rates far lower than are normally commercially available; there are break out areas, climate controlled air conditioning, a kitchen to make hot or cold drinks, free Wi-Fi and printing capacity, along with 24 hour CCTV security. The building will also be used for meetings by organisations such as Erith Town Forum, Bexley Rotary Club and Bexley Round Table. It is anticipated that local councillors will be able to hold surgeries in the building, and they will generally improve accessibility to local government by members of the public. The first floor presentation suite can be used as a large seminar space, a cinema or a small theatre suitable for music recitations or indeed for stand-up comedy. It will be interesting to see what contribution to local culture and the arts the Cross Keys Centre will make in the future – as I have previously written, I have very high hopes for the enterprise. Perhaps the next Michael McIntyre or Jason Manford will be found at the Cross Keys in a couple of years? Only time will tell. contact me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The ending video is something I found on YouTube; someone has digitised a copy of part of a VHS video tape which was released quite a few years ago, which showed film footage taken in and around Erith, Bexleyheath, Crayford and Welling over the years. Most of the film footage seems to be from the early to mid 1950's, although some sequences may be a little older. take a look and see what you think.

At long last - four out of five.

The photo above shows the progress in the construction of the new Bexley College campus in Walnut Tree Road, Erith. The place is now certainly coming together rapidly; it is due to open to its first students in September. I am hoping to get a sneak preview of the interior in the not too distant future, when I hope to publish a Bexley College Maggot Sandwich special edition. Keep watching this space.

Readers may recall how I have been involved with fighting illegal fly tippers in and around Erith for some time. There have been occasions when I have felt like I was fighting a losing battle, but recently the tide appears to have turned against the illegal rubbish dumpers. The worst site for fly tipping has for years been the council recycling centre at the end of James Watt Way, round the back of Morrison’s. It is small, out of the way and out of view, yet readily accessible by car or tipper van, making it an ideal place for nefarious activities. In the past I have discovered dumped loads of old furniture, bed mattresses, fridge freezers, and most surreally a massive load of batched and bound used men’s underpants and several huge pallets of putrid, rotten bananas. As a result of this, Bexley Council Environmental Crimes Unit installed a CCTV camera on the site, complete with a large warning sign. Predictably the level of fly tipping dropped noticeably. I understand that several prosecutions are planned, though currently I am unable to say more at this point regarding the specifics. This got me thinking. Why do certain individuals fly tip in the first place? I think that there are several factors involved. Firstly I think there is a degree of ignorance – some of the fly tippers do not have English as a first language, and may assume that since there are recycling bins and hoppers, that anything can be deposited there. Of course this precludes those who tip anywhere at any time – there can be no excuse for that. Other tippers may be lazy and not bothered to go to the official council tip in Thames Road, Crayford. I think the biggest reason is down to cost. Commercial operators (basically any person not in a private car) get charged heavily for legal tipping. A single Transit – type van full of waste can be charged over £100 for a single tipping visit. I have spoken to the Council about this. I understand that when illegally tipped waste is cleared up, it is done by a council subcontractor, who charges the council over £300 for the work. Basic arithmetic would dictate that it would be cheaper for the council to allow waste dumping to be carried out by traders for free, rather than to have to clear up the illegally tipped waste at a later stage. I would propose a six month trial period where commercial waste tippers were not charged for using the Crayford dump; in all other ways they would still have to comply with the existing waste disposal rules, and the content of their loads, the company name and vehicle registration number would still be recorded, but no money would change hands. If at the end of the trial, the amount of fly tipped waste had substantially reduced around the borough, then the scheme would be judged a success. I think a pragmatic approach may be worth trialling, as the current system does seem to be failing, and the amount of council tax payers money spent on clearing up after the illegal tippers could be far better spent elsewhere. Don’t think I am opting for a soft approach to criminal activity – I am still strongly of the opinion that catching and prosecuting fly tippers should be a high priority, but a mixture of both carrot and stick, rather than stick alone may deliver better results for both the environment and the council taxpayer.

