The launch of the London Titan.

Visitors to the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre may have noticed recent activity on the former Blockbuster video hire store, which has been empty and unused since the video hire chain went bust back in September 2013. The large retail unit is being converted into a soft play area for small children. The builders have been at work for nearly six weeks now, and the change in use of the store is now becoming apparent. When completed, the place will be called Kassiopi Cove, a pirate themed multi level play area, including a super fast four lane slide, a spiral slide, ball pool with interactive ball lifter, pirate climbing tower and dedicated baby and toddler play areas. The website mentioned on the poster above is not active at present - though the domain is registered. I will be contacting the business owners in the hope to run a more detailed feature on them in the coming weeks.

As I wrote back in November last year, the new toll collection system at the Dartford River Crossing is still receiving a large number of complaints. The new scheme - called Dart Charge - has been in place since November 29th last year. Motorists have no longer had to stop at toll booths to pay for the crossing. Instead, they can pay remotely, either online, on the phone, in certain shops or by post. The idea behind this is that free flowing traffic should move more quickly, as overhead cameras using number plate recognition technology are in place to catch any toll-dodgers who will be issued a fine for non-payment. While the majority of users have a smooth experience, some users have suffered problems with being double charged, or having a payment query, and not being able to get through to the call centre. I am also aware that a considerable number of "ghost journeys" have been reported - where a vehicle is charged for travelling over the crossing, when it was in fact not in the area at the time. There is already a serious problem around the country with false, stolen or cloned vehicle number plates in use by crooks trying to avoid both toll charges and fines for other traffic offences. I know for a fact that in the local area vehicles are illegally on the roads with suspect plates - and the Police are actively investigating those involved; from my understanding, the kind of person who fits false registration plates to a vehicle is the sort of person who is very likely to be involved with other kinds of criminality as well. The Dart Charge system has problems differentiating between "0" and "O", and there have been multiple instances of the wrong person being sent a fine notice. One commenter on the story on the Kent Messenger website wrote:- "My Dad (who lives in Yorkshire and who has never been anywhere near Dartford) just had a penalty notice through. He drives a Volvo V70 yet the car in the photo was a Renault! He rang up to complain but they said he would have to appeal against it! What a waste of time and money!" It is apparent that the Dart Charge system is deeply flawed, and the public are rapidly losing faith in it. Please feel free to leave a comment below; alternatively you can Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

It looks like the UK National Health Service could finally be getting a much needed shake – up in respect to its current public support for homeopathy. At present the NHS spends approximately £4 million a year on homeopathic “medicines”, and £20 million a year on the maintenance and running of the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine. Homeopathy is a two hundred year old pre-scientific system of medicine based upon magical thinking. It is mostly based on two notions, the first of which is that like cures like. In other words, a substance that causes a symptom can cure that symptom in extremely low doses. The NHS Choices website defies homeopathy as “Homeopathy is a complementary or alternative medicine (CAM). This means that homeopathy is different in important ways from treatments that are part of conventional Western medicine. It is based on a series of ideas developed in the 1790s by a German doctor called Samuel Hahnemann.  A central principle of the "treatment" is that "like cures like" – that a substance that causes certain symptoms can also help to remove those symptoms. A second central principle is based around a process of dilution and shaking, called succussion. Practitioners believe that the more a substance is diluted in this way, the greater its power to treat symptoms. Many homeopathic remedies consist of substances that have been diluted many times in water until there is none or almost none of the original substance left. Homeopathy is used to "treat" an extremely wide range of conditions, including physical conditions such as asthma and psychological conditions such as depression.” There is no scientific basis for this, despite the desperate attempts by homeopaths to invoke vaccine-like analogies. The second notion is that you make a remedy more powerful by diluting it to extreme degrees. People have fun making comparisons, such as the need to drink a solar-system’s worth of water to have a 50% chance of getting a single molecule of active ingredient. No problem, say the homeopaths, homeopathic potions contain the magical “essence” of what was previously diluted in them. Homeopaths are also hoist with their own petard when it comes to the evidence. Rigorous clinical trials of homeopathy are frustratingly (but not surprisingly) negative. Homeopaths explain this away by saying that double-blind placebo controlled trials are not really appropriate for homeopathic treatments. Such studies take a cookie-cutter approach to treatment, while real homeopathy individualizes the treatment to the patient. This argument, however, just creates two even more serious problems. The first is that whenever homeopaths use this argument they throw the entire homeopathic industry under the bus. They are essentially saying that all over the counter homeopathic products are useless, and even fraudulent. I would be happy to stipulate to this, and erase the entire over the counter homeopathic product industry. We can then deal with homeopathic practitioners separately. The second problem is the manner in which homeopathic treatments are individualized. This also is not based on any scientific principle or set of reliable empirical data. It’s all magic and witchcraft. Quirky traits, like whether someone is emotionally disturbed, are used to determine their optimal treatment. There is also no consistency among homeopaths – see ten different homeopaths and you may get ten different treatments. This has more in common with an astrological reading than medicine. It is an elaborate system of utter nonsense. Word that homeopathy is complete moonshine is starting to get out. In 2010 the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee completed a full report on homeopathy in which they concluded it is witchcraft – that it cannot work, it does not work, and support for homeopathy in the national health service should be completely eliminated. In 2015 the Australian government completed its own review, concluding that there is no evidence that homeopathy works for anything. Homeopathy is a placebo. The sooner the NHS stop paying for it, and use the money for real, scientifically proven medical treatments, the better for us all.

