Red Sonya.

Local customers of the Belvedere branch of Lloyds Bank have started a petition to try and save the well used and much loved branch, which is slated to close for good on the 28th of May, as part of a programme of cutbacks and branch closures enacted by the giant banking group. Objections have come from elderly people who don't use online banking, and a number of local businesses who have commercial accounts at the branch in Nuxley Road. It is rumoured that the site of the bank has been, or is about to be sold off to a property developer for a series of flats to be built, which would not at all surprise me. The lady behind the online campaign said in a recent online interview that:- "It would be awful to lose the small number of independent shops we have if they are unable to bank locally. The village and surrounding area of Belvedere is also home to many elderly residents. Some of whom are unable to travel on public transport to Bexleyheath or Woolwich. For those who can, it’s not very safe for them to carry large quantities of cash around with them if they are elderly and vulnerable. I understand that a lot of banking is done online. However, many people feel safer and more in control of their money when having the guidance of actual humans. It’s good we are evolving with technology and moving forward with the times, but sometimes certain circumstances mean people need a local bank". The News Shopper contacted Lloyds for comment about the branch closure, and a spokesperson gave the following corporate line:- "We have made the difficult decision to close Belvedere on 28th May 2020 due to the changing ways customers choose to bank with us, which means the branch is being used less often. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause; customers can continue to bank locally by visiting the nearby Post Office, which is less than half a mile from the branch. The nearest alternative branch is Bexleyheath". The Lloyd's spokesperson is obviously not familiar with Belvedere - the post office is actually around 100 metres from the Lloyd's bank branch, not half a mile as they stated. What do you think? Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. You can sign the online petition by clicking here. 

In a move which will have been a surprise to many readers, fellow local Blogger Malcolm Knight has taken the decision to revise and remodel his Blog "Bexley is Bonkers". The long established, influential and popular site has been retired in its present form. Instead it has been relaunched in a far more slimline and responsive version. Malcolm writes:- "Readers who looked at the website yesterday and found it gone deserve an explanation of what is going on, or at least a partial one. Bonkers is ten years old and has grown far too big. Even though redundant pages have been progressively weeded out there are close to 40,000 files and very nearly 100,000 hyperlinks, It may be a conservative estimate because the Menu is a separate entity and the file counter excludes pages linked only from the Menu. On top of that there are 30,000 images and that is after deleting a great chunk of them last year and again recently. The site is hand coded, no Wordpress or anything like that so the housekeeping tools are primitive. I can no longer keep on top of it and it is time to start again. I might also add that with increasing age and having lost my original team of helpers I frequently lack the energy and enthusiasm to follow up leads and attend meetings. (Nearly 77 and generally flu ridden in case you are wondering.) For the future Bonkers probably will not die completely but I expect Council meetings will more often be reported from the Webcast - when it works properly - rather than driving to the Civic Offices and very occasionally running the gauntlet of people I would rather not. In the streets, not in the Civic Centre I hasten to add. I also genuinely feel that Bexley Council has improved immeasurably, there are things I don’t like but it must be five years since a Councillor or Senior Officer became involved in something which was criminal and caused the police to investigate and refer cases to the CPS. Readers like scandal and while that was going on I could count on more than 10,000 unique visits per month to the site from Bexley people and far far more individual repeat visits. With nothing very special going on those numbers are well down, 5,000 unique visits would be a good score in 2020. One wonders whether it is worth the effort but I do get a huge amount of encouragement to continue from the loyal few. One thing that surprises me is that when I indulge in wildly off topic subjects and perhaps rant about something or other the number of visitors goes up so I may do more of that sort of thing when Bexley news is thin on the ground. You will have probably noticed that the Menu is now much smaller than before. Every page sources its Menu from the same file so they are all identical except for the Contact form pages which are compiled from a commercial package which is not fully compatible with the main Menu system. It is a pain to construct separately and it will not be updated in line with the gradually expanding Main menu until the latter becomes stable. The banner icons which allowed quick access to blogs, Today, Month and the rather obscure Any Day will be restored as soon as possible but until then the Menu is the main navigation point As you should notice - well you are here! - the 2020 blogs are restored but any references back to previous years will fail because those earlier blogs are not on line at all, not even in some hidden form. If I ever find the time the backward references will gradually be restored. but there are more than 5,000 to trawl through. Council meeting reports will probably be the priority but many older blogs may never be seen again. Finally because Bonkers was never designed to be a blog the main entry pages do not directly access the blog pages. The tail wagged the dog of the original plan and it has always annoyed me. I am not sure how yet but the plan is that www.bexley-is-bonkers.co.uk will display the latest blog page immediately. For a long time www.bexley-is-bonkers.com always has but almost no one uses it and it costs quite a lot of money to maintain! So there it is. Thank you for your patience and I hope the occasional visit to Bonkers will continue to be rewarding". I sincerely hope that Malcolm continues with his insightful, pithy and witty Blog postings - he has established himself as a vital local commentator. What do you think? Please feel free to contact me by Emailing me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Regular readers will be aware that I have posted a number of articles over the years about former Bexleyheath resident and decorated Soviet spy Melita Norwood. Her story is now pretty well known, despite the utterly awful recent fictionalised film starring Dame Judi Dench called "Red Joan" which deservedly sank without trace at the box office. 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 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. What has until very recently been very much less known is the identity and story of her GRU (Soviet military intelligence, as opposed to the KGB) handler, the story of which has only very recently come to light. Ursula Kuczynski (15 May 1907 – 7 July 2000) also known as Ruth Werner, Ursula Beurton and Ursula Hamburger, was a German Communist activist who worked for the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s as a spy, most famously as the handler of nuclear scientist Klaus Fuchs and Melita Norwood. She moved to East Germany in 1950 when Fuchs was unmasked, and published a series of books related to her spy work, including her bestselling autobiography, Sonya's Report. Her spying career, and her later writing career make for interesting reading. Ursula Maria Kuczynski was born in Schöneberg, Prussia, German Empire, the second of the six recorded children born to the distinguished economist and demographer Robert René Kuczynski and his wife Berta Gradenwitz/Kuczynski, who was a painter. Her family was Jewish. The children were academically gifted, and the household was prosperous. Her elder brother, Jürgen, would later become a distinguished historian-economist who had a controversial relationship of his own with the espionage community. In 1926/27 she attended a librarianship academy while working at a lending library. She then took a job at Ullstein Verlag, a large Berlin publishing house. However, she lost this job in 1928 after participating in a May-Day Demonstration and/or on account of her Communist Party membership. Between December 1928 and August 1929 she worked in a New York book shop before returning to Berlin where she married her first husband, Rudolf Hamburger, who was an architect and fellow member of the Communist Party. It was also at this time that she set up the Marxist Workers' Library in Berlin which she headed up between August 1929 and June 1930. With her husband she relocated, in July 1930, to Shanghai where a frenetic construction boom afforded ample opportunities for Hamburger's architectural work. She would remain based in China till 1935. It was here that the couple's son, the Shakespeare scholar Maik Hamburger, was born in February 1931. After they had been in Shanghai for a little more than four months she was