Now that the light evenings are with us, an annual event takes place around Erith and Slade Green – something you can virtually set your watch to. The appearance of the illegal off – road bikers, who ride on the pavements, or pulling wheelies in the road, on their way to the Slade Green / Crayford Marshes. It seems to be a rite of passage that a certain subset of the local yobs come out pasty faced and blinking from their bedrooms and X-Boxes once the ambient air temperature rises above 20 degrees Celsius; they then dust down their unlicensed, uninsured and illegal two stroke trail bikes and proceed to annoy and endanger the local population with their activities. If this in itself was not so bad, the noise can be insufferable. Invariably the scrotes will remove part if not all of the exhaust system in the ill –founded belief that this will give their weedy bike engines a few extra horsepower. What actually happens is that the bike ends up sounding like an angry wasp trapped in a biscuit tin, causing sonic grief to those unfortunate to be in the vicinity. The police regularly chase these riders, and every so often a prosecution and subsequent judicial bike crushing will be the result.  The trouble then calms down for a while, before the whole sorry cycle begins again. The worst offenders really don’t care about bikes being crushed, as they have stolen them in the first place. I caught three under aged and scrawny chavs on a shared moped in Manor Road not too long ago; I managed to write down the number plate and report it to the police, only to subsequently discover that the bike had a false number plate on it. The whole problem waxes and wanes, but never really goes away. The only respite is when it rains – the scumbags hate wet weather, and I guess that return to their dank bedrooms and their video games consoles.

You may recall that back in January 2013 I reported on the Pizza Hut delivery outlet in Northumberland Heath that was closed by health inspectors due to the unbelievably filthy conditions that they found both in the kitchen and throughout the building. The situation was deemed so bad that the story made it into the national papers and really reflected badly on both the area, and the Pizza Hut brand in general.  The place was forced to close for a deep clean and partial rebuild. It then re – opened. I thought little more on the matter until back this January I received an anonymous Email from a reader which read: “I work in this "disgusting" pizza hut you mentioned and let me just say, you have mentioned the fact that "Apparently the place has received a deep clean and its’ hygiene standards are improving". The shop was recently given a new shop front to improve the customer perception of the shop but this was as far as improvements actually went. The general conditions within the shop is probably in my opinion worse than ever. In November 2011 most Pizza Hut delivery units were franchised off to private companies and this is when the trouble started. The company that runs this and many other stores in the surrounding area presented managers with such unreachable targets that they soon all left. This then left it open for the company to get in their own managers. Just before Christmas 2013 conditions within the shop were so bad I was having to work in pools of water leaking from various fridges walls and ceilings. Toilet facilities at one point were completely non-existent, the toilet was in fact broken and laying on its side exposing the sewage pipe where rats were seen and making the whole inside of the shop smell of raw sewage. Dates on ingredients are changed to extend the shelf life rather than discarding then like they should be. Things like the can opener, vegetable slicer and oven are no cleaner really now than they ever were. Finally, Just to say that if any of your readers think that eating here may make you sick, believe me, even I won't eat from here”. I reported this information to the local authorities, and also to the News Shopper and to be honest, I thought little more about it. Whilst carrying out my periodic checks on the “Scores on the Doors” website to see what hygiene grades local food outlets were being awarded, I noticed something which indicated that things have now finally changed much for the better. Earlier this week, the Scores on the Doors rating has been updated once more. I am more than happy to announce that the Pizza Hut Delivery outlet in Bexley Road, Northumberland Heath now has a revised rating of four our of five stars, so something must at long last be going right. Whether it has been pressure from Bexley Environmental Health, or a change in franchise ownership I cannot at this point determine. Either way, it is a piece of good news for the consumer at long last. Personally I would still not use the place, but that is my individual choice. Any opinions / reviews on the place would be more than welcome. If the place really has pulled its boots up, then the good news needs to be shared. 