I will be attending Erith Fun Day on the 18th July - look out for me, and do come over to say hello. Apart from meeting Maggot Sandwich readers, I will also be promoting the Friends of Christ Church Erith - the secular organisation that raises funds for, and cares for the historic landmark building. I sit on the committee of the organisation; we are looking to recruit new members. You can have a chat with me about what the Friends are doing, and maybe pick up a leaflet.

My article on the possible future of the Potion Bar / former White Hart has provoked some reader Emails. The general consensus seems to be that the Email authors would quite like a decent local "eat in" curry house, but agree that it is probably wishful thinking at the moment; the investment required on the very down at heel site would just be too high to make it a viable business. I must admit that I have been giving quite a bit of thought, and some online research on the subject of the British Indian Restaurant. There were six 'Indian' restaurants in the whole of Britain in 1939 - three in London (one of which, the Halal in St Mark Street E1, is a former haunt of mine), and one each in Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester. In 2015 there are roughly 8,500. Eighty five percent are Bangladeshi-owned and with mainly Bangladeshi personnel. They have an annual market turnover of £2.5bn, representing a little over ten percent of all restaurant business in UK. There is direct employment at the curry restaurant of over 100,000 personnel. with an indirect additional employment in supply and related industries for a further 50,000 plus. The Bangladeshi run “Indian” restaurant has become a well – loved feature of many British high street - they offer their diners a large and comprehensive range of curries, many of which are of Indian origin, if somewhat modified over time, and engineered to suit local tastes. You will find a number of ‘restaurant favourites’ such as Samosas, Onion Bhaji, Kebabs, Chicken Tikka and its popular derivative Chicken Tikka Masala curry. Other famous curries included Korma, Bhuna, Pasanda, Jalfrezi, Biriani and Pilaf. The have developed a rapid production method for serving their food.  The authentic curries and accompaniments of Bangladesh have much in common with those of Bengal, and indeed the whole of India, the spicing is distinctive and subtle. Beef is the prevalent meat, and duck is popular. Tropical fish and exotic vegetables (now available in the UK from many supermarkets, as well as specialist stores) form an indispensable part of the Bengali/Bangladeshi diet. They use mustard and poppy seed extensively. Their important five spice mixture, Panch Phoron, has differences as subtle as their spelling. For example, in Calcutta, Bengal’s capital, it will include white cumin, fennel, fenugreek, mustard or celery seed and wild onion. In Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, celery seed would not be used, but black cumin and aniseed would replace wild onion and fennel. Bangladeshi Garam Masala will, like as not, contain chilli. Surprisingly perhaps, Bangladeshis adore the chilli, and it appears in many forms, in many recipes, not so as to swamp the delicacy of the spicing - rather to punctuate it. Some curries may use as little as three of four spices, and the effect is remarkable. Coriander, turmeric and cassia , for example, are all that is needed to produce the Bangladeshi version of that old favourite, Bhuna, whilst their versions of Korma are creamy and mild. Yet the results are neither tame or bland. Bangladesh has a unique range of curry cooking. Nowhere else on the subcontinent has such an array of tastes - sour, bitter, sweet, hot, savoury, mild, pungent and fragrant. Bangladeshis adore all of these tastes, which they achieve by using tamarind and sour fruits, bitter vegetables, molasses, chillies and uniquely subtle blends of spices. Creamy curries, contrast with dry stir-fries, fluffy rice, with chewy breads. Sometimes cooked with nothing more than garlic with, a sprinkling of whole spice seeds and chilli, these recipes achieve great culinary heights, and are ideal for the health-conscious cook. Many British 'Indian' restaurants operate to a formula which was pioneered in the late 1940s. In those early restaurants, a way had to be found to deliver a variety of curries, without an unreasonable delay, from order to table. Since all authentic Indian recipes require hours of cooking in individual pots, there was no guarantee that they would even be ordered. So cubed meat, chicken or potatoes, dhal and some vegetables