Vidor.

The group photos above (click on either for a larger view) were taken in the foyer of CineWorld Bexleyheath last Sunday afternoon. The occasion was the private showing of the new Star Wars movie. "The Rise of Skywalker" to a select audience of roughly 350 people all of whom were personally invited by the organiser Nav, who can be seen in the upper photo above wearing the bright orange X-Wing fighter pilots uniform. Every year for the last five, Nav has organised a private showing of each of the new Star Wars movies, and it has now become a regular pre - Christmas event, and part of the local social calendar. The film viewing aside, it is also a time for people to catch up and socialise, some of whom only get the opportunity to do so once a year at the private showing. It is also a time where parents, who saw the original series of films when they were children, get the opportunity to bring their own offspring along to share the event with them. 

This week The Bexley Times have reported the a one year old pony had to be rescued after getting into difficulties in a field in Norman Road, Lower Belvedere. The horse had fallen down a steep bank and was unable to get back up before collapsing with exhaustion. The horse had slipped down a muddy bank and was stuck, laying on his side, with his back legs caught around a tree and his front legs in a small culvert. He had been trying to get back to his feet and was exhausted; he was on the brink of death. A vet sedated him so the team of firefighters from Erith fire station could get the straps under him and start to winch him back up the bank. The RSPCA were in attendance; they left an abandonment notice at the site and removed the pony for further veterinary treatment. The horse, named Frosty by the rescuers will stay with the vets until he is strong enough to move to an RSPCA centre. If no one comes forward to claim him then he will be re-homed by the charity. This winter, the RSPCA expects to take in more than 10,000 animals in need across England and Wales as more become lost or simply just abandoned after Christmas. The practice of horse and pony owners effectively abandoning their animals is unfortunately widespread. The practice of “fly-grazing” has become increasingly common both in the local area, and also around the country. Thousands of horses and ponies are being abandoned by their erstwhile owners as irresponsible breeding, spiralling bills and sale prices which have reached rock bottom take their toll. In a recent interview, RSPCA Inspector Nicholas Wheelhouse said:- "We find some people who have horses and have just kept them on undeveloped land, but as the developers are now snapping up these sites, the horses are being moved on. The knock-on effect is that with a shortage of green land we are finding that the owners are then tethering their horses on the side of the roads or keeping them in very poor makeshift enclosures, not even fields. It’s an issue that I as an inspector am seeing on the increase, as sadly, if the horses are not attended to well enough, welfare problems can start and that's when we become involved. I’ve seen horses in places you wouldn’t ever expect them to be and many in really built-up areas." A pony can fetch as little as £5 at auction – if it sells at all, whilst stable costs, feed and vets bills can amount to around £100 per week per animal. The six main horse welfare charities have come together to compile a report on the situation; it would also appear that the European appetite for horse meat may be fuelling the situation – a £5 pony can turn into a £230 carcass on the European meat market. It may be that ponies are actually being farmed for live export to France, Belgium and Italy. The RSPCA have called for legislation that will enable them to more quickly identify owners and punish them with fines and the seizure of animals for fly-grazing. They also want a review of agreements allowing the free movement of horses not intended for slaughter between Britain, Ireland and France. The British horse population is thought to be just under one million animals in size. The vast majority are owned privately for leisure – a sector which, unlike the horse racing industry, has not historically been tightly regulated. A bill was brought into law back in 2015 which was hoped to change this situation. The Control of Horses Act 2015 made changes to the law to deter people from illegally grazing or simply abandoning horses on public and private land, which is known as ‘fly-grazing’. As many as 3,000 horses are thought to be illegally fly-grazing across the country. The changes meant that horse owners who fly-graze their animals without permission could  be dealt with more quickly and effectively. These changes to the law have on paper given rural communities greater powers to deal with thousands of horses that are left to graze illegally without the land owners’ permission. Horses that are left to fly-graze can now be re-homed much more quickly and effectively, improving the welfare of these animals and preventing disruption to communities. By allowing abandoned horses to be re-homed much more quickly, this act will encourage owners to pay proper attention to their animals’ welfare and ensure communities are no longer blighted by the illegal practice of fly-grazing. Under the previous Animals Act 1971 an abandoned horse could only be disposed of after 14 days through sale at market or public auction. The 2015 Act means fly-grazing horses have to be reported to police within 24 hours, and owners now have four days to claim their animals. Previously, an abandoned horse could only be disposed of through sale at market or public auction. The 2015 law extended the options for dealing with abandoned horses, which now include private sale, gifting and rehoming. Unfortunately the 2015 Act has in practice made very little difference to horse and pony welfare. Actually determining the owners of the fly grazed animals is often very difficult, as the animals have no registration or other ownership documents. The owners are now resorting in some cases to leaving sick animals to die, rather than having them properly treated by a vet. It would seem that no amount of legislation will stop the misuse of ponies and horses if the authorities are not prepared to enforce it properly. What do you think? Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com with your feedback.

