TASK Newsletter 20

The Library returns...

Without doubt, the week’s headline news is the re/opening of a library in Seven Kings, 18 years after the closure of its Carnegie predecessor, now Ilford Preparatory School. It is located at 679 High Road- between Costcutter and Asha Jewellers.

The sun shone for the formal opening on Monday, with the ribbon cut by Council leader Cllr Keith Prince, cabinet member for leisure councillor Cllr Suzanne Nolan and our own Ali Hai, who bought along the original petition of over 3,000 names and reminded us all that its return was entirely attributable to the determination of local people to reclaim this facility.

First week user figures are looking good, with a reported 240 visitors in the first two days, giving us a figure that rivals a typical week’s throughput at Clayhall Library.

And that is not all. The library is open unusual hours, as befits its location here in Seven Kings, offering residents the first ever taste of Sunday opening from 1000-1400.

If you have not popped in already, please do so. If you are not yet a member, please join. And remember, basic services- including PC hire- are entirely free.

Seven Kings Lorry park

Our last update included reference to a planning application lodged for the lorry park, which we have followed up. This is from the borough itself for a temporary school site, for the John Barker Centre- a pupil referral unit for students excluded from mainstream education. The facility is currently based in portkabins at the edge of Cricklefields Sport Ground, half a mile away, and we are told the aim is to decant them for two years.

TASK is concerned at any challenge to the local preference for long term community use, and will be studying the plans carefully, having secured an extension to the consultation. We will also be picking this up at our TASK monthly supporters session on Monday August 2 from 7-8pm at St.John’s Church.

Monthly meeting

This is a new initiative designed to help involve more supporters get involved planning and moving forward our campaign activity. It is very informal, and particularly welcomes new faces. Our focus this month will be on agreeing goals for this autumn, and taking up an offer from the police to get involved in our local Seven Kings police panel.

Area Committee 5

Some of us attended area committee 5 on Monday 26 July, at which we:

• advocated tighter regulation of the local rented market, with clear landlord contacts for tenants and neighbours concerned about aspects of that renting;
• heard a brilliant presentation from our friends in the Seven Kings and Newbury Residents’ Association, feeding back on a recent walkabout project designed to improve the appeal of the local environment. It came with lots of good, simple ideas like introducing street art in dull walled areas, planting a community garden at St.Johns’s and working with residents to tidy up the often neglected gardens on Aldborough Road South;
• agreed to do some more work on protecting the character of Edwardian properties near Goodmayes Park by way of declaring it a ‘residential village’.

Community Festival: Sunday September 26

This will be our second Council sponsored community festival, held on the Barley Lane Recreation Ground, opposite TESCO. It runs from 12 noon until 4pm and will include information stalls, kids’ activities, food and live music, with an art exhibition happening in the neighbouring St.Paul’s Church.

TASK will be taking a stall to spread the word about us, and to sign up even more supporters, but we need volunteers to staff it so do please offer us an hour of your time on a fun day out. Email Chris on chrisconnelley@ntlworld.com please with offers.

That is it for now. More mid- month. Enjoy the sun.

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Aretha Franklin - Spirit in the Dark.

Remembering Alan Plater

Am currently watching The Last of the Blonde Bombshells which precedes an Alan Plater tribute on BBC Four. In it the Judi Dench character asks, "What is the best way of honouring the dead?" to which her grand-daughter replies, "That's easy, to go on living."

The Guardian's obituary summed up Plater's significance and character succinctly:

"Alan Plater, who has died of cancer aged 75, was one of a handful of writers, including Jack Rosenthal, Dennis Potter and Simon Gray, who truly made a difference on British television in the golden age of comedy, drama series and the single play. Like the other two Alans – Bennett and Bleasdale – his name guaranteed a quality of humour, heart and humanity, usually matched by high standards of acting and production values. And like them, he was definitely "northern"."

BBC Four say:

"Spanning four decades, writer Alan Plater's work has been described as a meeting of Coronation Street and Chekhov. With his spare dialogue and irreverent attitude, Plater helped introduce an entirely new voice to the world of television drama.

He is perhaps best known for the Beiderbecke Trilogy but has written in all forms and is especially known for his radio, stage and television work and also for his passion for jazz. The principles of jazz are at the very heart of the man and his writing."