were lightly curried and chilled, and a large pot of thick curry gravy, a kind of master stock, was brewed to medium-heat strength. To this day, portion by portion, on demand, these ingredients are reheated by pan-frying them with further spices and flavourings. At its simplest, a Medium Chicken Curry, that benchmark of middle ground, is still on many menus, though sometimes disguised as Masala, and requires no more than a reheat of some gravy with some chicken. For instance, take a typical mixed order for a couple at a table for two. She wants Chicken Korma (fry a little turmeric, coriander and cumin, add six pieces of chicken, add a ladleful of curry gravy, plenty of creamed coconut, almonds maybe and a little cream – result, the additions make it mild and creamy-golden in colour), and with it she'll have Vegetable Dhansak (fry some cumin seeds, dry methi leaves, chopped onions, tomato, red and green bell pepper with the gravy, add dhal and some cooked veg – result, colourful, and still medium-strength). He wants Lamb Korma (as for the chicken recipe, instead using pre – cooked Lamb), and he wants Prawn Vindaloo (fry spices and chilli powder, add the gravy which at once goes red and piquant, then cooked peeled prawns, fresh tomato and potato, simmer and serve). Maybe they will also take a Sag Paneer (fry cumin seeds, some thawed creamed spinach and premade crumbled paneer together, add fresh coriander – and that is it). One cook can knock all these up, simultaneously, in five pans, within minutes. Rice is precooked, breads and tandoori items made to order by a different, usually junior chef.  The order is thus successfully completed.  Thus the menu can be very long, with an almost unlimited variety of dishes, sometimes numbered, sometimes heat-graded, mild, medium and hot, hottest, and any dish is available in lamb, chicken, prawn, king prawn, and most vegetables, too. That is the formula, and its perpetrator is the standard curry house. Just because this is not authentic as you would find in an Indian or Bangladeshi household does not make it bad. It can be, and variously is, done well. If you consult YouTube you will find dozens of videos showing you how to prepare both authentic Indian curries, and also BIR (British Indian Restaurant) curries. Personally I prefer cooking my curries from scratch, using individual spices – I certainly don’t use any pre – prepared cooking sauces, as making it the authentic way is not just a lot tastier, it is also far cheaper too. Below you can see a video showing you how to cook a Chicken Jalfrezi in the British Indian Restaurant style by YouTube curry expert Al in his kitchen.

Since my article last week on the old Erith Library, a little more information has come to light. My informant expanded on their original statement to say that rather than buying the old library, Bexley College had intended to make a joint bid with Resources Plus and the Learning Centre Bexley (formerly Bexley Adult Education) so Bexley College would not have owned the building but they were hoping to be one of the partners delivering training in the newly refurbished centre. Unfortunately the deal came to nothing, and the old library remains empty and unused. I have heard concerns voiced that the old library building is decaying, and that is has severe problems with damp. I still struggle with the reasoning which saw the library move to its new location in the High Street. For me the only reason which seems to hold water is that the old library cost a fortune to heat and light, as it was very energy inefficient. Aside from that, the argument that the location of the old library in Walnut Tree Road was too far from the town centre makes little sense – it is no more than a couple of minutes’ walk at most, and the place was always busy. The new library is also busy, mainly with Bexley College students using the free Wi-Fi to research their studies. As with the empty and closed Potion / White Hart, local rumours regarding the old Library abound. Feedback that I have heard has varied from the site being sold off for housing, turned into a Wetherspoon's pub (not at all impossible, as the pub company specialise in converting large, listed public buildings into pub / restaurant outlets), or that it might be converted into a hotel. All I know for certain is that nothing is set in stone at this time. Some low level maintenance is being undertaken on the empty building - mainly with an aim to prevent any further material degradation. It will be instructive to see what happens to the lovely and historic building. More news as it becomes available.