According to a leaked document that I have been privy to, Erith and Thamesmead MP Teresa Pearce has been putting her boot in this week. She’s been giving very short shrift to Councillor Don Massey over the council’s decision to not take part in the Open House project -  as mentioned last week, every year, for one day only, each London borough opens up some buildings not normally open to the public to visit for free; it also drops entrance charges to buildings for which there would normally be an entrance fee. This year, on top of abolishing the Danson Festival, Bexley Council have decided to withdraw from the scheme, citing the need to save money. The irony is that the Open House scheme normally encourages around five thousand visitors from outside of the borough to visit, and although they don’t have to pay an entrance fee for places such as Danson House or Hall Place, they invariably spend money on food and memorabilia whilst they are visiting. The visits also have the less tangible benefit of raising the profile of the borough, which generally does not have much of a presence in the consciousness of people not resident in the area. The costs of operating the scheme are minimal, and it strikes me  that Don Massey and his cohorts are fully aware of this; I get the impression that they are not trying to save money – they are trying to be seen to be saving money, which is a far different thing. Please feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Over the last couple of years, it seemed that wherever you went in South East London or North Kent, about every fifth vehicle on the road would be an open backed lorry from City Scrap. So ubiquitous was their fleet that I can recall on many occasions seeing four or five of their vans in convoy; they also habitually congregated around the Londis corner shop and convenience store in Manor Road, before returning to their depot on the Darent Industrial Park on the Slade Green Marshes. I noticed a couple of weeks ago that their vehicles were suddenly absent from our highways, and although I had heard vague rumours, I had nothing substantiated or verified to report. Now the News Shopper has published the story as to how a lengthy Police investigation into City Scrap has led to the arrest of the owners, the removal of their scrap trading licence and the forced permanent closure of the company. It turns out that the claims on the City Scrap website that their operators and drivers were fully CRB checked and with UK driving licences were only one of a mass of lies the company told.  It transpires that City Scrap were allegedly engaged in a large insurance scam involving around £30,000, along with another forty five other offences including:- perverting the course of justice, making a false statement to obtain insurance, and making a false statement to obtain a scrap metal licence. An illegal CS tear gas canister was also discovered during the Police raid, which was part of Operation Ferrous – a project to target, prosecute and jail bent scrap dealers and metal thieves, which I have detailed in the on the Maggot Sandwich back in December 2011. Bexley has been one of the London boroughs worst hit by metal theft and criminal scrap dealing, and it has been the heart of the London – wide Operation Ferrous. Metal theft costs the UK economy an estimated £700 million a year – enough to build and run two major teaching hospitals. The British Transport Police say that theft of power and signalling cables is second only to terrorist threat as their priority. Bexley is very hard hit by metal crime as the borough has a higher concentration of scrap yards than anywhere else in Greater London – which it has to be said are not all crooked, but substantial number have sailed rather closer to the legal wind than would be desirable. It would appear that although trade prices for non ferrous scrap (copper / brass / zinc / gunmetal / bronze) have dropped somewhat in the last year – mainly due to a drop in demand from China, prices are still pretty high, and there are enough crooked dealers prepared to break the laws concerning the ban on paying cash for scrap and keeping proper records to keep the illicit trade in pretty rude health. Hopefully the taking down of the largest scrap dealer in the region for multiple counts of illegal activity will send a message to others doing the same, though I am not holding my breath.

You may recall that recently I have written about the heavy engineering company Fraser and Chalmers that were based in Erith for many years. They made mining equipment, pumps, boilers and ore separation machines, many of which were exported to the gold and diamond mines in South Africa. The photo above was taken back in 1907, and shows the main foundry and many of the men that worked there - click on it for a larger version. Notice the lack of safety equipment, and the huge amount of manpower available - by World War 1 there were 4,000 employees. It was hot, backbreaking work, and the average labourer worked a 54 hour week - including Saturday mornings. This is one of the reasons that football matches traditionally start at 3pm; historically this was to allow the men to get home, have a wash and some lunch, before heading out to the game. 

