Editor

For a decade, the South Woodford Bereavement Café volunteers have offered tea, time, togetherness and a listening ear in a safe, welcoming space where people can share their grief

Bereavement. We all experience feelings of grief and yet, when we’re in the thick of it, it can seem as if we’re the only person in the world who feels like this. It can cut you off at the knees, it can physically hurt, it can come out of nowhere and it can feel like you’re never going to be the same again. And whilst we naturally think first about losing someone close to us, we can also feel grief at the loss of a precious pet, a job, friends moving away, or perhaps a falling-out with family.

Grief hits all of us and in a variety of ways. Sometimes, it can help to chat. And chat with someone who’s not personally involved. It can perhaps make you breathe a bit easier to spend an hour with someone who can just accept where you’re at, listen and try to help you make sense of it. No judgement. No recommendations. No agenda for doing anything apart from offering a friendly listening ear over a cuppa and a biscuit.

The South Woodford Bereavement Café was founded in 2016. Since then, apart from during the period of the pandemic, it has been held in an accessible upstairs meeting room at St Mary’s Church on the High Road from 2pm to 3pm on the first Tuesday of each month. A group of four or five volunteers are ready to welcome people of all faiths or none. There is no charge and no need to book. (Our friends in Wanstead also run a bereavement café from 10.30am to 11.30am on the third Tuesday of each month at Christ Church.)

We’re not trained grief counsellors. We’re everyday people from South Woodford who’ve experienced our own sad times and are happy to share our experiences with others if asked to do so. Often, however, it is mainly a non-judgemental, non-threatening, listening ear that is needed. We’re just fellow human beings who are happy to stand alongside you for a bit or for as long as you need whilst you find a way forward.

Some people have only been bereaved recently, whilst others have been grieving for a long time. Some who come admit it’s easier to open up to strangers than to a family member or close friend. Some find sharing within a small group rather than one-to-one can be welcome. They may not be ready, or even able, to express their feelings, but are content just to sit and listen to others, knowing they are not alone in their grief. Tears are not uncommon and plenty of tissues are available. However, once the immediate release of emotions has passed and trust has been established, the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly, with laughter often lightening the tone. Some people only come to the café once; others become regulars, enjoying the group-friendship. Feedback has been invariably positive.

Think this might help you? We’re looking forward to saying hello.

For more information, call 020 8505 3000 or email info@stmaryswoodford.org.uk

Some South Woodford scribbles from DD, our resident diarist and observer of all things local. Illustrated by Evelyn Rowland

This month, we are back in the present, enjoying chats together at the shops. That’s not quite accurate, because I’ve invited you to pause and look back on your schooldays.

Thanks, Mike, for recalling your French master. “He was pretty formidable, strict and demanding. I was the dunce at French. I was scared of him. But when I got a B at O level, he congratulated me so warmly. That was the moment when I realised that, actually, he was a great teacher.”

Julia often felt anxious at her primary school. She hated being reprimanded for not trying hard enough. But “I must share a good memory too,” she said: “Our teacher used to fix up a huge empty montage across one wall, just indicating with a few lines the sky, the sea and the beach. We all got going with our coloured crayons to draw things to add to the picture. Seagulls, perhaps, or deckchairs, children building sandcastles. Creating a picture together made us feel like a family.”

Caine went to school in Sussex. “What I really valued most was the core friendship with five or six other boys. We supported each other through any hard times, thoroughly enjoying the good times together. Essentially, sharing the process of growing up.”

Harry was at school in Surrey. He told me how he rapidly changed from History to Geography at O level when the History syllabus seemed to be mostly about learning lists of dates. “Botany was challenging too: I don’t think I ever mastered the details of the sex-life of the male fern. But I did master the role of Hotspur in the annual Shakespeare production. I’ll always be able to recite his speeches. You remember things you learnt by heart as a child.”

Javina was educated at ‘the best school in Delhi’. “You really felt you belonged there. Wearing the school uniform was compulsory. It was certainly unique: the fabric for every item of clothing was woven at the school. At 11 o’clock sharp, we were supplied with a small bottle of milk and four biscuits. I used to smuggle in a tiny jar of coffee from home. I loved blowing bubbles in it with the straw that they supplied.”