British Telecom is asking Ofcom to be freed from its obligation to provide ordinary copper wire voice telephone connections across the UK. The telecoms giant would prefer to provide only internet services, and let customers use them for voice calls. The Telegraph reported that BT wants to move "all domestic and business customers to internet-based voice calls within a decade," but is prevented from doing so by Ofcom, which requires it to offer basic voice connections alongside internet ones. Expecting customers to eventually migrate to a portfolio of "all IP" services, including broadband, television, and voice, BT is upping the pressure on Ofcom in anticipation of its once-a-decade review, due later this year. "BT believes all IP services will be used nationwide by 2025 and we think Ofcom's review is an opportunity to roll back obsolete rules in this area to create a level playing field," A spokesperson told the Telegraph. The problem with using I.P connectivity for voice calls is that there are so many competing and incompatible systems - such as WhatsApp, Google Video Chat, Skype, Apple Facetime, Facebook etc are not required to connect their users to rival networks. If BT go ahead with their scheme in its current form, it would lead to the mass fragmentation of Internet Protocol (I.P) based voice systems if the various providers could not be persuaded to allow their proprietary systems to interconnect and share data packets. This story feels like it has some way still to run before a resolution is reached.

Bexley Brewery, based in the Manford Industrial Estate at the Slade Green end of Manor Road is going from strength to strength. They recently released the following announcement:- “Not only did we have a busy brewery shop on Saturday (and thanks to all of you who bought our beers for your dads!), but we also had a visit from East London and City Camra who organise the Pig's Ear Festival in Hackney. We were over the moon to be told earlier in the year that BOB won beer of the festival! There were loads of great beers there so being newbies we were really honoured!” The Bexley Brewery have not been open for a year, yet they already have a clutch of awards on their mantelpiece, and the business seems to be growing already. The brewery regularly opens to the public; you can find details on their website here and their Facebook page here. The Bexley Brewery are very easy to find, even if you are not familiar with the area; their industrial unit is at the base of the famous Erith Wind Turbine, which is a very visible local landmark.

A very interesting series of Emails popped into my inbox earlier this week; they were from David Parsons, the Managing Director of local marine engineering company Kort Propulsion, who are based in the Old Boat House in Erith High Street. David wrote “ I Just thought would give you some news of the PLA VESSEL "London TITAN" - Kort Propulsion has been a major supplier to the new vessel. We have supplied the complete propulsion package for this vessel including stern tubes, shafting, steering gear, nozzles, propellers along with engine cooling box covers, and a  Kort tunnel thruster. It has cost £7M for the new vessel which is 36M in length. It's massive”. The new ship, which has been custom built over the last three years by Manor Marine in Portland, Dorset is designed as a mooring maintenance vessel. Titan will do much more than just maintain moorings.  She will be equipped to: 1) lay and recover navigation buoys; 2) haul wreckage from the bottom of the river; 3) support diving operations; and 4) to undertake small scale plough dredging operations. On a river that is getting busier with passengers and freight, that capability is essential. Already there are over eight million passenger trips on the Thames every year – the Mayor wants to increase that to 12 million by 2020.  A multi-function vessel, London Titan will be much better equipped than the nearly 50-year old vessel she will replace. She has been specially designed for the Thames by UK-based naval architects MacDuff Ship Design, working in close collaboration with PLA marine engineers, masters and crews. The Titan is a vessel able to work along virtually all of the PLA’s 95 miles of the tidal Thames for which the PLA is responsible.  She is squat and shallow enough to negotiate bridges as far upriver as Richmond, and robust enough to operate in the outer estuary. A sizable chunk of the £7 million cost of the custom – designed ship will have been in the propulsion and steering work that Kort Propulsion undertook. Great news to see that a specialist local firm is not only contributing to the safety of navigation on the River Thames, but is bringing much needed money into the local economy. One hears so often of work of this nature being won by Chinese or other far Eastern suppliers; what great news to find out this time it was from on our own doorstep. You can see a video about the creation of the London Titan below. Contact me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Will Hay and Uncle Horace.