Over the last few years there has been a resurgence of interest in real ale. When I first joined CAMRA, the popular image of a real ale drinker was a bearded bloke in a woolly jumper and open toed sandals, complete with darned socks. He would be listening to folk music and writing down each beer that he quaffed in his “ticker book”. Whilst there are a small minority of such individuals who usually only come out in public at Beer Festivals, the vast majority of real ale enthusiasts look just like everyone else. Indeed, if you take a stroll around somewhere like Hoxton, real ale is now seen to be cool and trendy, and being drunk by the Hipsters. Did you know that there are now more breweries in the United Kingdom than at any time it its history? Many small breweries are taking advantage of the resurgent interest in the product (ale is the oldest manufactured product known – it predates bread by several centuries). As I mentioned last week, a new brewery is opening in Erith in September, though preparations are already under way.  The Bexley Brewery will be the latest in a line of breweries in the borough. One reader with a very good memory corrected a statement I made last week, when I said that the last brewery to operate in the London Borough of Bexley was Reffells in Bexley Village. I was wrong, and to be honest I should have known better. The last brewery in the borough was the Fenman Brewery which was located at the rear of the Jolly Fenman pub in Blackfen Road, Sidcup. The micro brewery brewed beers for sale in the pub, and at events in the local area; it operated between 1984 and 1988, and I visited it on a number of occasions. I recall that there was a glass window at the back of the pub which looked into the brewery area so that you could see the brewery in action. Regular reader Martin reminded me of this when he wrote” The Fenman brewery at the Jolly Fenman Blackfen road was in operation from 1984 to 1988, up to 4 beers were brewed on the premises for sale in the pub. The beers also found their way into local south east London beer festival held at the old Greenwich town hall. From memory the Jolly Fenman was at that time part of Clifton Inns, itself part of Grand met. It produced 4 regular beers, Blackfen Bitter, Heath Special, Fenman Fortune and Dynamite which was sometimes branded as Exploder. There were probably others but that's what I remember at the moment, it was 30 years ago! It seems the idea was that all of the Clifton Inns would have their own brewery installed on the premises, rather like the Firkin pubs of David Bruce but plusher, this didn't happen only around 5 did. Probably the most well know of these was the Orange Brewery in Pimlico SW1, they were still brewing around 2001. There was also the Greyhound brewery in Streatham. My memory fails me on the others in the chain and there is very little on the internet about the chain. The plant at the Jolly Fenman was a 5 barrel one and after it stopped brewing was relocated to another Clifton inn, the Duke of Norfolk, Notting Hill around 1989.” Interesting recollections from Martin, who knows, we may even have visited the pub at the same time without knowing; I have to admit that had he not jogged my memory, I would have completely overlooked the Fenman Brewery. Hopefully the forthcoming Bexley Brewery will last far longer than the four years the Fenman was around. More on this soon.

Have you heard of a new condition called Nomophobia? It is defined as “ the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. The term, an abbreviation for "no-mobile-phone phobia", was coined during a 2010 study by the UK Post Office who commissioned YouGov, a UK-based research organization to look at anxieties suffered by mobile phone users. The study found that nearly 53% of mobile phone users in Britain tend to be anxious when they "lose their mobile phone, run out of battery or credit, or have no network coverage". The study found that about 58% of men and 47% of women suffer from the phobia, and an additional 9% feel stressed when their mobile phones are off. The study sampled 2,163 people. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed cited keeping in touch with friends or family as the main reason that they got anxious when they could not use their mobile phones. The study compared stress levels induced by the average case of nomophobia to be on-par with those of "wedding day jitters" and trips to the dentists.  Ten percent of those questioned said they needed to be contactable at all times because of work. It is, however, arguable that the word 'phobia' is misused and that in the majority of cases it is only a normal anxiety. More than one in two nomophobes never switch off their mobile phones. The study and subsequent coverage of the phobia resulted in two editorial columns authored by those who minimize their mobile phone use or choose not to own one at all, treating the condition with light undertones of or outright disbelief and amusement”. The sad fact is that many people feel that they cannot live a meaningful and fulfilling life without a mobile phone. When one thinks it is only really in the last twenty years or so that mobile phone has become widespread, and only the last ten or so years when they have become ubiquitous. How did people get on before then? Absolutely fine. In fact if anything people were better organised and disciplined – there was no phoning to say that you were running late for a meeting or a dinner date, you had to make it or face looking bad. Nowadays people can call ahead and warn their friends and colleagues, which to my mind rather encourages a less rigorous approach to timekeeping. On top of all this are the serious privacy issues. A lot of smart phone owners think that as long as they have GPS logging switched off, they cannot be traced; nothing could be further from the truth I am afraid. If you watch the short explanatory video below, all will become clear. Please leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.