Most computer users will be very familiar with Microsoft Office, the pretty much ubiquitous combination of word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation suite and Email client. Microsoft are encouraging users to switch from the locally installed Office 2019 to the web based Office 365. There are actually several exceedingly good alternatives to Microsoft Office, including one particular office suite which is full - featured, completely Microsoft file format compatible, mature, backed by a large organisation, and unlike Microsoft Office, it is totally free to download and use. The office suite is called LibreOffice. The history of LibreOffice goes back to 2010, after database software giant Oracle completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems. This included OpenOffice, an open source Office suite originally known as Star Office. Sun had picked up the Star Division, the company behind Star Office, in 1999, and published the suite as free and open source in an effort to reduce the dominance of Microsoft Office. In September 2010 a group of OpenOffice contributors who were unhappy about Oracle's tight control of the project announced The Document Foundation along with a fork of OpenOffice 3.3, which they called LibreOffice. Oracle was asked to transfer OpenOffice to the new group but refused. A few months later more former OpenOffice contributors declared their support for the new fork. The following year, Oracle decided that OpenOffice had no commercial future and in June 2011 transferred the project to the Apache Foundation, where it continues, with a claimed 1.6 million downloads of version 4.1.7, released in September. LibreOffice had the momentum though, and has been developed more rapidly. 2020 will be therefore the 10th anniversary for LibreOffice and it is planning "a year long celebration." Has LibreOffice succeeded? The software is popular and highly valued by users, and unlike Microsoft Office works well on Linux. It is free software and also lets you adopt the OpenDocument Format (ODF) in place of Microsoft proprietary Office formats. The LibreOffice team has been working on the user interface, and there are now a bewildering number of options for menus and toolbars. You can select Standard Toolbar, Single Toolbar, Sidebar, Tabbed, Tabbed Compact, Grouped bar Compact, and Contextual Single. You can also combine various options, such as choosing Tabbed UI, which is reminiscent of the Microsoft Office ribbon toolbar, and then adding the traditional dropdown menubar on top. Interoperability with Microsoft Office formats has been improved, and you can now export document templates (.dotx and .xltx), import and export PowerPoint SmartArt, and import charts which use Word DrawingML. LibreOffice still has a place for organisations (not least the EU) concerned about retaining or recovering "digital sovereignty". It removes the reliance of Microsoft's proprietary document formats, which tend to change every couple of years, meaning that in order to read and use your old MS Office files, you have to buy the latest version of MS Office and then upgrade your old files to the new format. That said, Microsoft Office remains the business standard, and today's battle is more between the web based Office 365 and Google's G Suite, than between the locally installed Microsoft Office and LibreOffice. Most Office 365 subscriptions bundle Microsoft's desktop software with Email and other online services, making it hard for LibreOffice to break in. LibreOffice plays an important role in providing a high-quality office suite for Linux and as an alternative to Microsoft Office. There are now also browser-based options, including Google's G Suite, but if you prefer the freedom of working locally with open source software, LibreOffice is for you. LibreOffice then has not changed the software world, but it has perhaps made it a better place. You can read more about LibreOffice and download it for free by clicking here.