The photo above (click on it for a larger view) shows the flats being constructed in James Watt Way, between the KFC Drive Through, and Morrison’s petrol station. The construction of the block of affordable flats for social rent has been suspended for nearly six months; this has been due to the contractor that was building the block going bust. The developer, who is backed by the Mayor of London’s office has taken an extremely long time to get building work going again, and much of the thanks for repeatedly asking for status updates from the developer must go to local Councillor Abena Oppong – Asare, who has effectively nagged the developer into getting work underway again. Hopefully the social housing will be finished and open for the first residents before Christmas. The area has a huge amount of house building going on – from Erith Park, which is a giant estate of mixed social and commercial housing, to Tower Hill – the new development by Barratt Homes on the old Bexley College site, and of course Erith Quarry, the brown field site that is set to be the location for the six hundred homes and a primary school development; planning permission has been granted, and the first phase of the construction on the former quarry site is due to be completed by September 2017. All of this new housing is going to attract roughly five thousand new people into the area. My concern is that local infrastructure (gas, water, drainage, electricity) will need to be substantially upgraded to cope, and public transport, health care and shops will need to be expanded for the additional residents. The opening of Crossrail in 2018 will mean that South East London / North Kent will be a lot more accessible than it has until now; one of the major factors in why house prices are less outrageous than in other London suburbs is the historical lack of public transport links into central London – with no tube or DLR connections, the only way to commute into town has been by overland rail on the North Kent Line. If there are any problems with the trains, you really have had little option. With the colossal Paramount theme park almost certain to get the green light, the development will transform an 872-acre brownfield site on the Swanscombe peninsula and be twice the size of the Olympic Park in East London. It will feature Europe’s largest indoor water park, theatres, live music venues, attractions, cinemas, restaurants, event space and hotels. Allied to the project will be a training academy for the entertainment and hospitality sectors, a new country park, a large science and education visitor complex and the biggest performing arts centre in Europe. It is almost inconceivable that the Crossrail project, which is currently set to terminate at Abbey Wood will not be extended down to Swanscombe to cater for visitors to the massive entertainment complex and new town. This would mean that Belvedere, Erith, and Slade Green would be prime commuting areas both into London and down to the Paramount Park – where something like 25,000 new, full time jobs will be required. This is almost certain to be a huge financial and social boost to the entire South East, and could well turn Erith into a new Hoxton. The downside of all this could well mean the end to affordable housing within easy reach of the capital. Many people who live in the local area and who work in central London do so in the service industries – engineering, cleaning, shop workers, facilities maintenance and the like. If they cannot afford to live within commuting distance of London, businesses are going to suffer, and jobs won't get done. There would seem to be a delicate balance to keep things ticking over and the lights lit in London.

Pac-Man, the biggest arcade game of all time, turned 35 years old last week. Released by the Japanese company Namco on May 22, 1980, Pac-Man was like nothing else at the time. At a time when Space Invaders and Asteroids and other games with abstracted, monochrome graphics ruled the arcade, Pac-Man offered a striking, cartoonish design with an appealing central character. It revolved around eating, not shooting; and it was designed to appeal to young women and couples, not spotty nerks in anoraks (although they all played it too). The colourful design and unique collect-the-dots maze gameplay—plus the wonderful tension of running away from those ghosts, then scrambling to eat them once you got a power pellet—made Pac-Man almost instantly addictive, eating ten pence pieces as rapaciously as its protagonist swallowed pixels. By one count, Namco sold 400,000 Pac-Man machines, head and shoulders above anything that had come before, or since. And it is still highly playable and popular in a way its contemporaries are not—few people are paying for Asteroids or Space Invaders updates today, but Namco Bandai still makes and sells variations on Pac-Man on every platform imaginable. Pac-Man’s ubiquity was our first indication that games were about to become the dominant entertainment medium of the information age. (It also arguably marked the beginning of Japan’s impending pop-cultural invasion of the rest of the world, even if players at the time didn't know where it came from.)

Bexley CAMRA have named The Penny Farthing in Waterside, Crayford, as its pub of the year for 2015. Another of the borough’s micropubs, The Door Hinge in Welling, was runner-up. The Penny Farthing only opened in September last year on the site of an old children’s craft shop and is run by couple Bob and Bev Baldwin. This is really good news for local real ale fans; the excellent Robin Hood and Little John in Lion Road, Bexleyheath won the CAMRA award for ten years running, and there really was very little in the way of competition until the micro pubs started appearing a couple of years ago. I am a great fan of micro pubs / ale houses, as they usually sell quality real ales from the local area; in this case, the Bexley Brewery in Erith. The Penny Farthing now goes forward to compete to be crowned the London region CAMRA Pub of the Year, competing against twelve other pubs including Petts Wood micropub One Inn The Wood. The Penny Farthing is also involved in the upcoming Crayford Fun Day on June 13th, hosting its own mini beer festival from June 11th to the 14th, with at least eight beers on sale. I will be paying the place a visit soon.