introduced by the US journalist Agnes Smedley to another German expatriate, Richard Sorge, outwardly a journalist, who is better remembered as "Ramsai" an active agent of the Soviet Intelligence Directorate (GRU). Sources are vague as to whether the Hamburgers were already working for the GRU before they left Germany for China, but in any case it was after the meeting with Sorge that between 1930 and 1935 "Sonja" (the cover name by which Kuczynski was known in The Service - means dormouse in Russian) operated a Russian spy ring under Sorge's direction. In Autumn 1934 she had to send her son Michael to live with her husband's parents (now relocated from Germany to Czechoslovakia) when she was sent to Moscow where she undertook a seven-month training session before returning to China. There had been a concern that if baby Michael had accompanied her to Moscow he might inadvertently have blown her cover later by blurting out words in Russian. It was also during this period that she mastered various practical aspects of spy-craft. This included radio operator skills that were much prized in the world of espionage: she learned to build and operate a radio receiver, becoming an exceptionally fluent and accurate user of Morse code, although her "fist" (the distinctive technique a morse coder uses on a Morse key, which is almost unique between operators) was very unusual - she learned Morse using the Cyrillic alphabet, which made her transmissions somewhat distinctive to listeners. Between March and December 1934 she was based in Shenyang in Manchuria which had been under Japanese military occupation since 1931. Here she met the GRU's chief agent who was working under the name "Ernst". Sonja and Ernst had a romance which would result in the birth of her daughter Janina in April 1936. Her husband Rudolf Hamburger generously acknowledged "Nina" as though she were his own daughter. The GRU were nevertheless concerned that the affair with Ernst might lead to the unmasking of both agents, and she was recalled with Rudolf to Moscow in August 1935. In September 1935 they were both posted to Poland where, apart from at least one more lengthy visit to Moscow, they would remain till Autumn 1938. In the meantime it would later transpire that in 1937 the Soviets awarded her the Order of the Red Banner for her espionage work in China. Without ever wearing a uniform, she now held the rank of colonel in the Soviet military. She divorced later that same year, and early in 1940, while still in Switzerland, married her second husband. Len Beurton, like her, was working for the Soviet GRU, and like Kuczynski he came with an unusually wide range of names. He also came with a British passport, and by marrying him Agent Sonya automatically acquired a British passport too. Sent by the GRU she and her new husband now relocated from Switzerland to England where she would remain for the rest of the 1940s, and where her second son was born in the late summer of 1943. They had settled in north Oxford, but soon moved on to the first of a succession of nearby villages, settling initially in Glympton, and then in Kidlington. In May 1945 the Beurtons relocated again, to a larger house in the north Oxfordshire village of Great Rollright where they remained till 1949 or 1950, becoming so integrated into the village community that both her parents, who were frequent visitors in Oxfordshire even after the war ended, and who both died in 1947, are buried in the Great Rollright churchyard. In each Oxfordshire property in which she lived Agent Sonya installed a radio receiver and transmitter (which during the war would have been considered illegal had it come to the attention of the authorities). Living in Oxfordshire placed them conveniently close to Ursula's parents who had emigrated to London after 1933, and were then living with friends in Oxford because of the air raids in London. The Beurtons' Oxfordshire village homes were also close to the UK's Atomic Research Centre at Harwell, and to Blenheim Palace, where a large part of the British intelligence service had been relocated at the start of the war. In Oxfordshire, together with Erich Henschke, she worked on infiltrating German Communist exiles into the US Intelligence Agency. By Autumn 1944 she and Henschke had succeeded in penetrating UK activities of the US Intelligence Service (OSS). The Americans were at this time preparing an effort called "Operation Hammer" for parachuting UK-based German exiles into Germany. Ursula Beurton was able to ensure that a substantial number of the parachuted OSS agents would be reliable communists, able and willing to make inside intelligence from the "Third Reich" available not merely to the US military in Washington, but also to Moscow. From 1943 she also worked as a courier for the USSR's "Atomic spies", Klaus Fuchs and Melita Norwood. Agent Sonya thus hastened the development of the Soviet atomic bomb, successfully tested in 1949. In addition to the (retrospectively) high-profile spies Fuchs and Norwood, Sonya was the GRU handler for (among others) an officer of the British Royal Air Force and a British specialist in submarine radar. She was also able to pass to her Soviet employers information from her brother, her father, and other exiled Germans in England. It was, indeed, her brother Jürgen Kuczynski, an internationally respected economist, who originally recruited Klaus Fuchs to spy for the Soviets at the end of 1942. Many years later Ruth Werner (as she would by that time have become known) recalled that she was twice visited by MI5 representatives in 1947, and asked about her links with Soviet intelligence, which Werner refused to discuss. Werner's communist sympathies were no secret, but it seems that British suspicions were insufficiently supported by evidence to justify her arrest. Her visitors were unaware of or unconcerned by her periodic, and apparently casual, meetings with Fuchs in Banbury or on country cycle rides. At that time the British intelligence services seem to have been disinclined to follow up their concerns. Two years later detonation of the first Soviet atomic bomb refocused priorities within MI5, however. Klaus Fuchs was arrested towards the end of 1949; in January 1950 he was put on trial and confessed that he was a spy. The day before his trial started, fearing that she was about to be unmasked, Agent Sonya left England. In March 1950, after two decades away from the city of her birth, she turned up back in Berlin. Meanwhile, Klaus Fuchs finally identified her as his Soviet contact in November 1950. The espionage-related aspects of her friendship with Melita Norwood only began to emerge several decades later. Between 1958 and 1988, she produced a succession of books under the name by which she subsequently came to be known, Ruth Werner. Most were story books for children or suitably expurgated memoirs of her time in espionage. Her autobiography appeared in East Germany under the title "Sonjas Rapport" (Sonya's Report) and became a bestseller. There was no mention of Klaus Fuchs who was still alive in 1976, and, presumably for the same reason, no mention of Melita Norwood. An English language version appeared in 1991 and a Chinese translation in 1999. An uncensored German language version came out only in 2006, although many questions were still left unanswered. She died in 2000. more information has become available concerning at least some of her espionage achievements, and appreciation of Ruth Werner's exceptional abilities has grown. In the opinion of one historian who has studied her career, she was "one of the top spies ever produced by the Soviet Union and her penetration of Britain's secrets and MI5 possibly went far deeper than was thought at the time she was operational." An unidentified GRU chief is reported to have observed during the war, "If we had five Sonyas in England, the war would end sooner." Werner herself could be more reticent about her contribution: "I was simply working as a messenger". What is incontrovertible is that she engaged in an exceptionally high risk trade on behalf of Stalin's Intelligence machine without being shot by the enemy or sent to the Gulag by her own side. Her husband and the father of her first son, Rudolf Hamburger, who also worked for Soviet intelligence, fell foul of the Soviet regime in 1943 and was deported to the Gulag in the east of the Soviet Union. He was released in 1952 but remained officially "banned" and was sent to Ukraine, only being permitted to return to Germany in 1955. This type of experience was far from unusual among Soviet spies. Sandór Radó with whom she had worked so closely in the hills above Geneva also spent long years as a guest of the Russian Gulag. Richard Sorge, who probably recruited her to work for Moscow in the first place, was caught and hanged by the Japanese. Werner herself, as far as her story has come into the public domain, suffered nothing more harrowing than a couple of pointed but ultimately inconclusive meetings with British Intelligence agents in 1947, and was able to escape to the safe haven of East Germany before her espionage activities became the subject of any trial or other retributive process. Simple survival represented a considerable achievement under the circumstances of her two decades in espionage, and seem to justify the media epithets she attracted to the effect that she was "Stalin's best spy".

