I'm sorry to say that the quality of journalism and also the level of editorial oversight of the News Shopper newspaper and website has once again proved to be wanting. In the current edition, there is an article highlighting several traditional pie and mash shops in Southeast London and North Kent. The newspaper usually publishes these stories when it wants to fill some column inches, and can use public websites such as TripAdvisor to gather the information with little effort and no need for a reporter to visit. In the article I am referring to the first pie and mash shop to be featured is the Millers pie and mash shop, which is located at number 8 Albert Road, off Nuxley Road in Upper Belvedere. Unfortunately, the journalist who wrote the article did not perform much in the way of due diligence, but worse, the editor did not pick up on the fundamental inaccuracy of the leader line in the story where Millers was announced as being located in Greenwich. As I'm sure local readers will be more than aware, this is not the case. Millers Pie and Mash shop in Albert Road, Upper Belvedere (don't call it "Nuxley Village" - there is no such place - that fake name was invented by Estate Agents who did not live in the area, and had no knowledge of the local history when they began selling properties in the vicinity). The shop has been awarded a five star hygiene rating once again on the Scores on the Doors website, for the fourth time around. This is excellent news indeed; I know of several local people who use the shop regularly, and report that the quality of the traditional London fare it serves is very high indeed. It is good to see an independent local business that is doing everything it can to maintain a very high quality product and service.
A press release was released on Thursday last week by local politician Abena Oppong-Asare MP. It is simultaneously welcome news and also a source of worry and concern. The announcement that was made covers an increase in funding to the Erith Health Centre, Which will become more of a centralised hub for local healthcare and will take on more of the treatment and testing that up until now has taken place at major local hospitals such as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich and Lewisham Hospital. The stated aim in the press release is to make as much healthcare as possible. Local to its users, and to free up major hospitals for their intended purposes. This all makes great sense, but there are certainly some caveats. Firstly, how this is going to be funded, although I do understand that central government have announced that localising healthcare is a priority for them in order to take some of the strain from hospitals and GP surgeries. My concern on a local level is a bit more fundamental. Will the expansion of Erith Health Centre mean that the walk in urgent care facility, X-Ray and haematology departments at Erith Cottage Hospital will be cut back or completely removed? This subject is not addressed in the announcement, and it concerns me that there could be a level of giving with one hand and taking away with the other by the government via a level of NHS restructuring. At the time of writing, there is no evidence to suggest that this is actually happening, but it would not be unknown for politicians of all political parties to put a level of spin on a story to make it sound more appealing to voters. Erith Hospital has a very long and quite complex history, dating back to the years before World War II, when it was constructed as a potential location for bombing victims to be treated. In fact, the hospital is one of the only ones in the UK that has a grade one listed building on the site. This is a former underground bomb shelter which until just over a year ago was the location for the X-ray department, until it was moved into the main hospital building. The hospital has already lost general surgery, and physiotherapy departments, and it does concern me that this could be another way that the building was being wound down as a health care centre. Personally, I think the idea of Erith Health Centre being expanded with extra facilities and functionality is an excellent one; however, it should not be done at the expense of the Cottage Hospital.