On Thursday afternoon I was alerted by one of my local informants that a couple of workers were installing metal anti burglar / vandal shuttering outside of the former Potion Bar / White Hart pub. I made my way to the venue and had a friendly chat with the two men; they knew absolutely nothing about the future plans for the building, and had just been hired to secure the place on behalf of the owners. My informant and I share the opinion that shuttered buildings tend to foster crime and anti - social behaviour in areas. I have been in contact with a couple of people who are in a position to find out exactly what the owners of the building intend for its future, and I will report back in due course.

The much anticipated soft play centre for children is now beginning to take shape in the former Blockbuster video hire store in the corner unit of Erith Riverside Shopping Centre. Builders are hard at work converting the store into a giant play area for small children. The windows have been whitewashed over, but it is still possible to peek inside to see what is going on. Lots of work still needs to be completed before the place is ready to open, but I reckon it should be ready by the middle of July, at the rate construction is running. The soft play area is going to be called the Kassiopi Cove, and will have a pirate theme. The company running it have been operating in the area for sixteen years, and have a well-established child-minding and after school group in Northumberland Heath called Jacqueline's Gems childcare services. It looks like they are very well qualified and experienced to run a new child – centric business in Erith; I will be contacting them once the soft play centre nears completion, and I hope to get some photos.  It is good to see the retail unit back in use; since Blockbuster went bankrupt early in 2013, it has been empty and unloved. There are lots of small children that need to be kept occupied and entertained in Erith – I think the soft play centre should do rather well. 

Some worrying statistics have been published earlier this week by Transport for London. There were 567 sexual offences reported on London Underground and on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) in 2014/15 compared with 429 in 2013/14. There were also more sexual offences reported on London buses, with 684 in 2014/15 compared with 513 in 2013/14. TfL attributed the rise in reporting of sex attacks to a joint initiative with police called Project Guardian. The project aims to raise public awareness of unwanted sexual behaviour and encourages victims to report these historically under-reported crimes. In other areas statistics showed improvement - there were 27,758 crimes on London’s public transport network overall, which is 8.3 percent fewer than in 2013/14. London mayor Boris Johnson said he was “very pleased that Londoners have been given greater confidence to report sexual offences following the launch of Project Guardian.” Mick Cash, general secretary of the RMT transport union, had a different reaction to the year’s statistics. “We warned right from the off that cash-led cuts to station staffing would turn London Underground into a criminals’ paradise. “Those who ignored those warnings, and in particular Boris Johnson, should be hanging their heads in shame today, apologising to Londoners and reversing their lethal cuts programme” he said. Oh well, as normal the politicians and union leaders use people's misery to back up their political arguments. For the South East region, the overland trains and the bus service are the two areas of greatest local concern – there is not much call for the tube in Slade Green! The local buses are a big worry – especially late in the evening. I think more should be done to encourage the Police to travel around by bus whenever possible.