I found out this week that the inventor of the barcode recently died. George Laurer was born in New York City in 1925. He attended a technical school to learn how to repair radios and televisions, but his instructor persuaded him to reach higher. Laurer joined IBM where he developed what is officially known as the Universal Product Code - better known as the barcode. The Universal Product Code is now a packaging mainstay on everything from cereal boxes and produce to electronics and aeroplane tickets, but it might not have worked without IBM engineer George Laurer. Laurer, who died in December aged 94 in North Carolina, had been given an assignment by his manager: Write a proposal for supermarket executives explaining how IBM would take a previously invented bar code pattern, in the shape of a bull's-eye, and make it work in supermarkets across the USA. Instead, Laurer had created something else — the bull's-eye was gone and in its place was a linear bar code. Laurer had deemed the bull's-eye design unworkable. The circular code, inspired by Morse code and patented by N. Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver in 1952, was too small, and it would smear when run through the poor-quality printing presses used for most food labels at the time. "My nature and my training would not allow me to support something I didn't believe in," Laurer said in a 2010 interview. "I simply went against my manager's instruction and set out to design a better system." In a rented space in Raleigh, Laurer and a team of IBM colleagues refined and tested the design. Woodland, who created that first bull's-eye bar code and whom Laurer called the father of the supermarket scanning system, came on board to help. When it came time to present to the team of supermarket executives, Laurer said his boss "made it clear that if I was wrong or I could not sell the idea to the brass, it would end my career, not his. My arguments must have been persuasive". Over his lifetime, Laurer received more than two dozen patents. But he never got rich from his most famous breakthrough. That's because IBM didn't patent the UPC and mostly gave it away to sell scanning equipment. Laurer didn't get recognition for his innovation until decades later. Even once stores widely adopted the barcode, Craig Laurer said, his father didn't think it would have the longevity it ultimately has. "He expected it to be supplanted with some other technology within a decade or so," he said. "Instead, it grew beyond the grocery industry into all retail and then worldwide." Today, the barcodes Laurer designed are scanned more than 6 billion times a day, according to the nonprofit organisation GS1, which manages the codes."My father always said he would go to the supermarket, and just stand there when they checked him out, knowing that it was his invention," Craig Laurer said. "But he'd stand there in awe and say, 'This just can't work this well.' It amazed even him." What do you think? Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Now for the weekly local safety and security updates from Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association. Firstly the report from Barnehurst ward:- "Another week with very little crime to report. No burglaries and only two reports of vehicle crime. Front and rear number plates were taken from a vehicle in Frinsted Road on the morning of Friday 31st January. A victim had his vehicle keyed in Downbank Avenue overnight of Monday 3rd February. Sainsbury's in Erith Road has had two reports of shoplifting over the last week despite two people arrested outside the store in the last couple of weeks. Barnehurst are continuing to roll out Smart Water in Holmesdale Grove. The next community contact session will be held at Barnehurst Golf Course on Wednesday 19th February at 11am". Belvedere ward - no report this week. Bexleyheath ward:- "Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association have been invited to assist Yorkshire building Society (112 Broadway) in their Fraud Action Day on Wednesday the 26th of Feb between 10am and 2pm, come along, get some fraud prevention advice and join us for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Sadly we have had a lot of Catalytic Convertors Stolen this week from ASDA and The Mall car parks see below crime prevention information from The Mets website Catalytic converter theft. The precious metal in catalytic converters has led to an increase in their theft. To keep yours safe, ask your car dealer if they can give you any advice on locks or guards that are approved by the vehicle manufacturer. Alternatively, try to make sure your vehicle is parked in a garage overnight, or if you have a commercial vehicle park it in a secure compound. If this isn't possible, park in an area that's well-lit and overlooked and try to park so that the convertor can't be easily reached by potential thieves. Vehicles that sit high above the road are particularly vulnerable. You should also register your converter and mark it with a forensic marker, which will make it harder for thieves to dispose of". Crayford ward:- "An unknown amount of money was snatched from a till in Stadium Way on Thursday 30th January at 19.29 by two males. A male was arrested after racially abusing a passenger on a bus and then throwing an item at glass causing it to smash at Stadium Way on Friday 31st January at 22.10. There have been reports of wing mirrors being smashed off vehicles in Mill Place in the last week. On Tuesday 4th February at 20.53 a black Mercedes was deliberately set on fire to at the end of Lower Station Road. The team have been busy around the ward and stopped and searched several people. There will be a community contact session (it's totally informal) at Crayford Library on Friday 14th February between 10.00-11.00, please come along for a chat if you can".  Erith ward:- "We have had our first ward panel meeting of 2020. Many thanks to all that attended and The Exchange in Erith for letting us their facilities. Areas chosen for the team to concentrate on for the next few months are Erith Park and Erith Town Centre. The team have been working on a few warrants this week and are getting some good results. Crimes of note from this last week: Theft from MV (Motor Vehicle) Sunday 02/02/2020 Rutland Gate, Theft of Motor Vehicle Tuesday 04/02/2020 Thwaite Close". Northumberland Heath ward:-"Theft of number plates at Walsingham Walk, Cavendish Avenue Theft from motor vehicle on Brook Street. Work tools had been stolen from the vehicle. Attempted burglary on Avenue Road were the suspect has tried to gain entry into two addresses .The suspect has then tried to gain entry into the victims vehicle. Still ongoing investigation as the victim has CCTV evidence. Burglary on Swanton Road. There has been an eviction within the Northumberland Heath Ward. This is regarding a large amount of anti – social behaviour reports from the local community and the police. We have been receiving good feedback from local residents regarding the CCTV camera that has been placed at Northumberland Heath Recreation Ground / Sussex Road". Slade Green and Northend ward:- "Only one crime of note this week. 6 males were arrested in the early hours of Thursday 30/01 down by Erith Yacht Club after the gate was forced open and a stolen car was found nearby. Enquiries are ongoing into various offences and our thanks to response team officers and the police helicopter for their work on our ward in the early hours. The team assisted Hyde Housing on Weds 05/02 in securing an empty property on the Frobisher Road estate after reports of possible squatters. There was nobody inside during our time there. PC James and PCSO Mark were involved in a reported incident of threats made in Orchard House on Tuesday 04/02. No further incidents have occurred and thanks to PCSO Adam from Erith SNT for assisting with the door to door enquiries. Our next CCS in on Saturday 15/02 from 1030 at the new estate on the old Linpac site in Slade Green Road which will be doubling up as a Smart Water giveaway event". Thamesmead East ward:- "Burglary Manordeane Road owners returned home from holiday to find garden shed broken into with a set of golf clubs and golf shoes removed by suspect/s unknown. Overton Road East Tuesday 4/2/20 between 11am – 6pm Victim returned home to find front door has dents and marks around the door handle, with letter box bent out of shape no entry gained by suspect/s. Motor Vehicle Crime. Kale Road Monday 3/2/20 1am – 8am victim has had both front and rear number plates removed by suspect/s unknown. Good News - Following information by residents of drugs/ASB whilst proactively patrolling Aspen Green. Drug use is being disrupted as persons seen running away. Patrolling of the area will be ongoing by the team". West Heath ward - From Neighbourhood Watch Member - in Bostall Park Avenue. "On 5th February I received an email which appears to come from TV Licencing. THIS IS A SCAM! It looks very authentic but beware. I had 1 last year claiming my direct debit had been rejected by my bank and asked me to confirm my bank details. Having changed banks a few months before I could easily have fallen for it, but I never respond to any emails, texts or calls like this without checking them out. I phoned TV licencing and was told my licence is still valid and they don't even have my email address. The one today is much the same but says my licence expires today; No doubt to panic me into responding. My licence still has several months to run and TV licensing still don't have my email address so definitely a scam". From Police SNT Team - PCSO Dee Reid:- "Excellent news this week no burglaries have been reported to us. On Monday February 3rd at just after 4am, two males were seen trying car doors in Canberra Road he first male was described as being in his late twenties, F600. The second male was described as being quite small and younger than the other male. The next drop in police surgeries will be held on Thursday February 13th at 4pm and Saturday February 22nd at 1pm. These sessions will be held at the Bostall Library, King Harolds Way".