Regular readers may recall that I have shown that Erith has over the years been a pioneer in the fields of science and engineering. The first working motor car - the Butler Petrol Cycle - was built and tested in Erith (in Manor Road, to be precise); the first practical fully automatic machine gun - the Maxim Gun - was invented and manufactured in Erith, and the world’ s first heavier than air flying vehicle - The Maxim Flyer - was invented in Erith, and test flown in Crayford. The first ever submarine to successfully fire a torpedo whilst submerged - The Nordenfelt Submersible - was also designed in Erith, but built in Sweden. The photo above shows Vickers Arms factory which used to be located in Nordenfeldt Road, off West Street in or about 1916; The factory had several owners over its life; after Vickers no longer had need of it, the place was sold to a company called Elizabethan Electronics, who made radios and record players primarily for domestic use; when the company relocated to a new factory in Romford in the early 1960’s the place was sold on to Jennings Musical Industries (JMI), a company that was soon to be better known by the name of their best known products – the Vox range of guitar amplifiers. Founder Thomas Walter Jennings started the business in Dartford in 1958, when he took a prototype guitar amplifier which had been demonstrated to him by big band guitarist and Belvedere resident Dick Denney two years earlier, and turned it into a working, commercial product – the Vox AC-15. The AC-15 was almost immediately purchased by Hank Marvin, and the unique sound of the Shadows was down primarily to the use of Vox amplification. Soon after, the “British Invasion” of the early 60’s was under way, powered almost exclusively by Vox amplifiers. Keeping it local, Dartford’s own Rolling Stones used Vox, as did The Kinks, The Yardbirds, and in what was one of the very earliest pieces of celebrity product placement, Vox amplifiers were promoted and exclusively used by the Beatles, after manager Brian Epstein negotiated a deal – one which greatly benefitted JMI, who were pretty much called Vox by this point. As the audiences for gig got bigger, and the venue sizes increased, the need for more powerful amplification became evident – the 15 Watt AC-15 was not powerful enough; JMI effectively nailed two AC-15 amps together to create their all time classic Vox AC-30 amplifier – a model still in production to this day. Contemporary musicians who employ the AC-30 include Brian May of Queen, who was the first person to create a “wall” of AC-30’s to create his unique and totally distinctive sound; Tom Petty, Rory Gallagher, Pete Townshend, Ritchie Blackmore, Mark Knopfler, Paul Weller, and the Edge of U2 – pretty much all of rock royalty use or have used Vox amplification. JMI also manufactured guitars, many of which were technically ground breaking – including active pickups, and built in sound effects – the down side of this was that they tended to be heavy and ugly, and did not pick up many celebrity users. JMI / Vox also invented the Wah Wah pedal – most famously used by Jimi Hendrix, and the fuzztone distortion pedal used by Jimmy Page, then of the Yardbirds, and soon to be of Led Zeppelin. Vox / JMI also created the very first wireless microphone system, early models of which gained a reputation from picking up interference from nearby mini cab radios. Another very successful and influential product made by JMI / Vox at Erith was the Vox Continental electronic organ, which most famously featured on “The House of the Rising Sun” by the Animals, and “Riders on the Storm” by the Doors (actually, pretty much any Doors track heavily features the Vox Continental – it was integral to their sound). Famously the Doors did not have a bass guitarist, so the organ was key to the rhythm as well as the melody in their songs. John Lennon used the Vox Continental when playing live, both with the Beatles, and later when performing solo. JMI sold production rights to the Vox Continental to an Italian company in 1967; the build quality of the Continental markedly declined from then on, and users soon switched to other keyboards. Consequently, early, Erith built Continentals now attract premium prices on the collectors market. I understand that the Erith Vox factory received regular visits from the musicians who used their products; I have heard a report that Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones made at least one appearance on the factory floor. I wonder if any reader has any knowledge of this, or even a contemporary photograph? If so, please drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com – you would receive a full credit for any information you could provide. JMI / Vox became victims of their own success; they grew vastly in size and turnover over a period of around five years; in order to raise working capital, Thomas Jennings sold his controlling interest in the business to the Royston Group – an early venture capital organisation; after disagreements with the direction the company was going – mainly in respect of cost cutting moves to increase profitability (using cheaper materials in the manufacture of the AC-30 amplifier, which adversely affected performance and reliability), Jennings left JMI / Vox in 1967. The company battled on for several more years, changing hands a number of times. Vox had a major new competitor in the amplifier market - Marshall, who by the early 1970’s had overtaken Vox as the biggest makers of guitar amplifiers. Nowadays you think of a live rock gig and you automatically think of rows of Marshall stack amplifiers (of course, all turned up to 11, but that is another story). Few know the real story of how Vox conquered the musical world in a few short years, and changed popular music for ever. All from a dusty old former machine gun factory off West Street in Erith.
