Wansteadium

Nice Croissant – billed as Wanstead’s longest running cafe at 25 years – has changed hands and is to undergo a refurbishment. Kerrie Dainty, above, who has owned the high street cafe for the past 15 years has sold the business to pastry chef Fabien Ecuvillon. The pair have been talking about the potential deal for the past three years but it became a done deal on Thursday, marked by a surprise party of regular customers.

One development which will be widely welcomed among Wanstead foodies is that Fabien is to install a bread oven and is to start baking his own artisanal loaves.

Kerrie said: “I feel very much part of the community and the furniture. I am very much at home here at Nice Croissant and in the Wanstead area. Leaving makes me very sad; it has felt like the sitcom ‘Cheers’, everyone knows everyone, and we all greet each other by name. But I am also optimistic for the future. I have very much enjoyed running my own business and watching the area change. Nice Croissant is one of the founding businesses in Wanstead. It was the first cafe to have outside seating, which we instigated in 1990. It was a rare sight in those days. Ahead of the times: we are now one of many.

“I very much enjoyed the French Market that came to town about 10 years ago. I helped organise it and it coincided with the European Car Free Day, which meant the High Street was completely closed off to traffic. It was a huge success, 6000 people turned up for this event. Over the years this has evolved into the Wanstead Festival. I love having the photographs on the walls of the cafe: they are of friends and colleagues past and present, taken at Christmas time. I particularly love it when those in the photos come back years later with their children. My long term customers have brought their children in over the years and watching these children blossom into young adults and then come and work here makes the place feel more and more like working within one big family.

She said she was optimistic about the cafe’s future: “I think it will be really positive. Fabien is a well experienced Pastry Chef with youth on his side and great enthusiasm for having his own business. We have known each other as friends and as work colleagues for five years now and I am so pleased to have him take up the challenge. Naturally, these are difficult times, but his energy, expertise and skill will take him forward.

Fabien, who lives in Stratford, says he loves the area – particularly Epping Forest – and is looking forward to becoming part of the Wanstead community. “My team and I can’t wait to introduce everyone to some new ideas and dishes. Baking is my passion, I’ve trained and baked in many different places over the years and I’m thrilled to finally have my own cafe. I have so many ideaeas and things I’d like to try, but it will take time. I especially enjoy English pastries and puddings. so you can look forward to some traditional English food.”

Our man looking forward to a week on Thursday writes that the Nutter Lane cricket ground has been graced with the presence of international players. He writes:

The Herons heaved over the line, but only just, in the 1st XI game away at Chingford, thanks to a half-century from Maurice Chambers and a scrambled leg-bye off the last ball of the game. While this was happening the 2nd team scraped a draw, but only just, at Overton Drive.

Fives and Heronians 3rds were severely depleted and could not put up much resistance against a keen and young Herons 3rd team. Dev Patel hit a weighty eighty as the 4th XI came away easy winners against Hornchurch.

There were similarly untroubled wins for the 5th and 6th teams, 7 wickets for Simran Dhingra-Smith being the outstanding feature in the latter fixture.

On Sunday the Heronettes entertained Harrow Town, who included in their XI two excellent international players from China. The difference in class between this pair and most of the other cricketers was clear, and the result was in complete concordance.

More details and pictures at the Wanstead and Snaresbrook Cricket Club website.

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.