Whist surfing the BBC iPlayer website, I found an archive recording from back in 2010. It features comedian Mark Steel in an early episode of his popular BBC Radio 4 comedy series "Mark Steel's in Town". The programme description reads thus:- "Mark Steel visits 6 more UK towns to discover what makes them and their inhabitants distinctive. He creates a bespoke stand-up show for that town and performs the show in front of a local audience. As well as shedding light on the less visited areas of Britain, Mark uncovers stories and experiences that resonate with us all as we recognise the quirkiness of the British way of life and the rich tapestry of remarkable events and people who have shaped where we live.  In this episode Mark performs a show for the residents of Dartford in Kent where he talks about the peasants' revolt, gypsy tart, Mick Jagger and what one resident calls the Road To Hell". You can hear the very funny programme, which features Dartford, Erith (postulating that Christopher Columbus came from Erith, and that before he went on to discover America, he first sailed across the Thames to discover Essex!) and many other local towns, including Mark Steel's own birthplace - Swanley. Click here to stream the show, which I can highly recommend.

The two photos above date back to the 1920's; the upper of the two photos shows shrimp fishermen employed by William Gilder, the fishmonger who had a shop in Erith High Street for many years between the two World Wars. The distinguished chap in the Fedora hat the helm of the vessel is Mr. Gilder himself; I am not sure if he regularly went out on shrimping trips, or if this was a special occasion that merited a commemorative photograph. I was surprised when I came across the photo; I knew that the River Thames off Erith was a rich source of Lemon Sole, Dabs and Eels, but I did not know that it had been a historic source of shrimps. What is somewhat troubling is that back then, raw sewage was pumped into the Thames from Crossness Sewage Works. Shrimps and Prawns get their nutrients from filtering the water they swim in, and any noxious substances tend to get concentrated in their bodies as a consequence.  This would have made eating Erith caught shrimps a bit of a lottery regarding whether they would give you food poisoning or not; I guess that people’s constitutions were a bit more hardy back then; personally I would have avoided local shellfish just to be on the safe side. More on this later. Gilder ran a successful fishmongers shop on the river front at Erith, directly opposite the wooden jetty that is still there today. The shop was in business for many years between the wars, and was only demolished in 1937. Some years ago, Maggot Sandwich reader and local historian Ken Chamberlain sent me the photo of Gilder’s Fishmongers which you can see above. He told me that the Gilder family were heavily involved in trade in and around Erith for many years, and indeed several members of the family still live locally. I had commented on how William Gilder looked considerably younger in the photo that Ken had sent me back then, to which he responded that although there was a distinct family resemblance, it was possible that the figure in the doorway was not the same person as pictured in the fishing boat. Either way it is a real slice of Erith’s long and varied history. The more I consider the state of pollution of the River Thames before WWII, the more I am amazed not only that a successful fishing business could generate income from the murky waters, but that people were apparently not routinely poisoned. In addition to the aforementioned sewage outfall from Crossness, back before the war Erith Pier was frequented by heavy cargo freighters and ships that were judged as too large to navigate further upriver to the docks, or the Pool of London. The output sewage and waste oil into the river, along with leaving traces of chemicals from their anti fouling paint (which used to contain large amounts of poisonous tin or copper compounds to inhibit weed and barnacle growth on the hulls of ships). It is a wonder that anything managed to live in the Thames off Erith at all. The water nowadays is far cleaner than it has been for years – the reason it looks brown and murky is mainly due to the large levels of silt that is suspended in the water, rather than to high pollution levels. This is evidenced by the large number of seals that now inhabit the river in the local area; seals are top tier predators - they would not be in the Thames if all of the fish lower down the food chain were not present and very healthy. As I have mentioned in the past, Lemon Sole spawn in Anchor Bay and the area around Erith Pier. Dabs and Eels are also present in abundance.

A forty first birthday took place recently - a ground breaking cult comedy series that changed many things, and certainly influenced Sir Terry Pratchett and his much beloved Discworld novels; Back in 1978, the first episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. At the time no-one - least of all its creator Douglas Adams - would have known that the story of galactically - displaced nobody Arthur Dent would one day travel as far in the pop-cultural landscape as the book’s characters did across the universe. I got into Hitchhikers pretty early on - I recall that when I was at school, I could recite, word perfect, entire chunks of the first two books. In the years since in inception, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy has existed in almost every form imaginable - first a radio series, then a book, record albums (different to the radio versions), a television series, various stage productions, a computer game, a towel and a major motion picture - each one expanding on or compressing previous versions, using some aspects, flatly contradicting others and completely ignoring the rest. It has proven astonishingly prolific as a franchise, and that’s probably because its main thesis – that the universe is an idiosyncratic and absurd place as viewed from a human perspective – is one that cannot help but resonate with audiences across time and space.