Earlier this month, Friday the 5th of March 2026, marked the 45th anniversary of the arrival of the machine that did more to awaken ordinary Britons to the possibilities offered by home computing than any other to date: the Sinclair ZX81. While its successor, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, got the nation playing computer games, the ZX81 was the tipping point that turned the home computer from nerd hobby into something anyone could buy and use. Sir Clive Sinclair would later say his Science of Cambridge company - later Sinclair Research - developed its first computers to make the money needed to fund other projects closer to his heart: the portable TV and what would become the infamous Sinclair C5 electric car. The ZX81 was designed to be small, simple, and above all cheap, using as few components as possible to keep the cost down. Video output was to a television set rather than a dedicated monitor. Programs and data were loaded and saved onto audio tape cassettes. It had only four silicon chips on board and a mere 1 KB of memory. The machine had no power switch or any moving parts, and used a pressure-sensitive membrane keyboard for manual input. The ZX81's limitations prompted the emergence of a flourishing market in third-party peripherals to improve its capabilities. Such limitations, however, achieved Sinclair's objective of keeping the cost of the machine as low as possible. Its distinctive design brought its designer, Rick Dickinson, a Design Council award. The ZX81 could be bought by mail order in kit form or pre-assembled. In what was then a major innovation, it was the first cheap mass-market home computer that could be bought from high street stores, led by W.H. Smith and soon many other retailers. The ZX81 marked the first time that computing in Britain became an activity for the general public, rather than the preserve of business people and electronics hobbyists. It inspired the creation of a huge community of enthusiasts, some of whom founded their own businesses producing software and hardware for the ZX81. Many went on to play a major role in the British computer industry in later years. The ZX81's commercial success made Sinclair Research one of Britain's leading computer manufacturers and earned a fortune and an eventual knighthood for the company's founder, Sir Clive Sinclair. Launched in January 1980, the predecessor to the ZX81, the Sinclair ZX80 was a DIY kit. It had a Zilog Z80A processor, 1KB of memory and used a cassette recorder for storage. The ZX80 had a key flaw - literally. Press one of the touch pad-style keys and the display momentarily blanked, as the CPU was diverted from maintaining the display to reading the keyboard buffer. Orders had been taken so SoC had to ship the product, but before the ZX80 was officially released work had begun on its successor. A year on from the ZX80 debut, in January 1980, the ZX81 was still in development. But then the BBC came knocking on Sinclair's door. The Corporation was looking for a cheap home computer to tie in to a series of programmes it was planning to broadcast later that year. Having seen the success of the Apple II, Tandy TRS-80 and Commodore Pet in the US, BBC senior management believed Britons needed to be quickly awoken to the personal computer revolution. It established the BBC Computer Literacy Project. A series of programmes would show viewers the potential of computers in their business and daily lives. The machine itself would get them directly involved. The ZX81 was developed by a team led by Science of Cambridge's chief engineer, Jim Westwood. Its BASIC interpreter and OS was written by John Grant and Steve Vickers at Nine Tiles, a company contracted by Sinclair for the ZX80's software. A bigger Rom chip - 8KB to the ZX80's 4KB - allowed Grant and Vickers to extend the new machine's functionality considerably, in particular floating point maths and trigonometry functions. Science of Cambridge's Rick Dickinson designed the iconic casing. The look was based on the ZX80, but out went that machine's vacuum-formed cover in favour of superior injection moulding. Once again, SoC used the Z80A CPU and equipped the ZX81 with 1KB of memory. A 16KB Ram Pack add-on would later be offered, and become the source of much annoyance - but hilarity to owners of rival machines - because its poor fit ensured that any movement could cause it to lose electrical contact, crashing the computer in what was called "RAM Pack Wobble". Like the ZX80, the new machine was offered as a £49.95 kit. But this time - and the use of a quality plastic casing suggests this was always going to be the case - it was also sold pre-assembled for £69.95. Both versions were made by Timex, which would later licence the design for the US market, where the computer would debut in the States as the Timex Sinclair 1000. At such a low price - though still beyond the reach of many a computer-keen kid at the time - Sinclair sold truckloads. He was helped in no small part by the retailer WH Smith, which, by offering the machine in its shops, put it in the way of far more ordinary buyers than ads in early computer magazines would have done. WH Smith had an exclusive for six months, and then other high street retailers jumped in too. Sales soared, Sinclair became a household name and even richer as his company's fortunes rocketed. More importantly, a new consumer electronics category was born, and the UK home computer market was defined and led by UK companies. That would change, but not for a few more years. But by then thousands of schoolkids had had their first taste of computers, programming and, - crucially - games. Many games designers and programmers today owe their careers to the Sinclair ZX81, and their entry into the world of home computing, forty five years ago this month.