The end video this week is a visitors impression of the local area. It is interesting to see how an outsider sees what locals live with on a daily basis.

The chimney.

The photos above - click on any one for a larger view, were taken by me on Friday, just as the Christ Church Erith annual Christmas Tree Festival got under way. The event, which features eighty individually decorated and lit Christmas trees is held every year; it raises money for the church, and also for Greenwich and Bexley Community Hospice. Several thousand visitors attend the event, which has become a cornerstone in the local social calendar. I was there on both Friday and Saturday in my capacity as a committee member of the Friends of Christ Church Erith. I was holding a donation bucket and handing out event programmes to the constant stream of visitors. Not just local people came to view the Christmas trees - a couple who had heard about the event on social media told me that they had come all of the way from Hounslow, and another woman said she had come from just outside of Southend! The high winds experienced on both Friday and Saturday did present some challenges; especially to the handful of trees in the West lobby - some got blown over several times, but did not seem to be worse for the wear after being uprighted. On the Saturday of the festival the Bexleyheath Rock Choir performed to a packed house. Tonight is the annual Christmas Carol concert, which is also always a standing room only event. If you are intending visiting the carol service, I highly recommend that you get to Christ Church by 6pm at the latest, if you want to get a seat. The carol concert is exceedingly popular. 

Over the last two editions of the Maggot Sandwich, I have outlined how Ring smart doorbells are a really bad idea, and have a very low level of security; last week Ring owner and local software developer Miles wrote a piece confirming my own observations; now another company who make smart door locks has come under scrutiny, when it turns out their own supposedly groundbreaking product is subject to very straightforward security exploits. On Wednesday, Finnish security house F-Secure revealed a vulnerability in the KeyWe Smart Lock that could let a sticky-fingered miscreant easily bypass it. To add insult to injury, the device's firmware cannot be upgraded either locally or remotely. This means the only way to conclusively remediate this problem is to remove the smart locks from your door and replace them with a standard mechanical lock. The KeyWe Smart Lock is primarily used in private dwellings, and retails for circa £155 on Amazon. It allows users to unlock their doors through a traditional metal key, via a mobile app, or with Amazon Alexa. Its Achilles' heel is what F-Secure describes as "improperly designed communications protocols". These allowed the firm to intercept the secret passphrase as it transmitted from the smartphone to the lock, using just a cheap wireless sniffer and Wireshark - a common free and open source program for intercepting and analysing computer network traffic. The KeyWe Smart Lock uses AES-128 encryption to communicate with the mobile app. However, the communication channel uses only two factors to generate that encrypted channel: a common key and a separate key calculation process. Both of these are trivial to overcome. The KeyWe Smart Lock uses BlueTooth Low Energy, which is based on the concept of advertisements. These contain information about device capabilities, the device name, and the device [MAC] address. It is from this address the common key is generated. Security analysts at F-Secure also figured out how to isolate and replicate the key-calculation process from the mobile application, rendering the second factor redundant. With the KeyWe's encryption rendered null and void, an attacker would merely have to identify a property using the lock, then wait for someone to come and unlock the door. They would then be able to intercept the passcode in transit and use it to break into the property. Smart devices are inherently insecure, and often the first vector a hacker will use when attacking a location, as the devices tend to have rudimentary security, and are connected to the location's data network, making them an ideal portal into your network, and thus all of your information. You have been warned. Comments to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Some time ago I featured a short article on The Priory Club on the corner of Woolwich Road and Picardy Road in Upper Belvedere, directly opposite the site of the former Belvedere Police Station. Tony from The Priory Club has written the following piece about the establishment; he writes:- "The Priory Club occupies one of the few outwardly untouched Victorian Villas in Belvedere (See picture). The Club, previously known as the Conservative Club occupied the building in 1912, buying the site from Flaxman Spurrell who in his day was a well-known archaeologist and photographer. (see Wikipedia). The Priory, possibly the oldest club in Bexley originally was exclusively for “Gentlemen only” ladies only admitted on special occasions and New Years Eve. About thirty years back a concession was made, and ladies attended as guests; but on Saturday evening only. In recent years the ethos changed, and they were permitted to become members, which led two years ago to a female becoming a committee member; Now the committee has both Lady Chair and Secretary. During the recent economic recession, The Priory like many clubs went through a period of decline as membership fell back, but in the last year things have picked up as numbers increase, now joint membership with a partner is offered at a discounted fee. Singers and guest speakers regularly entertain members and quiz nights are ever popular. The well- stocked bar offers a range of wines, spirits and ales at reasonable prices. Arguably the club has three of the best snooker tables in the borough and snooker is one of the major facilities available. A development programme is being enacted where funds raised will be ploughed back into improving the décor and facilities for members. Further information can be found on the priory Club website by clicking here".



For many locals, the Littlebrook Power Station chimney will have been a familiar landmark on the horizon. Early this morning it came down in an explosive demolition. I stood in my front garden waiting for it to come down, but nothing. I came home from shopping a little earlier, and it has now gone from the horizon. No explosion heard. I gather that several videos are available on social media, and that the News Shopper have featured the story - click here for the details. A video of the demolition can be seen above. Did you witness the demolition?

Earlier this year a film was released to what turned out to be very little fanfare or publicity. About the only real notice anyone gave it was from the advertising posters that adorned local double decker buses at the time. The film in question was called Red Joan, and bearing in mind it starred Dame Judi Dench, and was directed by Sir Trevor Nunn, it pretty much sank without a trace. The film made a little over $10.5 million worldwide, barely recovering its production costs. The strap line for the film read thus:- "Joan Stanley is a widow living out a quiet retirement in the suburbs when, shockingly, the British Secret Service places her under arrest. The charge: providing classified scientific information - including details on the building of the atomic bomb - to the Soviet government for decades. As the interrogation gets underway, Joan relives the dramatic events that shaped her life and her beliefs". Does this sound vaguely familiar? It is, because Red Joan was a rather badly fictionalised and tediously dull version of the true story of former Bexleyheath resident, and infamous Soviet spy Melita Norwood. Back in August of 2016, I wrote that much of the evidence in respect of her giving the Russians details of the British atom bomb project was contradictory and unclear. Subsequent research I have carried out now lends a stronger argument that she did indeed betray British atomic secrets, and this was the reason that she was awarded the Order of the Red Banner – the Soviet approximate equivalent to the British George Medal. Melita 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 thermonuclear weapon. 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 Fat Man and Little Boy – the weapons used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. 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 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. After then Prime Minister Clement Attlee's government decided that Britain required the atomic bomb to maintain its position in world politics. In the words of Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, "That won't do at all ... we've got to have this ... I don't mind for myself, but I don't want any other Foreign Secretary of this country to be talked to or at by a Secretary of State in the United States as I have just had in my discussions with Mr Byrnes. We've got to have this thing over here whatever it costs ... We've got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it." Initially the British atom bomb project was housed as Fort Halstead, near Sevenoaks in Kent, and also at the Royal Arsenal site in Woolwich (just imagine if there had been a serious accident – we might be calling Woolwich the South East London crater now). Later the entire production facility was relocated to Aldermaston, where it continues to this day. Britain’s early nuclear weapons were more than a little crude and shambolic; they lacked basic safety and security features, and potentially could go off on their own if the conditions were right. The main early post war bomb was called the Violet Club; it was a large implosion type un-boosted fission weapon that used a very large amount of Uranium 235 (which was less expensive and hard to enrich than the more efficient and powerful Plutonium 239 that the Americans and Russians used). Because of the very large weight – over 70 kilos of fissile material were used, the bomb was actually greater than critical mass (the amount of weapons grade fissile material needed to create a nuclear explosion) and could theoretically go off with very little provocation. The safety features on the weapon would have been laughable had the subject not been so serious. The arming switch of the bomb was secured with a bicycle padlock and an Allen key. The hollow sphere of Uranium 235 that made up the warhead was filled up with 133,000 steel ball bearings, so that if the weapon did have its’ conventional explosive trigger accidentally go off, the sphere could not be crushed and go supercritical, causing a massive nuclear explosion. The ball bearings had to be removed before the weapon was ready to use. The trouble was, during routine maintenance, the bombs needed to be rotated to access various panels (including those that contained the bombs’ internal power supplies – a couple of six volt lead / acid motorbike batteries – I told you these bombs were built on the cheap). There are several documented occasions when the rubber bung holding the ball bearings in place fell out when the bomb was turned upside down, and all the ball bearings fell out over the floor. This left a very live and unpredictable weapon that could have gone off spontaneously. Now you see why I only half jokingly referred to the South East London crater. Melita Norwood was not exactly secretive about her communist beliefs either to her employers or her friends and neighbours. The fact that she spied so extensively and so long for the KGB might lead one to wonder if other people knew her secret, and sympathised with her cause. 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 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. After the treachery 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. Much of the shock surrounding Norwood's exposure was due to the fact that she seemed so ordinary. Her neighbours in Bexleyheath knew she was a life-long Communist who still took The Morning Star - she would buy 32 copies of each issue and hand them out to friends - but she never appeared other than a mildly harmless eccentric, the only evidence of radicalism being the CND posters in her window. She remained until the end a true believer in the myth of the Soviet peasant worker state that had first inspired her treachery. She hated all reforms of the Soviet Union's genocidal dictatorship. Norwood remained convinced that Communism could work and that capitalism was ultimately doomed to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. she was a quite unique and dedicated traitor. 