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece about the Erith Odeon cinema. Local historian Ken Chamberlain sent me the photos you can see above, which show the cinema when it opened on the 26th of February 1938, showing the Hollywood movie "Stella Dallas". By the looks of it, the Odeon was a very grand building inside, and a landmark piece of Art Deco architecture outside. I can recall that even when it was empty and abandoned in the late 1990's, it still had a real presence. The current block of flats with offices underneath does have some echoes of the original structural design, but it is not a patch on the original. It is ironic that now Art Deco is very much back in vogue, if the cinema building had survived until today, it would most likely have been preserved. The Odeon showed a wide variety of films during its existence as a cinema, in the years before it declined and became a Bingo hall - the fate of many cinemas around the UK. One film star whose movies were shown at the Odeon Erith was Will Hay - a name largely forgotten today, but a comic actor whose best work influenced the likes of the Goon Show, and Monty Python, and his most famous film "Oh, Mister Porter!" was a direct influence on "Dad's Army". I have to declare a family connection with Will Hay; my Great Uncle Horace (whom I have written about previously) was a very close friend of Will Hay for many years. This week marks the 80th anniversary of Will Hay having his first starring role in a British film. Born in Stockton in 1888, Hay’s family moved him south to Suffolk before his first birthday. As his father became a jobbing engineer so the family’s mobility quickly increased – moving next to Hemel Hempstead then to London and finally to Manchester where Hay Senior established his own firm. Wanting independence, Will refused to join the family company and started instead as an apprentice engineer for Westinghouse. Yet Hay was no typical engineer and his humour hid by the fact that, by the age of 19, he had learnt German, French and Italian to such a high level that he was able to leave engineering and became an interpreter. His nineteenth year also saw him married to fellow teenager Gladys Perkins and when his daughter Gladys Elspeth was born some eighteen months later Hay decided he could make a better living for his new family in the pre-Great War music halls. Stealing some of his sister Eppie’s staff room reminiscences – she was a full time teacher – Hay began to develop his pompous, bumbling schoolmaster act. After working for over three years with the Fred Karno troupe, where Stan Laurel and Charlie Chaplin had developed their craft, Hay swiftly found himself the talk of the town: selling out Britain’s biggest music halls, playing sets for the Prince of Wales and successfully touring America, South Africa and Canada. Then came Boys Will Be Boys (1935) his first starring film role with a screenplay written by Hay himself. The story wasn't overly deep – a prison teacher cons his way into a boarding school job and helps stop a diamond theft – but it did have its moments. And it was the perfect frame for Hay’s idiot teacher routines…Then, in 1937,  Graham Moffat joined Moore Marriott as Hay’s two sidekicks in the finest comic film any of them would ever be involved with, Oh, Mr Porter! wherein Hay discovers the (Northern) Irish railway station he’s been sent to run, Buggleskelly, is actually a run-down mess. Gun-runners, ghosts, secret windmills and missing trains – Hay and his two stooges come out on top in a film that is, even now, genuinely funny, at times hilarious. Oh, Mister Porter! (1937) was a deserved box office smash in its day, taking some £500,000 in British cinemas alone – the equivalent now would be over £15 million. In the immediate pre - war years, Will Hay was the second highest paid entertainer in Britain, earning a reputed £800 per week - narrowly pipped in the earnings stakes by George Formby. Outside of show business, Will Hay was a dedicated and respected amateur astronomer. He constructed a personal observatory in his garden in Mill Hill and built a glider in 1909. He became a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1932 and is noted for having discovered a Great White Spot on the planet Saturn in 1933. The spot lasted for a few months and then faded away. He also measured the positions of comets with a micrometer he built himself, and designed and built a blink comparator. He wrote the book Through My Telescope in 1935, which had a foreword by Sir Richard Gregory, formerly Emeritus Professor of Astronomy at Queen's College, London. When Hay died, a few items of his equipment were bequeathed to the British Astronomical Association. Some years ago I came across a long out of print book on the life of Will Hay, and it had some photos taken of his garden and his private observatory; in one of the early shots, the construction of his observatory is shown; several people are helping with the digging. One chap is seen stripped to his string vest and leaning on a shovel - it was my late Great Uncle Horace on what must have been a very hot day for manual labour. I wish I had a copy of the book. In 1947, Hay suffered a stroke which left him physically disabled. He died at his flat in Chelsea, London after a further stroke in 1949, and is buried in Streatham Park Cemetery, London SW16. Will Hay's films are now out of copyright, and have been released into the public domain. Below you can see Will Hay's greatest work - one of the best British comedy films of all time, the excellent "Oh, Mister Porter!" in full. Click to make the video window full screen, sit back and enjoy the movie.