Home Cinema has an excellent review of Plater's "gentle, whimsical and very British" classic comedy series The Beiderbecke Trilogy, which is where I first encountered Plater. The dialogue - "Are you eating, boy? You should know by now that eating is forbidden. That's why we supply school dinners"  - is particularly sharp in a comedy thriller where there are a couple of brisk walks and a car chase, at slightly less than the speed limit, around a roundabout several times.


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Bix Beiderbecke - I'm Wondering Who.

"... hearts and hands and voices ..."

"... hearts and hands and voices ..." Spirituality, Creativity and The Arts is the title for this year's Exploring Spirituality Day in the Diocese of St Albans to be held on Saturday 23rd October at St Andrew's Bedford.

As the publicity for the event explains, we are surrounded by music and image, and our everyday lives are permeated with words - both spoken and written. Creativity - our own and that of others - fills the space around us all the time. So, this year’s Exploring Spirituality Day, offers space and time to explore and ponder and wonder at all that surrounds us and all that fills us - calling us to respond with hearts and hands and voices.

You may recognise the phrase which forms the title of this year’s Exploring Spirituality Day from the hymn, Now thank we all our God, written by Martin Rinkart and translated by Katherine Winkworth. It is a wonderful hymn that recognises God’s wondrous works, calls us to praise His name, and prays for God to be with us through life in all its various ways.

The organiser's hope that the Workshops on this day will provide space to find new ways of exploring the Creative Arts and how we might pray and worship with and through them. Looking across the range of the Creative Arts, at the end of the day, they want people to go away with tools for the journey that will inform and enhance the spiritual journey - the journey with God.

Doctor Nicholas Cranfield is the keynote speaker. Nicholas is a parish priest in South East London (Diocese of Southwark) and for the past fifteen years he has contributed regular art reviews to the Church Times and led gallery tours and exhibition visits. He is a member of the Southwark Diocesan Advisory Committee for the care of churches (DAC) and is currently Hon Secretary of the British Section of the UNESCO body the International Association of Art Critics (AICA UK). He is writing a book on Roman Art from 1600 to 1610.

As last year, I will be leading one of the workshops. This year, my theme will be Writing the blues: The Psalms for our own age. The Psalms have been, through the years, the ‘back bone’ of Christian worship: many hymns and prayers call upon their imagery and language. How might we respond to them today and, more importantly, how might we create our own?

Other workshops are: What can you see? What does Jesus show us? - led by Nicholas Cranfield; Touch me and see: An invitation to prayer using all our senses - led by Ruth Pyke; To be in your presence: Movement to speak the presence of God - led by Carole Selby; Sing your heart out: Singing the passion and emotion of faith - led by Deborah Snowball; and Images or Idols: Exploring the use of images in worship - led by David Ridgeway.

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Leon Russell, Willie Nelson, Maria Muldaur & Bonnie Raitt - Trouble In Mind.

c4m webpage update (44)

It's been some time since the last c4m webpage update so quite a few new posts have been added to the commission4mission webpage in that time. Several posts concerned the commission dedication and networking afternoon held at St Paul's Goodmayes with the final post containing photographs from the event and of Henry Shelton's Stations of the Crown of Thorns. Exhibitions by Sergiy Shkanov, Caroline Richardson and Michael Creasey have also been highlighted with photographs of the Shkanov exhibition at St Andrew's Leytonstone also featuring in the most recent post. A profile of our newest member, Robert Enoch, has also been posted to the site. Finally, Go Well, Be Well was an exciting collaborative project involving Ally Clarke and bottled water for the Camberwell Arts Week.

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Arcade Fire - The Suburbs.  

Windows on the world (113)

London, 2010

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Tom Jones - Strange Things.

7 links challenge

Philip Ritchie tagged me with the 7 links challenge:

1. Your first post – Glory Days was a meditation on the song of the same name by Just Jack.

2. A post you enjoyed writing the most – I've most enjoyed doing the Windows on the World series because I've enjoyed taking the photos and having a focus for my photography. Here is the 100th Windows on the World post.

3. A post which had a great discussion – The series of posts which generated the most interesting and continuing discussion was The Bible - Open or Closed? where Philip Ritchie and I had an ongoing discussion about the nature of scripture. The first post in the series is here. The single post that generated the most discussion was my second post about the Holy Spirit in the World Today conference.

4. A post on someone else's blog that you wish you'd written – This is hard as there is so much that is interesting which is being written. Posts that have been influential have included Sam Norton on Peak Oil and Peter Banks on music but the one post that I want to highlight is Some thoughts about the shape of the church to come... by Paul Trathen, simply because I agree with all that he writes in it.