Do you recall the Vidor brand of batteries? They used to be sold all over the place, especially in shops such as Woolworths. They were cheaper than Ever Ready or Duracell, and very popular, if not so long lasting. The brand Vidor was based in Erith, and they produced a range of consumer electronics in the years after the war; their battery production facilities were located in South Shields and Dundee, whilst their television and radio factory was in St Fidelis Road, off West Street, Erith. In 1934 T. N. Cole, managing director of the Lissen battery company, left that company sometime after it had been taken over by Ever-Ready; he purchased the Burndept radio company and set up the Vidor battery company, in direct competition with Lissen/Ever-Ready. Vidor's name came from the initials of Thomas's two daughters, Valerie and Denise, and his wife Rebecca. As a concession to Ever Ready and his agreement with the company, he did not run Burndept and Vidor himself, but employed Mr. R.P. Richardson as Managing Director. In 1935 Thomas brought an action appealing against the agreement with Ever Ready. An out of court settlement was made and from that time on, relations between Ever Ready and Vidor were strained, not helped by popularity of Vidor batteries with radio dealers because of their competitive prices, which were around twenty five percent cheaper than their rivals. In 1939 a Vidor portable radio shown at National Radio Exhibition. After World War II, between 1947 - 1958 Various models of radio were manufactured - you can see a video featuring the Vidor "My Lady Margaret" valve portable set by clicking here. The company appears to have been absorbed into several others in the late 60's / early 70's, and the battery making part of the business was sold to an Argentinian company, who as far as I can ascertain, still own the brand.

I had a bit of a real life Monty Python "Spam sketch" moment on Monday; I was on my way back from a meeting in the West End, and at lunchtime I reached Charing Cross station; feeling peckish, I broke my journey to go onto the station concourse in order to purchase some lunch. I rolled up at the  baguette shop, and had a look at what was on offer. Bacon and egg; ham and cheese, chicken and bacon; salami and salad. All the filled baguettes had one thing in common - they all contained some type of pork. I am pork intolerant, and have to avoid the meat or otherwise get a violent stomach upset. I asked the unkempt and spotty individual behind the counter (who bore a striking resemblance to Cletus the Slack Jawed Yokel from the Simpsons) if they had any other fillings available. He ummed and aahed for a few moments and said "We've got prosciutto rolls too" I explained that I wanted something without any pork - and had to tell him that bacon was actually a kind of pork, which was evidently news to him. He then said "We do have chicken royale with bacon - but it doesn't have much bacon in it". I gave up. You can contact me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association office is closed for the Christmas and New Year holiday, so this week there are no local safety and security reports from the various ward Safer Neighbourhood Police teams. Normal service will be resumed next week.

The end video this week is a blast from the recent past; it features the Erith Lighthouse, a pop - up restaurant and art studio that was located in Erith Riverside Gardens in the late summer of 2017. The events were organised by The Exchange - the arts and community not for profit group who took on the old Carnegie library in Walnut Tree Road, subsequently opening the excellent Bookstore Cafe in the basement of the historic building. Indeed, looking back one can see that the Lighthouse project was a prototype for the Bookstore Cafe. Many new and exciting events are planned for the near future by The Exchange. The Carnegie library and the Bookstore Cafe are currently closed for staff holidays, but they will re - open on the 15th of January. You can read more by clicking here.

The Erith Vigilante.

The photo above shows something that is currently an extremely common sight around the local area at the weekend; a rail replacement bus service. In this case the bus is seen travelling North, along Walnut Tree Road, and past the new Bexley College campus. The spire of Christ Church Erith can be seen in the background. The buses run on weekends when the train service is disrupted due to work on Crossrail between Abbey Wood and Plumstead, and also work at London Bridge to construct the new station there. This Christmas things are going to get worse for commuters. London Bridge station will be completely closed to Southeastern customers over a 10-day period. Those planning to travel to London between Christmas and New Year will also be blighted by station closures at Waterloo East, Charing Cross and Cannon Street. The four major stations are all shut between 6pm on Christmas Eve and 4am on Monday, January 4th. Local MP Teresa Pearce has had words about the situation to the News Shopper, which you can read here. All this is over and above the continuing Crossrail work previously mentioned. I am fortunate in that due to the nature of my job, I can work from home quite easily (and indeed do on a regular basis), but I know that many fellow commuters are not as fortunate as I. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