You may recall that last week I wrote about my own philosophy / policy on Christmas present wrapping, and how I employ reusable gift bags rather than using single use gift wrap which in nearly all instances cannot be recycled. I also don't send Christmas cards, as these too are absolutely terrible for the environment. Coincidentally the results of a detailed survey have just been published into issues which people have with packaging and wrapping in general. It makes for interesting reading. The report reads:- "A study of 2,000 UK adults found they spend 19 minutes a week trying to get into tricky packaging which is secured with too much tape, cable ties or even items which are screwed into place. A sixth of Brits will spend more than half an hour of Christmas day trying to free their gifts of their annoying containers. Vacuum-packed plastic wrap and stuck jars are also among the encasements many find themselves struggling to open. But a sixth have even broken scissors or knives from being unable to get into difficult packaging, while as many as two-fifths have hurt themselves in their bid to unwrap something. The study also found taped boxes, toys screwed into plastic, ring pulls and medicine bottles cause frequent annoyances for Brits. As a result, 84 per cent feel frustrated when unable to break into packaging, with one in three getting riled up when stuck opening a product or packet. A fifth will even feel defeated by the containers they can’t get into. These annoyances are caused by several challenging factors, with three in 10 complaining too much tape was used which made it hard to get into a packet. A fifth of those polled get annoyed because they needed a screwdriver to free a product from its packaging, and a third have grown frustrated simply because it took too long to get something from its container. Nearly a quarter have also ended up damaging or breaking the product itself. This has led to one in four having an argument due to struggles to get into a product, with nearly two-thirds having a fallout with their partners. A further three in 10 have bickered with their children, according to the research. The same number have even been put off specific brands because of the frustrations they’ve experienced with the packaging encasing the products they’ve bought. It also emerged businesses could be missing out on £1.5billion, as a fifth of adults have avoided ordering a particular product online over concerns about being able to open it. More than two-fifths would be more likely to buy again from a brand which had packaging that was easy to get into, with the average Brit finding issues with one in every six products. Nearly half have had to ask for help after failed attempts to relieve a product of its packaging confinement, giving up after just eight minutes of struggle. This has left one in 10 feeling embarrassed and an equal percentage getting fed up, with a fifth frustrated after turning to others for assistance". What do you think? Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

One of my regular sources of local information, who prefers to remain nameless alerted me earlier this week to a development that I had thought abandoned, but it turns out the project is still going ahead. The image above shows the elevations and floor plan for the building located at 28-40 Pier Road Erith. This is the building that currently has the discount supermarket Farm Foods on the ground floor, along with the adjacent Police office. The upper floor - which years ago used to be the home of a nightclub, is to be repurposed as an African church and function centre. If this sounds somewhat familiar to the existing P2 Events Centre a little further along Pier Road, then it is. I find it strange that another church group are planning on duplicating an existing facility that is less than one hundred metres away - and as I have covered in the past, the P2 Events Centre has had a brief, and very troubled history. The beleaguered owners of the P2 Events Centre and the former children's nursery in Electricity House located at 33A Bexley Road, Erith have put both spaces up for rent. As I recently wrote, the temporary planning permission for the two areas of the building has been withdrawn by Bexley Council. The P2 Events Centre is on offer, details of which can be seen by clicking here. The proposed rent for this shabby space is a staggering amount for what was formerly the Erith Snooker Centre - an incredible £95,000 a year - that is £7,916 a month. They will never get anything like this amount, especially as the future of the entire Electricity House is in some doubt, with the individual leases of the occupiers being progressively bought out by Bexley Council. This does make one wonder if the developers of 28-40 Pier Road are flogging a dead horse. It is always good to learn from the mistakes of others; something the current evidence does not seem to support. The organisation who have successfully won planning permission to redevelop the former nightclub space in 28-40 Pier Road are called The Household Of Faith Ministry, who currently meet in the Erith Leisure Centre. 

Now for the weekly local safety and security updates from Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association. The update is somewhat shorter than normal this week, due to several ward reports not having been filed for various reasons. Firstly the update from Barnehurst ward:- "Good news for Barnehurst residents there have been no burglaries on the ward since the 15/11/2019. We have suffered a theft of a Jet Ski. This was taken from a trailer in Eversley Avenue. The Incident was captured on camera and shows two males at 03.06pm on Tuesday 10th December 2019 at the location removing the Jet Ski from the trailer. Please continue to ensure doors are double locked and your vehicles are left safe and secure". Belvedere ward:- "We have visited Court Lodge in Erith Road to speak to residents in relation to crime prevention and home security in the run up to Christmas. We were able to supply residents with various items and literature in relation to several topics. PC Holmes spoke to the residents about Smartwater, and there are several residents that we are hoping to supply this to in the coming days. As previously mentioned – Smartwater is now more widely available for the ward, and if anyone is interested please contact the team.There was a burglary in Milton Road on Thursday 5th December in which entry was gained via the rear door of the property (forcibly). Small items of jewellery were taken. The house is currently under renovation meaning there were minimal personal items within. There was also a burglary in Elmbourne Drive over the last weekend. Entry was gained via the rear of the property – the occupants of the property are currently away from their home but we will be speaking to them upon their return. There have been several instances of graffiti throughout the ward, which have been removed by Bexley Council. Should anyone see any of these, please report them to the team". Bexleyheath ward:- "4/12/19 overnight Theft From motor Vehicle Heathfield Road Glass from two wing mirrors stolen off of van 5/12/19 1730 – 6/12/19 1200 Theft From Motor Vehicle whilst parked at Goals Bexleyheath Wallet stolen whilst vehicle left parked up unlocked. 7/12/19 1615 – 1700 Asda Bexleyheath Purse stolen from handbag after withdrawing cash from cash machine located at Asda 8/12/19 0020 – 0050 Nyne Bar Bexleyheath Theft of Handbag whilst left on seat in nightclub 8/12/19 1130 – 1300 Purse and Phone Stolen from handbag whilst shopping at Bexleyheath Broadway 9/12/19 1200 – 1300 Purse Stolen from handbag near The Fragrance Shop, Bexleyheath Mall. Please ensure that doors and windows to properties are locked and secured with keys (lift the handle and turn the key in the lock) where applicable – revisit home security and lighting now the dark lights are coming. Please be careful with purse/wallets whilst out shopping, make sure they are secured inside your bags with a zip type handbag. If there is anything you wish for us to be aware of in your area please do email or phone". Crayford ward - no report received this week. Erith ward:- "No burglaries in Erith this week -Have a crime-free Christmas. We're working hard over Christmas to keep you and your family safe, but there are steps you can take to help us. When you're out shopping • Stay alert and be aware of what's going on around you, especially in busy shops and crowded streets where thieves and pickpockets may well be operating • Keep valuables in inside pockets of clothing or bags. Keep a close watch on them, and try not to keep them all in one place • Only carry the cash and cards that you need. Always shield the PIN pad when entering your PIN • Be careful where you park your car, especially if you will be returning to it after dark. If parking in a multi-storey car park, choose a well-lit space as close to the exit as possible and away from pillars. Reverse into position. Visit www.parkmark.co.uk for details of approved car parks • Avoid going back to your car to leave your shopping part-way through your trip. If you have to keep presents in the car, make sure they are out of view in the boot, the car is locked, and keep the receipts with you • Deter pickpockets and muggers. Don't overburden yourself with bags/packages. Be extra careful with purses and wallets. Always carry a purse close to your body and not dangling by the straps. Put a wallet in an inside coat or front trouser pocket, likewise with your phone and keys • Try and avoid taking young children into busy shopping areas. If it is unavoidable make sure they know what to do if they lose you e.g. tell the nearest counter assistant that they are lost and never leave a shop without you. Agree a meeting point with older children, in case you get separated • Never leave your bag unattended on your trolley whilst shopping and don't leave it in your vehicle when returning your trolley • Don't get loaded down with too many bags. Try to keep one hand free • Keep car doors locked whilst driving in built-up areas, especially if you've got bags or presents in the car". Northumberland Heath ward - no report received this week. Slade Green and Northend ward:- "No Burglaries to report this week, two vehicles were broken into and property taken over night on Saturday 7th or 8th December. Both vehicles were on the Frobisher Road estate. Items taken were a lap top and a phone. Please do not leave any belongings in your vehicles when unattended. Even if it is only for a minute and even if they are hidden in the boot etc. PCSO Mark read the 6th Lesson at the St Augustines Carols by Candlelight service last Sunday which was very well attended. This coming weekend from Friday 13th until Sunday 15th December is the Erith Christmas Tree Festival at ChristChurch Erith. We will be attending at various times with our colleagues from Erith SNT, culminating in the carol service at 6.30pm on Sunday evening.  Our next Community Contact Session is on Tuesday 17/12/2019 at the St Augustines Welcome café from 1pm. Please come along and say hello, there is a surprise Santa expected". Thamesmead East ward - no report received this week. West Heath ward:- "Two burglaries across the ward over the last week. On Wednesday December 4th between the hours of 6.10pm – 8.05pm the rear doors to a property in Bedonwell Road were forced, the alarm ripped from the wall and an untidy search was conducted within the property. It is believed the address was targeted for family gold but at this stage of the enquiry it is not known if any items were stolen. Residential burglary in Elmstead Crescent on Thursday December 5th between 3pm – 6pm. The middle part of the UPVC door was removed in order to gain entry. The suspect removed the bulb from the security light before searching several upstairs rooms and stealing cash and three CCTV cameras. No vehicle crimes have been reported to us this week which is good news. The team are continuing to focus on high visibility patrols across the ward to detect and deter crime in the lead up to Christmas".