5. A post with a title that you are proud of – The value of pointlessness which highlighted a quote from Armando Iannuci about spirituality.

6. A post that you wish more people had read – My short story A Disappearance, which I rate both as a story and in terms of its conceit; that fast living literally wears out your body. The four posts are here, here, here and here.

7. Your most visited post ever – New Church Art Trail has had the most visits. Encouraging that a recent post has been getting the most attention.

Here's an addition to the list:

8. Your most serendipitous post - Annie & Bernard Walke - I posted about this artist & priest couple at the same point that Paul Trathen was reading Bernard Walke's autobiography and posting about it on facebook.

I tag Tim Goodbody and Paul Trathen.

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Bob Dylan - Saved.

New Church Art Trail (4)

The 'Woman of Samaria' by Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones

The organ at St Peter's Aldborough Hatch

Altar frontal made by Revd. Eric Pickles

'Et Alias Oves Hab Eo' by Anthony Foster

'Crucifixion' by A. Wyatt

Walk participants at St Peter's Aldborough Hatch

Today we held a first guided walk along the new Church Art Trail. Here is how one participant described the event:

"The Art Trail Walk, widely advertised in the local press and the August BROADSHEET, took place last Wednesday afternoon. Starting at St. Peter's and moving on to St. John's, St. Paul's and All Saints, those undertaking the trail saw some superb examples of stained and etched glass, sculptures and paintings in both traditional and contemporary styles.

A lively and helpful commentary was provided at each church, co-ordinated by the Rev Jonathan Evens, Vicar of St. John's.

At one stage some ten people were taking part – a disappointing number in many ways, but it was a hot afternoon and whilst walking is a problem for some, buses could be taken for part of the route (one old fellow rode on four buses in all!)."

As part of the walk, we were able to inspect the churchyard sculpture at St Peter's Aldborough Hatch and discovered the sculptor's name. Online research revealed the following information which was new to those at the church:

The sculpture of the Woman of Samaria was installed at the West End of the Churchyard in the early 1960s. It bears the inscription ‘Springing up into eternal life (John IV – XIV)’ and the name Rose Jacobs (1882 – 1961). The sculpture is the work of Aberdeen-born artist Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones FRBS, ARCA (1908-1969).

Huxley-Jones was a sculptor in a variety of materials who studied at Wolverhampton School of Art under Robert Emerson, 1924-9, and at the Royal College of Art, 1929-33, under Richard Garbe and Gilbert Ledward. He was married to the sculptor Gwyneth Holt. He exhibited RA, NEAC, RSA, SSA and RBSA. Huxley-Jones' sculpture is generally smooth and simple in profile, as depicted in Arthur T Broadbent's monograph Sculpture Today in Great Britain 1940-43, and in Eric Newton's companion volume British Sculpture 1944-46. Huxley-Jones completed a large volume of public work, at the BBC Television Centre, London, in Chelmsford Cathedral, outside Hornsey Library and in London's Hyde Park. Aberdeen and Wolverhampton Art Galleries hold his work.

Other works by Huxley - Jones include the fountain and gilded figure of Helios, the sun god of Greek mythology, located in the central courtyard of BBC Television Centre in London. Sea Fantasy in Aberdeen is a bronze sculpture of two dancing figures at the centre of a water pool. He also cast a bronze sculpture of David Livingston, the African explorer, which stands in a niche on the Royal Geographical Society building, London. In 1953 Huxley-Jones won the Jean Masson Davidson Medal; the Society of Portrait Sculptors’ highest award for distinguished services and outstanding achievement.

The Christ figure above the South Porch of St. Martin Le Tours church, Basildon, is a fibreglass figure of our Lord pierced by shafts of light his hands outstretched towards the town in service of the people. It is an invitation of welcome to all to enter designed and constructed by Huxley-Jones and erected in 1968. Just a few months after the statue had been officially dedicated, Huxley-Jones was admitted to St. Johns Hospital, Chelmsford with a heart condition. He died there four days later on Dec 10th 1968, making this figure the last work he did.

This information reinforces the sense that the Revd. Eric Pickles, a former Vicar, had a good eye for selecting work for the church, as each of the works we have highlighted at the church in the Trail were purchased by him.

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PJ Harvey - Shot of Love.