Wansteadium

Our new guestblogger, Mr R Newbie (not his real name) is about to move with his family into Wanstead. He writes:

We were so delighted to bump into the cheerful Wansteadium on the interweb, that Mrs Newbie and I were invited to share a few thoughts about our forthcoming and long-hoped-for relocation into the area.

The good name of Wanstead is very prominent in our family at the moment. So current is the name, in fact, that we are even singing about it over the washing up – so you can tell we are excited.

“I Wanstead break free…”

After 20 years in central London we want the big skies, the open spaces and the time to stop and chat, both for us and for the younger Newbies – and the dog, of course (it’s really all about the dog).

Now, it is true that moving house is as stressful as anything you like – and so is getting older which sometimes comes with getting ill – but it helps a lot that we do have some deep history here. In fact, Wanstead still seems to carry something of my late grandfather’s old-fashioned stoicism and grace, reminding us to remain cheerful and uncomplaining.

My grandfather Sidney Francis Fish lived here in Leicester Road with his family from the 1930s. Born in 1912, he grew up one of seven poor kids packed in to a small terraced house in Stepney – their father worked as a “tramway conductor”. He left school at the age of 16 to get a job as a bank clerk, but meanwhile continued to study at night school, trying to get on. He told us that when the family moved to what he called Wanstead’s “leafy purlieus”, it was a definite move up in the world – as you can probably see in the group photograph, serious though the year was. (Standing top right is my grandfather Francis, and sitting in front of him my lovely grandmother, Scottie. Sitting on Granny Fish’s knee at the centre, is my mother.)

“We could be anything that we Wanstead to be…”

Francis served in the war in France and at home, escaping with only slight injury – but it was suffered, I’m afraid to say, in Wanstead. Going to his post at Whipps Cross Hospital one dark blackout night, he freewheeled his bicycle down the drive – and went smack into the hospital gates, not seeing that they were closed. His glasses shattered, and lent him the permanant company of a small piece of glass in one eye. But never complained (I only found out about it recently) and it did not stop him studying dentistry and finding his way eventually to research and a professorship at the London Hospital on the Mile End Road.

“Wanstead, over the rainbow, there’s a land that Ive heard of once, in a lullaby”

His kindly ghost is still very much with us: forgive us, please dear Wansteadians for our awful bits of song. In due course we hope to give back something of what the place has given to us, via our patient and wise professor.

Perhaps we can start by sharing, over the next few months, what it’s like to be a newbie in Wanstead. Already we find when we visit that everyone we ask says they love living in Wanstead, and that it’s a community where everyone knows everyone – one of those best-kept-secrets.

Our longed-for move is pencilled in for 31 July… and we can’t wait for early morning walks in the Park and on the Green (and picking up some of the litter?), or choosing meat for supper in the butcher’s, and enjoying a beer in the Nightingale. So look out for us and say hello, we will be carrying handfuls of litter, walking a small scruffy black dog, singing silly songs (and wearing a red carnation). Next time, I hope to write about the first strange few days in a new home and a new place.

“I’d like to be / under the sea / in a Wan-stead-i-an garden / in the shade”

Our man with Wisden under his bed reports the very jolly news that Anjali Bamrah, who was captain of the Wanstead women’s team until last year and is the club physio, has been appointed to tend to the touring Pakistan women’s team later in the summer. Congratulations to her.

Meanwhile, he writes:

The performance of the week came from the 3rd XI at Chelmsford, in particular Mehad Khan, who overcame the weather and dilatory opposition tactics to score the winning runs in double (nearly) quick time.

At home against that club, Wanstead’s 4th team forced victory in a low scoring game.

Youngsters Finlay Chesney-Brown and Naail Dar, with ball and bat respectively, put in winning performances for the 5s against Pegasus, but the 6s drew at Shenfield because their bowling was not as strong as their batting, Victor Mestre continuing his run of form.

Shenfield drew their game against the Herons’ 2nd XI but must have given them quite a fright by nearly winning despite good batting by the cousins Velani.

Joe Ellis-Grewal’s fine bowling was nowhere near enough to prevent the 1st XI receiving a thumping from Shenfield on Saturday. The team can barely have licked those wounds before receiving further injury when being knocked out of the National Cup by Waltham CC.

Please use this page – comments below – for discussion of Fringe planning.

Who knows what reason there is for the Evergreen Field to be blacked out with head-height black plastic sheeting?

Before the installation of the sheets on Friday, the last developments on the field had been apparently put up for sale by its current owners. This followed the approval by Redbridge Council for the Wanstead Society’s plan for the site to be dedicated to community usage (and not flats).

In February of this year the current owner, Dalbir Singh Sanger, told the Wanstead Guardian that he did not approve of the land being called Evergreen Field. “There is no benefit to anyone by calling it Evergreen Field. It is just an empty field,” he said. “It’s like someone coming round to your house and renaming it. We don’t want it called Evergreen Field, because it’s not even green.”

A house which was knocked down on the land in the 1960s was called Evergreen Lodge, and the name became popular in the 1990s after the land was sold by the Metropolitan Police.

If you’re wondering if the screens are hiding something, a quick walk up into the park reveals that there’s nothing actually going on there. So all theories are welcome, either in the comments below or on WansteadTalk.com.