The historic end video this week comes courtesy of Pathe News, and coverage of the granting of the charter for Bexley back in 1937. It is fascinating to see just how many local people turned up for the event. Please feel free to send observations and comments to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The Nursery.

The photo above shows what used to be one of the offices inside the old Carnegie Library in Walnut Tree Road, Erith. Currently the office space is being used as a giant greenhouse / plant nursery for seedlings. The large windows on two sides of the space allow large amounts of sunlight into the room, making for an excellent growing area for small plants. When the seedlings are larger and more robust, they will be planted in the garden to the rear of the old library building, adjacent to The Bookstore Cafe. Indeed most of the seedlings are vegetables and herbs that once fully grown and harvested, will be used in the meals cooked in the cafe kitchen by head chef Marina Power and her staff, and served to customers. Plans are afoot to eventually have both chickens and at least one beehive in the garden - free range organic eggs and fresh local honey will be added to The Bookstore Cafe menu in due course. If you would like to see more of the former library building, which is now operated by not for profit group The Exchange, you can sign up here to join one of the regular, free behind the scenes tours of the building which are run every Saturday afternoon at 3pm by myself. The need to book is to regulate numbers; there is no charge for the tour. You can also see other activities taking place in the former library by clicking here. The Carnegie Library is really coming to life with a great many community events already taking place - with more still to come. There are some vacancies at The Exchange - both in volunteer and in paid roles. You can see the volunteering opportunities by clicking here. You can see the paid roles by clicking here. 

Now for part two of the three part essay on the state of the local train services by former rail worker and now landlord of The Kentish Belle micro pub, Nick Hair. Nick continues:- "When private companies order trains, much like when airlines order planes, they are buying not just the actual train but also the ‘slot’ in the production line. One train could become ready in, say, March 2020 for testing and training but then the next two might be earmarked for a totally different franchise so the second train for South Eastern might be stuck until August 2020 and so on. In short, a continued postponement of the South Eastern franchise is enough to allow other franchises across the country (and based on recent developments, other countries and their railways) to ‘steal’ construction slots and therefore distend the time taken to get a new fleet ‘online’ for the passengers to enjoy. With this in mind, we at the Lewisham and Bexleyheath Community Rail Partnership feel that the Government must, at the very least, determine the rolling stock strategy for the local Metro network and therefore ‘buy’ the production slots for these trains. If they do not, it could take until April 2020 for a new franchise to be installed and then, with about a 2-year lead time, procure trains. Realistically, we don’t have the time and trains are being crush-loaded further daily as more and more houses are built. Pensions. This is important: the BBC actually led on the relevant day this week that Stagecoach had miraculously been barred from all franchises in Britain as they refused to accept the Government’s ludicrous demands that new companies ‘plug’ the gap in pensions that currently total a despicable £7.5 Billion on a national basis (split then into companies / regions respectively). Stagecoach had submitted vastly more conservative bids, it is understood, than others that were aggressively pitching to take on new franchises; and given that the South Eastern area alone has thus far experienced 3 iterations of privatised / public company since privatisation in 1996 to today (that’s Connex South Eastern, a private firm; Southeastern, a Government subsidiary due to the failure of Connex and South Eastern, the current incumbent as a subsidiary of Govia), it is genuinely unreasonable to feel that the new franchisee should have to stump up all of the money to cover a deficit that could have existed since British Rail. Indeed, our view is that if a failure of the national, then privatised, then national and then privatised railway (again) in pensions has created the relevant share of the total £7.5Billion national gap in pensions, then it is the Government that must step in and ‘pay up’ and then simply ensure new private companies bother to regularly moderate the gap between theory and reality in pensions. Stagecoach’s exit from the modern privatised railway scene is bad for the railway: it simply removes yet more options from the competitive tender. Are we heading for a summer of discontent? Well, our understanding from the ASLEF Drivers’ Union is that the pay gap between South Eastern and other companies locally has been caused by South Eastern being unable to negotiate any more than an inflation pay rise annually due to not having many years left on their franchise. Indeed, as mere ‘tenants’ on a repeating short-term basis, they seem to have allowed such a significant pay lag that many drivers have gone elsewhere! Whilst we don’t wish to get political about train driver pay and whether or not they deserve their salaries, it is fair to say that a train driver on an urban railway is a train driver on an urban railway: in short, if a London Overground driver is worth almost £61,000 then so is a South Eastern driver; not the £53,000 they currently get. The £8,000 difference is, lets be honest, a decent incentive to cut your loyalties and move to a company that not only gives you more but also gives your family an Oyster card and such instead of mere leisure travel to somewhere like Hastings…" The final part of Nick's analysis of local train woes will be published next week. 

Erith based bagpipe expert Chic Mackie is in the news; he will be appearing on a forthcoming episode of BBC One TV show "The Repair Shop" at 4.30pm on Tuesday the 7th May. Chic will be playing a set of pipes recovered from the trenches of WW1. They have been refurbished by bagpipe maker ‘Blue’ MacMurchie. You can see Chic to the left in the photo above - click on it for a larger view. 

A reader sent me details of a fascinating story that until now I had been completely unaware of. Over sixty years ago, one of the most widely witnessed and studied UFO sightings of the 1950’s occurred locally. On the 17th of July 1955 at around midday an incident was reported in King Harold's Way between Upper Belvedere and Bexleyheath; a 30-foot-wide saucer-shaped object was allegedly seen to hover a few feet above a street in broad daylight by local resident Margaret Fry and her doctor on a very hot cloudless day. Car engines located nearby were said to have cut out. It was seen by around thirty people; the craft made a humming noise and landed at the junction of Ashbourne Road and Whitfield Road. It hovered over Bedonwell Primary School (now Bedonwell Junior School) for around one minute. It finally shot off into the sky. Another UFO had allegedly landed a few streets away at the same time. A similar object had been seen in Bexleyheath in 1952, and had been reported in the popular press of the time. Surprisingly for such an incident, it has not received the coverage of other sightings such as the famous multiple sighting at Rendlesham Forest in December 1980. I can note that both incidents occurred at times of high cold war paranoia, which may possibly have contributed to misinterpretation of events. I must say that I have personally seen an unidentified flying object in bright daylight – I am not saying that it was of extra-terrestrial origin, just that it was flying and did not resemble any kind of craft I had seen before. It all happened in the spring of 1994; I was walking along Picardy Road in Upper Belvedere, heading towards Belvedere Station. I had just passed Venmead Court when I saw something in the sky; I looked up and saw an object that initially I took to be a dark grey hot air balloon. Upon closer examination, I soon realised that the object was far bigger than a balloon and higher up in the sky, and was actually triangular shaped. It was flying slowly Northward, towards London City Airport. The object was visible to me for over ten minutes – long enough for me to reach the station and point out the object to others. It turned out that hundreds of people in the area saw the craft, and many reports were made – the story made the London Evening Standard. I am now of the opinion that the UFO may possibly have been an American B2 “Spirit” Stealth Bomber flying to RAF Lakenheath from a training mission – I doubt that I will ever know for sure. If you have a story to tell, Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