One local Maggot Sandwich reader made the following observations regarding my piece on the long unused and empty former Port of London Authority building adjacent to the Erith Riverfront Gardens that I published last week; I have to say that I was aware of some of the points he raised, as I too am a Shoreline member of the RNLI, and have been since I was working at sea for Radio Caroline, back in the late 1980's / early 1990's. Anyone who has spent any length of time at sea will have nothing but immense respect and admiration for the men and women volunteers for the organisation. "I noted your comments regarding a possible RNLI station at Erith. As a basic member/supporter of the RNLI I can say that it would be very unlikely to happen for a number of reasons. Firstly the RNLI is currently reviewing the number of stations it has and the number and type of call outs it gets. Some stations have already been reviewed and the type of cover and vessel stationed changed. The North East and East Coast of Scotland around recently underwent changes of this type. Reviews of this type are regularly taken by all of the emergency services too. Generally speaking the crews are all volunteers who are 'on call' while doing their usual employment, not at a station. So volunteers from the local area would have to be sought and trained, not easy as their jobs must allow them to drop everything at a moments notice.  I personally do not feel that there is a need for any sub-station at Erith as the regular river users from the rowing and yacht clubs are experienced sailors and are always watching out for each other, and while the RNLI is there for everyone who needs them I just don't see any justification for a station at Erith with the attendant expense of a boat, security etc when events you mentioned are relatively rare. Problems like where to moor a vessel given the silting around Erith, security of the vessel when not in use etc. Like all charities the RNLI has limited funds as has to allocate where the most benefit can be accrued, and setting up a station, buying a boat, training crew members is a massive expense that at this time is probably not feasible A list of the call outs of all boats can be found on the RNLI website and gives an excellent picture of the reasons they are deployed ". Excellent and very informative stuff. My original piece was designed to encourage discussion, debate and positive feedback; in that case it appears to have been successful. The riverfront building definitely needs to be put back into productive use sooner rather than later. If you have any observations or opinions on what it could be used for, I would be more than interested to hear from you on the subject. The building is one of those unusual ones that seems to "hide in plain sight" - people pass it all of the time, but nobody ever seems to pay it the slightest bit of attention. I think this is a waste of what could be a very useful structure, bang on the riverfront. I think we are collectively missing a trick.

With all of the attention the Police have been giving the illegal bikers who have been tearing up Slade Green Marshes, you would have thought that the bikers would have got the message at least for a while and gone to ground until the heat was off. Not a bit of it, I am afraid. One of the main offenders has been caught on camera on the A2 near the Dartford River Crossing – as you can see in the photo above, he’s pulling wheelies on his quad bike on a motorway. Personally if he wants to kill himself with acts of stupidity, that is his lookout, but he’s likely to injure or potentially even kill others in the process. I recognise the distinctive design of the bike as being one that has frequently been ridden illegally in and around Erith – of course, the scumbag does not have the bike registered, so no number plate to give the game away. I know that the local Police are aware who a majority of the offenders are. This guy needs to be collared as soon as possible, especially after the news last week that another biker called Ernest Miller, known as "Della" to his friends, died after his motorbike collided with a car in Beckenham at around 8am on May 13th.  Witnesses described seeing the 26-year-old thrown from his motorbike over the top of a car and into the road. He died shortly thereafter. Ernest Miller was a member of Bike Life TV UK (probably more accurately described as "Chavs on mopeds"), linked to groups known for haring along Lower Belvedere and Thamesmead’s roads and pavements on motorcycles performing tricks. I have featured them in a previous update. It is ironic that on this occasion he was not riding irresponsibly. Nevertheless groups like Bike Life TV foster and encourage illegal and dangerous riding – and if more deaths are to be avoided, they need to be reined in by the authorities. On top of all this, several serious incidents have been reported this week, involving the two 13 / 14 year old youths on a high powered sports bike that I have remarked upon before. On Thursday afternoon they raced their stolen bike along James Watt Way; A Police patrol car was parked in the road, as the officers were dealing with an incident. The rider of the high powered motorbike slowed down, allowing the passenger to kick off the wing mirror of the Police car - they then rode off at speed. An even more serious incident happened some time later. A local resident was walking his dog along the riverside pathway close to the far end of James Watt Way, near where the traveller pony lives on a small piece of wasteland. The two young crooks came racing along the pathway on the bike, and narrowly missed hitting the man and his dog in the process. The skid marks from the frantic braking can still be clearly seen on the paving slabs. The bike is huge and very powerful - it may be a Suzuki GSX-R 1000, or something similar. The Police know the number plate, and have confirmed to me that the vehicle is indeed stolen. The two youths need to be caught soon; they are a danger both to themselves and others. From what I have been told by a very reliable source, the Police think that the two scumbags are deliberately trying to provoke a chase with them. My own thoughts are that they probably have a couple of GoPro cameras mounted on the stolen super bike, so that they can later upload videos of their exploits onto YouTube to gain bragging rights from their criminal mates. I would imagine that law abiding bikers are getting heartily sick of the antics of a small group of criminals, who don’t do anything to enhance the image of the responsible bike rider. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The ending video this week show the work of the Lesnes Abbey Conservation Volunteers (LACV). It is a fascinating insight into the work of this little - known local volunteer group who do such good work for the area in and around Lesnes Abbey Wood and Lesnes Abbey Ruins. Give it a watch - you might learn something (I know that I certainly did).