“It’s not a pitch but a stadium they are building in Dulwich”
The article last week ‘Don’t build new pitch on our fields – campaigners slam Hamlet plans’ (Southwark News, March 10, 2016) contained an inaccuracy.
Hadley Property Group (HPG) is not proposing simply to build a pitch, but to build a stadium, complete with terraces and a surrounding high wall, on what is Metropolitan Open Land – a designation as strong as Green Belt in planning terms.
We the Friends of Green Dale oppose HPG’s plans for the stadium and Southwark Council’s plans for the rest of the site, and we will work to preserve the unique green space of Green Dale for wildlife and the local community.
Friends of Green Dale have been good neighbours of Dulwich Hamlet FC for years, many of our members are fans and we wholeheartedly support calls for a secure and sustainable future for DHFC. We would like to see much more detail on this aspect of the plans.
Friends of Green Dale have worked with HPG on issues concerning the Green Dale fields’ day-to-day management over the last two years, and we have been happy to have hugely tidied up the site, confirm public access and create a space which is now used and loved by schools and local people. We intend to continue a constructive relationship with HPG with regard to their management of Green Dale, while at the same time strongly opposing the plans for a new stadium.
Ultimately, we hope that the long-term futures of both the football club and Green Dale fields can be secured without endangering one or the other. The current plans do not do this.
Guy Haslam, Friends of Green Dale, www.friendsofgreendale.org.uk
“Help with my book as councillor, leader and mayor of Southwark”
After living in Southwark for over forty years, twenty eight as a Southwark councillor, my wife and I have moved out of the borough to the rural village of Godstone in Surrey.
We both are very sorry to have to leave the borough, but we are both not as nimble as we used to be, while my arthritis has made stairs difficult to climb – so we have bought a bungalow in this lovely village.
During my time as councillor I had the privilege for over twenty four years of representing the people of Camberwell on the council and would like to thank all the people and organisations in Camberwell for their friendship and help over those years. There are too many to mention individually, but to you all many thanks and both Iris and I will always have Camberwell close to our hearts.
I also had the privilege whilst being a member of the council of being Chairman of Housing, Leader of the Council and from the time of the abolition of the GLC to the creation Mayor of London I was the council’s representative on the London Fire & Civil Defence authority and its leader from 1990 – 2000. It was an honour to be able to represent the people of Southwark in these positions as well as being the borough’s mayor in 1989-90. To all people in the borough whom I came into contact with I would like to thank them all for their help and to many for their friendship.
I am thinking of writing a book of my experiences as a member of Southwark Council and to anyone who thinks that there is anything that they think could help or who would just like to keep in touch I can be contacted at tony.ritchie@btinternet.com
“Tony Ritchie, former leader of Southwark Council”
When, Mayor, will you consider this?
I was wondering if any of the mayoral candiates would change London Buses from being a mobile bill board to a better transport system.
I have lived in London for 40 years and only know a handful of bus routes. When I look at a London bus I see a destination on the front which is of little use, unless I wanted to go there. I could think of many different routes it could take to get there.
Why don’t London buses stop having an advert along the side and the bus route as they do in Brighton. One is able to catch a bus as you can see where it is going.
If you agree with this, wouldn’t it be a grand idea to introduce it on some routes to see if it was beneficial to London?
Andy Hind, Rotherhithe – on the 381 bus route.
“Are you descended from Leather Workers?”
I wonder if your newspaper would be willing to help me in my search for a line of my ancestors that moved from the Devonshire village of Bow as part of a considerable migration of men and their families to work in the Bermondsey Leather Market some 150 years ago.
Indeed, the Bermondsey censuses between 1851 and 1871 show over 40 leatherworkers with the Devonshire village of Bow as their birthplace.
My Great, Great Grandfather, William Waldron, was born in the village of Bow and married there in 1854 moving with his wife and three children to Kennford just south of Exeter sometime between the 1861 and 1871 censuses.
I know that a John Waldron was baptised in Exeter in 1812, moved with his parents to Bow where they had two more sons. John then married and raised his own family in Bow. In fact, his is the only Waldron Family in the Bow area on the 1841 and 1851 Devonshire censuses and was very probably related to my Great, Great Grandfather. John Waldron and his wider family including two Son-In-Laws then appear as Tanners in Bermondsey censuses from 1861 onwards. John died in Bermondsey in 1881.
If any of your readers are descended from the Leather Workers that moved from Bow (in Devon) to live and work in Bermondsey, especially anyone descended from John Waldron (1812 – 1881), I would be delighted to hear from them.
Les Waldron, 6 Fairlea Road, Dawlish, Devon EX7 0LR, Tel 01626-862926, e-mail leswaldron2@btinternet.com
“I am desperately seeking Yvonne”
My name is Cathy Daly (nee O’Donohoe). I live in Dublin now but I used to live in London in the 1980s. I worked with a girl as a secretary (we shared an office) called Yvonne Cohen for Gleeds, Quantity Surveyors in Regent Street.
This was back in 1988. I remember she had a son called Simon who was about five or six at the time.
I only stayed there about nine months and I lost touch with her. This was before mobile phones and Facebook!
I remember her telling me that she lived near Elephant and Castle.
I would love to get back in touch with her again as we got on very well back then.
She can get in touch with me through my email cathydaly63@gmail.com.
Cathy Daly, via email