It would seem that the story I featured last week about the pedestrian crossing over the Angerstein Wharf Branch Line near Charlton has hit a nerve with local residents and commuters alike. Network Rail announced that the widely used and almost unique pedestrian crossing was due to close on the 13th April, after being open to the public since 1852. Locals were only given eight days notice of the impending closure. After this was announced, a campaign to keep the popular crossing open was started, and the MP for Greenwich and Woolwich, Matthew Pennycook contacted John Halsall, Network Rail’s Route Managing Director for the South East. The outcome of this was a summary of the meeting by Matthew Pennycook, which reads as follows:- "Aside from apologising profusely for various mistakes made in terms of communication, primarily the letter that went out to residents which appears to have been drafted by an engineer rather than anyone with a passing familiarity with public affairs, the following is what we touched on during the call: - The temporary postponement of the crossing closure should not be interpreted as a shelving of it, merely a temporary reprieve. Network Rail are very clear they need to overhaul the outdated signalling system that is currently in place on this line as it has contributed to regular (in their world) freight derailments over recent years. It is the installation of this new signalling system that would bring freight closer to the crossing point. This is what would present a danger to pedestrians not, he was at pains to argue, because they are likely to be hit by 5mph freight trains but because (he pointed out this has tragically happened elsewhere) there is a real risk on an open crossing that people try to cross underneath stationary freight and are injured/killed when trains start moving. If the number of freight is set to increase (see below) the risk in this regard increases too. Network Rail are also responding to a projected increase in freight along the line up from one or two per day to 20 or so. This is in itself a good thing in that it means less aggregate transported by road and therefore less air pollution but I pressed Halsall on whether it was a definitive increase or merely an aspiration on the part of the aggregates. Network Rail are clear they have a legal right to undertake a closure if necessary. Halsall told me the walk to Westcombe Park station was a comfortable five minutes from the PA2 polling district in Peninsula south of the Woolwich Road (Farmdale Road, Fairthorn Road, Gurdon Road etc). I set him straight with regard to the journey time on foot as well as pointing out what a dangerous, unpleasant walk it is compared to the existing crossing. Where are we now? Halsall agreed to send out regular updates to residents and his team will have oversight of what now goes out in terms of communication. More importantly, he agreed to carry out a proper review pending a final decision. This review will determine not only whether the projected increase in freight is definitive or merely aspirational but also for him and his team to give further consideration to whether there are alternative measures that can be taken rather than installing the proposed new signalling system. He mentioned the possibility of new, upgraded tracks (in order to prevent derailments) which may obviate the need for the new signalling system. In turn, I suggested (if the new signalling system proved to be a necessity) the installation of a small pedestrian walkway over the line. I strongly made the case for either of these options, or indeed any others that may be feasible, even at increased cost, if the alternative is an outright closure". The final outcome of this campaign against closure is unclear; it would be a real shame if the only pedestrian railway crossing in Greater London* was lost due to petty bureaucracy. *Actually it is not the only pedestrian rail crossing in Greater London - see the end video for an explanation and a view of the other crossings.

Now for a bit of an appeal for information; can anyone provide me with details of the old barge that used to be moored in the small dock at the Western end of Erith Riverside Gardens? It was there for years, and I believe it was the home of the local Sea Scouts. Secondly, from around the same period (the early 1990's if my memory serves), the small minesweeper that was moored on a buoy on the Thames off Erith, which I believe was used by the sea cadets and the Royal Navy Reserve. I think it was moved away or scrapped in around 1997, but I cannot be certain. Can anyone advise? These two vessels seem to have been lost in the mists of time, even though they were important landmarks back in the day. If anyone has any memories, or better still, photos of these two vessels, I would be extremely grateful for any information that you can provide. 

A new radio station launched yesterday. Maritime Radio, a Greenwich based station aimed at the population of Greenwich, Woolwich, Blackheath and Lewisham is now on air. You can see their website here. They broadcast on 96.5 FM and online. The signal in Erith is not great - but then, we are outside of their primary coverage area. The signal in Upper Belvedere is considerably better - due not only to the slightly closer proximity to the transmitter site, but also due to the fact that Upper Belvedere is located on a hill, and the height helps the low power VHF FM signal. If any readers can supply reception reports from their location, that would be greatly appreciated. Please email your findings to hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

You may have seen the trailer for a new British film that came out on Friday; an espionage thriller called Red Joan, starring Dame Judi Dench. The film is loosely (and I use the term advisedly) based on the life of Melita Norwood (pictured in the lower of the two images above), who many experts believe was the most important Soviet spy in Britain during the Cold War. The reviews of the film have been lukewarm, at best, and from what I can make out, the film bears very little resemblance to actual historical events - the protagonist has a different name for some unknown reason, and many of the incidents in the film either never took place, or if they did, the circumstances were dramatically different. Critics have written that the film is everything from "preposterous" to "inaccurate". Long time readers may recall that I wrote about long time Nursery Avenue in Bexleyheath resident, British communist and covert KGB spy Melita Norwood, also known as "The Bolshevik of Bexleyheath" and "The Spy who came in from the Co-Op" back in October 2011. At that 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. This was before The Mitrokhin Archive relating to Soviet espionage over the last eighty or so years was released. 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 hand written 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 Vasili Mitrokhin’s defection was that the documents were to be released into the public domain when they were no longer likely to endanger any operations. This has now happened, and much historical detail concerning KGB operations in the West is now open to public study. MI5 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). Melita Norwood was a civil servant at The British Non – Ferrous Metals Research Association (a research organisation that conducted work ostensibly into areas such as the effects of corrosion in pipes and seawater cooled condenser tubes used in warships; there is also some debate that the organisation was a cover for British nuclear weapons research, though there is contradictory evidence regarding this). She 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 in the corrupt Soviet system. 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 and thankfully discredited.

Now for the weekly safety and security updates from Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association. Firstly a report from Barnehurst ward:- "We are pleased to report there have been no burglaries in the past week, In fact we have had a really positive month so far with only one residential burglary at the beginning of April. There has been one theft of motor vehicle in Hillingdon Road on Wednesday 10/04/2019 between 22.00 and 0130 hours. A screw cap from the number plate and cards belonging to the victim were found in The Chase off Long Lane and the vehicle was later found in Thamesmead and recovered by Police. The original number plates were missing from the vehicle. Between Monday 01/04/2019 and Wednesday 17/04/2019 in Birling Road a rented garage was broken into. Details as to what or if anything has been taken is unknown as yet. Our next community contact session is on Tuesday 23/04/2019 at 11.00am in Barnehurst Golf Club". Belvedere ward:- "On Wednesday 10th April there was an incident involving a group of male youths that had gathered in Picardy Road and were observed in possession of weapons. The team took part in a search for this group however they had left the area prior to the arrival of Police. You may recall that the team had identified several youths that had been acting in an anti-social manner across the ward recently. As we had referred the group to Bexley Council, the decision has been made to offer Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (ABC's) to those that have been identified. These contracts are discussed with the individual and certain ‘conditions' are considered in an effort to curb anti-social behaviour. The team are in the process of visiting the remaining three members of the group that we have now identified and once spoken to, they will also be referred to Bexley Council. There was a burglary in Norman Road overnight from Saturday 13th into Sunday 14th April. Car keys and a vehicle were stolen from the property. There was an attempted break in in Elmbourne Drive overnight from Monday 15th/ Tuesday 16th April. Damage was caused to the frame of a window to the rear of the property. Entry was not gained to the property. Further to this, there was a burglary in Harold Avenue in which a property that is currently being renovated was broken into. The owner of the property challenged those responsible who then ran from the location. If anyone has any information in relation to these incidents, please contact the team on 0208 721 2050 or via email at Belvedere.SNT@met.police.uk. Our next Community Contact Session/ Drop in surgery in due to take place on Friday 26th April from 10am at All Saints church hall in Nuxley Road". Bexleyheath ward:- "There has been one report of a burglary that had taken place on the Tuesday 16/04/2019 between the hours of 8.30am and 1530hrs which was along the Broadway. Scooter was taken from the porch. Between Saturday 06/04/2019 and Monday 08/04/2019 – A indicator light were stolen from a vehicle along Meadow Close Bexleyheath. Patrols have been and still will be conducted in and around the Premiere Inn car park and including the cinema car park to help tackle anti-social behaviour. The team have had reports of youths riding motorbikes at Bursted Woods, as a result the team shall be continuing to patrol this area. If you do wish to pass on information to Police then please contact Crime Stoppers on 0800 555111. Please do not hesitate to contact us via Twitter, Facebook, email and the ward phone. If you are after crime prevention advice, please look at the Met Police website which has lots of information that you may find useful. Remember in an emergency please dial 999 and 101 for non-urgent reporting". Crayford ward:- "Thankfully there have been no residential burglaries, please don't be complacent about home security though, especially with the lovely weather forecast for the days ahead. In this last week there have been mainly vehicle related crimes. On Monday 15th April, number plates were stolen from a vehicle whilst parked at Crayford BR Station, these should be on a Citroen DS3. A White Ford Transit with the registration plate YS12 ETX was stolen whilst parked in Shearwood Crescent, there is reason to believe this vehicle may now be on different plates. Between 1800 on Saturday 13th April and 20.00 on Tuesday 16th April there was an attempted theft of a vehicle whilst parked at Alcock Crescent, the lock was drilled, the ignition barrel damaged and the steering column pulled down. Two vehicles were damaged by youths in Heath Road on Sunday 14th April between 20.40 – 21.10, a blue Peugeot and a Black Mercedes, the youths were seen to run off towards an alleyway nearby. A grey Nissan XTrail parked on a driveway in Mayplace Road East was broken in to between 19.00 on Friday 12th April and 10.00 on Saturday 13th April, the glove compartment was opened and golf clubs and a sports holdall had been removed from the boot of the vehicle, it was believed the vehicle was locked. A blue Ford Transporter was stolen between 17.10 on Friday 12th April and 05.50 on the Saturday 13th April from Maiden Lane. Between 23.00 on the Thursday 11th April and 08.00 on Friday 12th April a significant amount of items were stolen from a green Honda Civic whilst parked in Stephen Road, items include bank cards which were used locally, Photographic equipment including tripods, microphones, headphones and a playstation were stolen, the vehicle was believed to be locked. Between 16.40 on Thursday 11th April and 09.15 on Friday 12th April a Blue Hyundai Tucson was entered whilst parked in Mayplace Road East, it doesn't appear that anything was stolen. An elderly lady had her bank cards stolen whilst she was shopping in Sainsburys between 14.30 – 16.00 on Wednesday 10th April, a significant amount of money was withdrawn from her account. Please be vigilant when making card transactions, ensure no one can see the pin number you are entering and take time to put cards away safely before leaving the till area. On Wednesday 10th April between 13.30 – 13.35 a rock was thrown at a rear door in Crayford Way, causing the glass to shatter, there were young children playing nearby and thankfully no one was hurt. Between 18.15 on 9th April and 08.50 on 10th April small change was stolen from a black Nissan Qashqui whilst parked in Stephen Road, it is unknown how the vehicle was entered. Our next community contact session will be at Crayford Library on Tuesday 23 April between 11.00-12.00, please come along and speak with us if you have any concerns, or we can be contacted on our ward phone or email".