A very popular and much commented on story has appeared on the News Shopper website this week; it concerns the activities of what the paper calls the "Erith Vigilante". A young chap based in the town has contacted the paper, who have run with the story, which at the time of writing is one of the most read stories on the papers' website. There seems to be a degree of journalistic licence in the story - here is a quotation:- "An Erith vigilante is roaming the streets of south east London's estates, to help fight crime. 23-year-old Billy Andrews patrols Crayford, Dartford, Bexleyheath and Welling, as well as his own home town, collecting proof of illegal activities. Now, a-year-and-a-half on from beginning his courageous mission, the Lincoln Close resident is looking to recruit other fearless crime fighters. With more courageous citizens on patrol, he hopes to widen his remit and start snapping photos, videos, and reporting hotspots for drug dealing and other activities to the police". The piece is complete with multiple photos of the aforementioned Billy Andrews, along with details of where he lives. All very convenient for the local thugs and lawbreakers to find him I feel. The article goes on to say that Billy has applied to become a PCSO; I get the personal impression that he has contacted the News Shopper to try and enhance his chances of getting accepted as a PCSO. I don't think Billy can be aware that there is a very good chance that the whole PCSO role may be removed from the Metropolitan Police in their December financial review in order to save money. I have a friend who is a PCSO and know how hard this will affect the force if it does happen. 

Do you recall the Vidor brand of batteries? They used to be sold all over the place, especially in shops such as Woolworths. They were cheaper than Ever Ready or Duracell, and very popular, if not so long lasting. The brand Vidor was based in Erith, and they produced a range of consumer electronics in the years after the war; their battery production facilities were located in South Shields and Dundee, whilst their television and radio factory was in St Fidelis Road, off West Street, Erith. In 1934 T. N. Cole, managing director of the Lissen battery company, left that company sometime after it had been taken over by Ever-Ready; he purchased the Burndept radio company and set up the Vidor battery company, in direct competition with Lissen/Ever-Ready. Vidor's name came from the initials of Thomas's two daughters, Valerie and Denise, and his wife Rebecca. As a concession to Ever Ready and his agreement with the company, he did not run Burndept and Vidor himself, but employed Mr. R.P. Richardson as Managing Director. In 1935 Thomas brought an action appealing against the agreement with Ever Ready. An out of court settlement was made and from that time on, relations between Ever Ready and Vidor were strained, not helped by popularity of Vidor batteries with radio dealers because of their competitive prices, which were around twenty five percent cheaper than their rivals. In 1939 a Vidor portable radio shown at National Radio Exhibition. After World War II, between 1947 - 1958 Various models of radio were manufactured - you can see a video featuring the Vidor "My Lady Margaret" valve portable set by clicking here. The company appears to have been absorbed into several others in the late 60's / early 70's, and the battery making part of the business was sold to an Argentinian company, who as far as I can ascertain, still own the brand. 