Manor Road in Erith featured in a headline story in multiple publications and online, including the BBC News website, unfortunately for all of the wrong reasons. In the early hours of Saturday morning. A huge fire started within the industrial compound of EMR - the recycling company and scrap dealers. Around 400 tons of scrapped vehicles caught fire and were burning fiercely many hours. A total of 12 fire engines from around London and the southeast and around 80 firefighters attended the blaze from around 4:30 in the morning. I understand that a full fire investigation will have to take place in due course by the London fire brigade. This will be the third major fire in an industrial unit in Manor Road within the last year, all of which have taken place in very close proximity to residential housing. Questions are now being asked if it is appropriate for these industries to be located so close to areas where hundreds of people are living. There have been several theories as to what the cause of the fire was, and the lead one currently appears to be that it may well have been caused by the ignition of one or more lithium ion batteries, which when they are damaged, crushed, or get wet can spontaneously combust and are almost impossible to extinguish. Clouds of noxious fumes were generated by this huge conflagration, fortunately, due to the direction of the wind at the time, the smoke was blown away from housing and further down towards other industrial units within Manor Road, most of which were empty and unused at the early hour the blaze began.
Last week a story happened locally that unfortunately most of the press did not pick up on; a report which was a bit of a pity as it highlighted somebody very prominent in the national press, and also a local historical site. I find it quite curious that's the story was not more widely reported. The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Dame Sarah Mullally, The incoming new Archbishop of Canterbury, not only the most high ranking member of the Anglican Church, but also the first female Archbishop of Canterbury in history, visited Lesnes Abbey Ruins as part of an ongoing pilgrimage last week prior to her installation as the new Archbishop on Wednesday the 25th of March. Whether one has any interest or not in religion, the Archbishop is a role with huge influence and international importance, and the fact that she chose to come to Abbey Wood only a few days before her ceremonial installation in the high-ranking and extremely influential, If not to say, controversial role is something I think many people would find of interest. The one organisation that did report this visit was the Bexley Council PR team. I repeat their announcement verbatim:- "The Most Reverend & Right Honourable Dame Sarah Mullally and her fellow pilgrims paid a visit Lesnes Abbey last week (18 March), as part of their pilgrimage along the 140km route along the Becket Camino from St Paul’s Cathedral to Canterbury Cathedral. Whilst meeting fellow pilgrims, visiting churches, cathedrals, abbeys and schools on route, the pilgrimage will help The Archbishop to reflect on her journey from Bishop of London to Archbishop of Canterbury – a profound act of spiritual preparation before her Installation as Archbishop of Canterbury on 25 March 2026. The Archbishop was welcomed by the Cllr Leaf, Leader of Bexley Council and the Chairman and Treasurer of Friends of Lesnes Abbey & Woods (FoLAW). They presented her with a Lesnes Abbey Pilgrims badge, a book about Lesnes Abbey Woods and were able to stamp the Archbishop’s and entourage’s Pilgrim Passports with the Lesnes Abbey’s Pilgrim Stamp. The Archbishop presented the Leader and the Chairman of FoLAW a beautiful pewter scallop shell gift. The scallop shell is the traditional symbol of pilgrimage and journey. The Archbishop was briefly shown around Lesnes Abbey before leaving through the woods on her journey to Canterbury".
The end video this week is a tour and short video on the history of Lesnes Abbey Ruins - all comments and feedback should be sent to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.
