Wansteadium

Thank you for all your nominations for the Wanstead Lockdown Awards. We are proud to present the following, and on behalf of all readers and the Wanstead Society express our appreciation to all those who are named – and others who remain nameless but whose service has helped in this difficult period.

We’ve been overwhelmed by the number of nominations for the Wanstead Lockdown Awards, a scheme to say thank you to all those who have gone out of their way in service of the community which we are running jointly with the Wanstead Society. 

So we’ve extended the deadline slightly – please have all nominations submitted here by the end of Sunday. Announcements early next week. 

Nobody will be surprised by this announcement from the organisers of the Wanstead Fringe:

2020 is a year like no other, and inevitably that means the Wanstead Fringe just isn’t going to be possible. So, like Glastonbury, we’re thinking of this as a fallow year and hope to be back in 2021, bigger and better than ever.

Having said that, we are cherishing the glimmer of a faint hope that one single special event might be feasible… we’ll be sure to let everyone know if it’s going to happen.

Thanks to all our supporters, participants, sponsors and volunteers over the past seven years. Here’s hoping we can do it all again in September 2021.

The Wanstead Fringe Association

Now that life is gradually getting back to normal, we thought it was time to mark the excellent Wanstead folk who have made an outstanding contribution to community life over the past three months.

So Wansteadium and our friends at the Wanstead Society are inviting you to nominate individuals or groups who have gone the extra mile to look out for their fellow citizens or who have helped the community in imaginative or thoughtful ways.

We will announce the winners next week – so please make your nominations below.  Please tell us why you are nominating someone – describing the contribution they have made. 

As nearly everything around it has changed, Percy Ingles has been a faithful but unglamorous presence on Wanstead High Street, as on so many others. But no more – the twin pummelling of high street woes and lockdown have done for the chain and all branches are to close.

The fancy rebranding , left, would have fitted in right alongside the Ginger Pig and Harvey’s but alas is it not to be. Farewell Percy Ingles, thanks for all the bread and thanks to those who have served the Wanstead community there. Good luck to all for what comes next.

Wanstead resident Chris O’Donnell, whose non-lockdown occupation involves taking people on tours of London, has spent his time usefully by taking people on virtual Zoom tours of Wanstead instead.

The tours – the last one of which takes place on Monday evening – shows some of the more interesting aspects of Wanstead history and environment, including the Park, St Mary’s, the George, Tarzy Wood, Nutter Lane and other favourite spots.

“I never really fully appreciated the incredible history, architecture and stories that are alive here,” he says. So after some research he put together the tour which has been receiving rave reviews. One Wansteadium reader said that a relative who has lived in Wanstead for 70 years found out lots of things that they had never known.

Tickets are £5 per household, which goes to help the Foodbank collection. You can get on to the tour by emailing Chris  at cod@hipstours.com. It starts at 8pm and there are already 100 people taking part.