Whilst carrying out some historical research on the Vidor article above for this edition of the Maggot Sandwich, I came across a story that sounded so over the top and outrageous that it had to be fiction; further investigation proved that in fact it was all completely true. The following account is a precis of the official account which was released by the CIA historical research team recently. Some details are still redacted, even though the events took place almost exactly fifty five years ago. On January 2, 1959, the Soviet Union kicked off its Luna programme, sometimes called Lunik by the Western media, with the launch of Luna 1. This first spacecraft missed the Moon, but the next hit the target and became the first spacecraft to impact the lunar surface in September of that year. A month later on October 7, Luna 3 returned history's first ever pictures of the Moon’s far side. It was a stunning year for the Soviets on the Moon, one in which the United States only racked up a handful of failed lunar missions. The effect, aside from a blow to U.S national morale, was a devastating effect on the American psyche. However exciting these missions were to space fans, they brought with them the terrifying reality that the enemy had bigger boosters and more advanced technology. The disparity between American technology and the perceived Soviet power led to an intelligence programme run by the CIA. By studying Soviet spacecraft and space missions, the agency hoped to not only anticipate launches and their impact on the public but also to adjust American launch schedules to better keep pace with the enemy. Even educated guesses about Soviets plans would help the United States know where to concentrate its efforts to hopefully overtake the Soviet Union in space. It would be useful for the US armed forces to have a handle on Soviet hardware to know what might give way to an offensive military spinoff. And this intelligence would also help American leaders be better prepared to respond to a new Soviet threat should one arise. Sometime between the end of 1959 and 1960, the Soviet Union toured several countries with an exhibit of its industrial and economic achievements. Among the artifacts were a Sputnik and a Lunik upper stage that contained the payload, the latter freshly painted with viewing windows cut into the nose. At first, many in the CIA assumed the touring Lunik was just a model, but some analysts suspected that the Soviets might be sufficiently proud of the spacecraft to bring a real one on the tour. These suspicions were confirmed when CIA intelligence agents managed to gain unrestricted access to the spacecraft one night after the exhibit closed. They realised it wasn’t a model. It was a real production article. The agents gleaned what they could in 24 hours but desperately wanted a better look. They wanted to get inside the Lunik.  This was easier said than done. The Lunik was heavily guarded, usually with a constant garrison so examining it before or after the exhibit closed was ruled out. But the Lunik did move around, which meant that it could be "borrowed" during the transport chain if there was a weak link. And there was. The spacecraft, as well as every other piece of the exhibit, was transported in a crate by a truck to a rail yard where it was loaded onto a train and moved to the next city. At the rail yard, a guard took note of each incoming crate. What this guard didn't have was a list of cargo and and expected delivery time for each crate. The CIA hatched a plan to steal the Lunik for a night and get it to the train station by morning for its journey to the next city. Finally the night came when the team of CIA agents put their plan into action. They arranged for the Lunik to be the last truckload carried out of the exhibit hall. It did, and trailing it were the CIA agents in plain clothes, disguised as locals looking out for an expected Soviet escort. But more Soviet guards never materialised. With the coast clear, the CIA stopped the truck at the last turn off before the train station, escorted the driver to a hotel, covered the truck with a tarpaulin, then drove it to a nearby salvage yard that was selected for the night because of its surrounding ten-foot tall walls. At the rail yard, the guard took stock of the incoming crates and left to go home when he assumed the last had arrived. More CIA agents tailed him for the night to make sure he didn’t go back to work early. Back at the salvage yard, the CIA team backed the truck into a narrow alley, closed a gate, then froze. They waited anxiously for a full half hour to be sure they hadn't been followed. Confident they hadn't been seen, they finally turned their attention to their charge. They had studied the crate and knew the sides were bolted together from the inside making the roof their only access point. Two men set to work removing the roof without leaving any marks on the wooden planks -- luckily the crate had been opened so many times the planks were already a little worse for wear -- while the other two prepared the photographic equipment. With the roof removed, the men saw that the Lunik took up almost the full space of the crate; they wouldn’t be able to walk from one end to the other. So they divided and conquered, two men working on the nose and two on the tail end. They descended in socks by rope ladders and started dismantling the Lunik by torchlight. They took a full roll of film of the marks on the spacecraft’s antenna and sent it out for processing the make sure the cameras were working. Happily, word came back the pictures were perfectly clear. The men at the tail end removed the base cap to study the engine area. Though the engine was gone, the mounting brackets, fuel tank, and oxidiser tank were still in place, giving the experts a sense of how big and powerful the engine was. At the nose end, the men discovered that a rod ran though the spacecraft to support the centrally loaded payload fixed in place at the front by a four-way electrical outlet acting as a nut screwed into the rod. This was covered by a piece of plastic with a Soviet seal. It was their only way in, but if the seal was missing the Soviet guards would know someone had tampered with the spacecraft. Refusing to be stymied by a piece of plastic, they checked with CIA personnel offsite that the seal could be duplicated in time to replace it. Their offsite colleagues said yes, giving them clearance to cut it off. The seal was sent out for duplication while the men began exploring Lunik’s insides. The small team worked through the night. As sunrise approached they began putting the Lunik back together, careful to leave no traces of tampering. They affixed the fake seal, put the cover back on the crate, and loaded the whole thing back onto the truck. The original driver was back at the helm by 5 o’clock in the morning and the truck was waiting at the rail yard for the guard when he came back to work at 7 o’clock in the morning. He unquestioningly added it to his list, and the Lunik went onto its next city with the rest of the exhibit. The CIA’s intimate look into the Lunik’s construction ultimately played a fairly important role. Knowing Lunik's dry weight and true size allowed experts to determine its wet weight, which was invaluable for the agents who tracking subsequent launches. With this major variable known, experts could extrapolate the true power of the booster that launched this spacecraft. And this in turn allowed Americans experts to work backwards to determine the Soviets’ true capability with their existing hardware, and more importantly determine the payload limits of their existing technology. Kidnapping the Lunik helped the United States determine what the Soviets couldn't do without a massive technological breakthrough, information that helped the national leadership and heads at NASA set goals and shape timelines that would help the Americans match and ultimately overtake the Soviet Union in space. Definitely a story of its time; I am just astounded that the Soviets did not realise that their prized spacecraft had been kidnapped. A definite case of truth proving to be far stranger than any fiction. 