Erith ward:- "On Sunday we were at the Sikh temple in Belvedere handing out smart water kits. Saturday night we patrolled around the ward in all crime hot spot areas. Crimes from the week: Theft from motor vehicle on Wednesday 10/04/2019 Larner Road; Theft from motor vehicle on Friday 12/04/2019 Compton Place, and Shoplift >£199 on Saturday 13/04/2019 Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc, James Watt Way". Northumberland Heath ward:- "Another short report this week. We are pleased to say that we have had no reported burglaries. One report of criminal damage to a motor vehicle in Shinglewell Road. The vehicle, a Fiat Punto was left locked and secured on Wednesday April 10th at 8.30pm. The following morning Thursday April 11th at 7am the owner of the vehicle discovered the passenger window and windscreen had been smashed. A brick was found by the car and it is believed that this was used to damage the vehicle. It is unconfirmed if any items were stolen. We are aware of some recent reports of motor cycle ASB, in and around Northumberland Heath Recreation Ground. We are working on this issue and hope to have some news to share with you on this topic soon in relation to long term prevention of this. We will continue to patrol the park on the lookout for this and anyone we identify riding on the field will be issued with a Section 59 Warning (Police Reform Act 2002) meaning if they are caught committing a similar offence again within 12 months, their vehicle will be immediately seized. We plan to issue one of these warnings to a motorcycle which was recently seen being ridden in the park over the weekend. There has been a burglary in Redleaf Close, Belvedere between Sunday 14/04/2019, 2300 hours to Monday 15/04/2019, 0420 hours. The suspect has gained entry by forcing open the rear patio door. Property stolen from the burglary includes gold jewellery and a car which had been parked on the driveway, a Green FIAT 500, registration LX16VCE. We are aware that several residents have seen a male walking the local streets approaching properties on the same night of the burglary. The investigating officer has been made aware of this. We continue to get reports of theft of number plates and also some theft of motor vehicles". Slade Green and Northend ward:- "The only crime of note was a van broken into in Frobisher Road at 0830 on Friday April 12. An iPad and other items were taken. Please do not leave any valuable items on display. PC Mark was walking towards Appold Street on Friday afternoon when he saw a moped being ridden by 3 males in balaclavas. The males jumped off the bike and ran off before Mark could get close to them. The bike was recovered and reunited with a very grateful owner. We assisted our colleagues from Belvedere SNT on Saturday with a plain clothes operation. No arrests made but a good operation. On Sunday 14/04/2019 a male was found in possession of cannabis near to Morrison's in Erith. He will be back for interview soon". Thamesmead East ward:- "PC Nana was invited to a women's conference to talk about youth violence and internet safety among young people by a church organisation which was well received. PC Pruden arrested a male who was wanted in the Barking & Dagenham area for a serious assault which was Domestic related. PC Nana arrested a female who assaulted her whilst on duty at a bus stop on The Broadway Bexleyheath whilst waiting for a bus back to Thamesmead. Investigation still ongoing. The team conducted joint door knocking exercise with Peabody Housing to speak to residents at Penton and Osney Houses to find out if they have any concerns especially around ASB-related issues. Crimes reported in the last week: Racially Aggravated Harassment after Road transport collusion outside Lakeside medical centre, Yarnton Way. Criminal damage in a dwelling Domestic related at Kinder Close, SE28. Theft from motor vehicle in the early hours of Saturday 13/04/2019 on Mangold Way. Window smashed and property taken. Theft from BP garage Harrow Manor way, Drive off. Criminal Damage to property. Landlord/Tenant dispute at Ormesby Close. Criminal Damage to Payphone on Yarnton Way". West Heath ward:- "Motor vehicle crime - Wednesday 10th April at around 7.30am a van was broken into and tools stolen on Brampton Road; Saturday 6th April at 2am a male was seen on CCTV trying a car door handle in Berkeley Ave; Wednesday 6th April overnight someone attempted to break into a vehicle by removing the window sill in Shakespeare Road; Sunday 14th April overnight a scooter was stolen from an address in Langley Road; Monday 15th April overnight in Woolwich Road the spare wheel cover of a car was taken. Burglary - We have had three attempted residential burglaries, one actual and a garage burglary. Saturday 13th April at 10pm in Canberra Rd someone attempted to gain entry through a rear kitchen window. Suspect made off when disturbed by the house alarm; Saturday 13th - Sunday 14th April overnight in Heath Avenue there was an attempted where garden items were moved and trellis broken, no entry gained; Sunday 14th April at 10am in Heath Avenue a male gained entry into a conservatory but was chased off whilst trying to break into inner door leaving the tool they were using stuck in the door. Entry was not gained and nothing was taken; Sunday 14th April around 2pm a male was seen on CCTV doorbell trying a porch door handle and peering into the property in Berkeley Ave. Male was wearing a green jacket with fur edged hood; Monday 15th April overnight in Osborne Road a garage was broken into by cutting off the padlock and tools taken. The team have carried out several plain clothes patrols around the The Pantiles this week resulting in several stop & Searches all with negative results. We have also conducted arrest enquiries for offenders. Our street briefing held in Brabourne Crescent on Saturday 13th April was well attended, main issues arising were parking and littering. Our next street briefing will be on Saturday 20th April in Exmouth Road at the junction with Seaton Rd at 7.30pm. The ward panel met on 10th April, the promises remain the same ASB / drugs, Burglary and Motor vehicle crime". 

As mentioned earlier, the Angerstein Wharf branch line pedestrian crossing in Charlton is not actually the only pedestrian rail crossing in Greater London, as had previously been assumed. The short video below shows the other crossings and gives some background information about them. Do feel free to leave a comment below, or alternatively Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.