The video above was shot last year, in and around Thamesmead and Lower Belvedere. it shows a large number of the infamous Bike Life TV UK gang undertaking all sorts of criminal activity on public roads. It staggers me that they are arrogant enough to publish evidence of their continued wrongdoing online for anyone to see. If you watch the video, you will see that most of the bikes and quads do not have number plates, and the riders wear bandannas or full face balaclava helmets to disguise their identities - it is patently obvious that the perpetrators are fully aware of what they are doing is wrong. Thamesmead, Lower Belvedere and parts of both Erith and Slade Green have suffered with periodic visits from these yobs for a while now. The Police and Neighbourhood Watch are heavily involved in cracking down on these people - many of whom already have long criminal records for offences ranging from car and bike theft to drug prosecutions. I know some locals will say "oh well, they are just having fun and not hurting anyone" - WRONG. Two members of Bike Life TV UK have already been killed in accidents caused by high speed illegal riding, and unless they are stopped, it is only a matter of time before an innocent member of the public is similarly killed. Besides which, why should these crooks be allowed to get away with it? Many of the bikes they ride are stolen from law abiding bikers (whose good reputation is sullied by the bad behaviour of the gang), most have not got tax, insurance or registration documents, let alone a bike licence, and many of them don't wear helmets - a blatant breach of the law. Hopefully the current crackdown will ease the situation - the more of these illegal bikes that are confiscated, crushed and turned into the next generation of baked bean cans the better. The recent Police report on the North End Safer Neighbourhoods cluster included the following observations:- "In September we have been targeting a troublesome family which are suspected of being involved in a lot of theft offences on the ward. This has led to an eviction process which we hope will be completed In November. This example of partnership working will show to the community that we will take any action against those who make the borough unsafe. We continue to work on our ward promise of tackling off road bikes. We have patrolled both in plain clothes and in uniform to tackle the issue. As previously stated Operation Spittle continues and over 21 warnings have been given to riders. We continue to work with the council and landowners to stop this.  We continue to patrol our open spaces and our streets to prevent criminal damage. We have seen a decrease in criminal damage from 7 offences in July to 3 in September. We will continue this work to prevent as much of this crime as we can. We have been working with the LFB to patrol for fires, the number of these incidents have reduced as a result". Comments below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

It is fairly well known that late former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her husband Denis had close local links with Erith. Denis owned the Atlas Paint and Chemical (formerly Atlas Preservative co.) works that used to be on the site of the retail park in Fraser Road until the early 1980's. What is not so well known is that Margaret (then in her maiden name of Roberts) made an early speech to the Erith Conservative Women's group located in the Carlton Hall, Northumberland Heath in June 1949. The speech was documented by the Erith Chronicle newspaper (which was later incorporated into the Kentish Independent). I have come across the article, dated the 17th June 1949, and here are a few excerpts:- "DARTFORD'S WOMAN CANDIDATE MEETS THE LADIES. Miss Margaret Roberts, prospective Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Dartford constituency (of which Erith is a part) has had little chance since she was adopted to meet her supporters, because she has been working as a research chemist at Manningtree, and living at Colchester. She has now taken a new job in London, and will live at Dartford. This will vastly reduce travelling, and will enable her to attend more evening meetings, as she will be near her home. Between her two jobs Miss Roberts has had a short holiday, and has been able to meet Tory women at afternoon meetings. On Thursday, last week, she received an enthusiastic reception when she addressed as women's rally at the Carlton Hall, Erith, organized by the Women's Advisory Council of Kent Conservative Association (Dartford Division). In the chair was Mrs. D. M. Fletcher (chairman, Advisory Council), Mrs. A. C. Garrett and Mrs. A. Jenns (both vice-chairmen of the Council) and Mrs. Young (chairman, North Heath Women's Branch). More than 250 women were present. Women's inherent knowledge of human relationships was one of the subjects of Miss Roberts' talk. "Women have a special bent as technicians in human relationships," she said, "and we have come to understand the human aspect of our problems. The problems we face today are not only ones of raw materials and money, but problems concerning human beings in our factories—problems of how to fit people in the jobs they want to do, so they can give their best." She continued: "Perhaps one of the greatest problems women face today is the difficulty of getting enough food (Cries of "hear, hear.") There is a whispering—in fact, a shouting campaign in operation—that if the Tories get back they will take off all the controls, but this is untrue. It was the Tories who introduced the finest food rationing system during the war. The only difference was that we got more food then. Meat, a question in the minds of all housewives at the moment, was another topic which was dealt with by Miss Roberts. Industrial production, she said, would be much greater if the workers could get more meat. She complained of the low production of home-produced beef, and sharply criticized the Government's delay in importing cattle feeding stuffs. "Pig production during 1948 was only half that of 1945. I cannot think that that would have happened if we had a competent Minister of Food," she said. "The Dominions are very loyally coming to our rescue. Australia is planning to increase her meat production; South Africa is embarking on large development schemes, but those schemes all take some time for fruition. Canada has got a large production of things we need, but the Canadians say that instead of trading with them Britain is trading with Russia and countries behind the ‘iron curtain.’ We (the Conservatives) think our first duty is to stand behind the Empire. In 1948 pig production was not only lower than before the war, but was indeed 55 per cent. lower than in 1945, declared Miss Roberts. It had, then, fallen by almost half in three years. Development schemes and other methods to increase the meat supplies to this country were being explored in the Dominions. The Dominions had stood by the Mother Country during the war, and were coming to Britain's aid again. Questions on women's problems were answered by Miss Roberts who was thanked by Mrs. Garrett and Mrs. Jenns. An invitation to women to join the association was given by Mrs. Fletcher". Definitely a speech which was designed to appeal to a female audience - at that time most women were homemakers once married, which then was very much the norm. I get the impression that she had probably given the same address to other groups who were somewhat more rurally - based, judging by the strong farming content, but I may be wrong.

Word reaches the Maggot Sandwich that finally the owners of the former White Hart pub / Potion Bar are submitting a planning application to return the front of the currently boarded up building to a semblance of its former self. An achitects drawing was created back in 2011 (see above - click on it for a larger view) when Bexley Council Planning Department took the then owners of Potion Bar to court for illegally removing the historic green salt glazed tiles and acid etched Victorian glass frontage of the Grade II listed building and replacing it with a hideous and anachronistic plate glass frontage so that the early Victorian building looked like a car showroom. Whilst the perpetrators were prosecuted and fined, to the best of my knowledge they did not pay up, and instead wound up the business and disappeared. The building has been empty and boarded up since. There have been plenty of (thus far unsubstantiated) rumours about the future of the building, but the source of the story of the replica frontage installation application is extremely reliable and reputable. Watch this space for more news as it comes in. 

Bexley has been named one of the ‘least prosperous’ areas of Britain in a new report released last Tuesday. The report - called the ‘Geography of Prosperity’ was created by international think tank the Legatum Institute. The Bexley Times writes that the London based organisation used data drawn from the Office of National Statistics to come up with the table of the most, and least prosperous areas in the UK. Bexley was in the bottom 10 of the table which examined 170 different areas of Britain. The results were based on measuring the average income per person alongside how ‘happy’ they feel. Bexley sank to 162 in the country out of the total 170 places looked at. Disappointing to say the least.

The end video this week is a brand new film released by the RSGB (Radio Society of Great Britain). It is designed to explain and promote the technical hobby of Amateur Radio to potential new members, and specifically the young. Let me know what you think.