Phil went to school in quite a poor district in South Wales in the 1950s. “The school toilets were all outside. On days when they were completely frozen up, the school had to be closed. You can’t believe it, can you! A bitter-sweet event really; you got a day off school, but it often meant missing rounders, my favourite sport.”

Carol beamed. “I loved school. I treated it like a social club. I worked hard at the subjects I enjoyed and winged the rest. The Drama and English departments were terrific. Each class had to write and produce a play and the one adjudged to be best was presented to the entire school. Just the right preparation for me. I was a comedy actress. Acting was my career after leaving school at 16. It was tough. There were barren times, of course, but I loved it. I really wish schools today would attach more importance to music and drama.”

Fred’s primary school teacher, Miss Bryant, gave naughty pupils a smack on the palm of the hand with a ruler. Very naughty ones received a more painful rap on the knuckles. “One day, I was cheeky after a smack on the palm and, for a dare, like Oliver Twist, I asked for more. But I was threatened with the knuckle treatment as an encore and retired quickly to my desk. She certainly was strict, but, true to her reputation, she got me through the 11-plus.”

Susan was whisked away in her imagination from her trolley in Waitrose: “My schooldays were the happiest days of my life. I loved learning. At primary level, it was the three Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic. At high school, I threw myself into everything. I was deputy head girl, captain of rounders and a member of the school tennis and netball teams. I loved Latin. I became fluent in French, Spanish and German. I cried when I left school. As I came out through the school gate, I clearly remember thinking ‘for 15 years, this has been my home, my life.’”

Listening to your stories prompted me to recall a mini sample of mine from my years at Woodford County High School. You’re right: it’s the teachers who were the key characters in our dramas. Nearly all ours were, as was usual then, unmarried. I freely admit that I held all of them in deep, often tender respect. At least two had been engaged to be married, but their husbands-to-be had died in the last months of the 14–18 war. My Classics mistress encouraged me to read Virgil aloud, simply to relish the lilting rhythms of his verse. A wonderfully far cry from education being regarded as a preparation for landing a well-paid job. My French mistress was very young, having recently graduated from the Sorbonne. Thanks to her, I received frequent compliments on my Parisian accent when holidaying in France. I recall dear Miss Leigh one day turning round to write on the blackboard. It was evident she had popped to the loo between classes. Her skirt was caught up in her knickers. We struggled with giggles. But should we alert her before she rejoined the main corridor for the whole population to join the joke? Amongst us girls, Miss Spill, from the Geography department, briefly enjoyed an aura of delicious notoriety when she was serving on the jury at the ‘obscene publications’ trial of DH Lawrence’s novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. We wondered how crucial her quietly spoken vote might have been.

Suffice it to say, I emerged from school well supplied with heaps of ‘valuable’ knowledge: to make green, you blend yellow and blue, the hypotenuse is the longest side of a right-angled triangle, the Battle of Hastings was in 1066 and nine times seven is 63.

To contact DD with your thoughts or feedback, email dd@swvg.co.uk

Residents are encouraged to ensure they are registered to vote in time for the local council elections taking place on 7 May.

In Redbridge, 63 members of the council will be selected, contested across 22 wards. The South Woodford and Churchfields wards are each represented by three councillors.

The deadline to register to vote in person is 20 April and voters will be required to bring an accepted form of photo ID to the polling station.

The deadline to apply for a postal vote is 21 April.

Visit swvg.co.uk/votereg

Ahead of a talk in April about Wanstead and Woodford’s women of note, Lynn Haseldine Jones reflects on the life and work of artist and writer Beatrice Playne (1908–2000)

Although March is actually the month of International Women’s Day, I shall be marking the occasion in April by giving a talk for Wanstead Historical Society on ‘Women of Note of Wanstead and Woodford’.

This area has been the birthplace, home or working place of many women of note, and my talk will include a wide range of personalities, from teachers, philanthropists, artists and writers to businesswomen and church figures. I have tried to mix the well-known with the not so famous, but all have made a considerable contribution to the community, whether it be at a local, national or even international level.

One person I shall be speaking about will be of particular interest to those who know Woodford and Buckhurst Hill. Beatrice Playne was born in Woodford at the headmaster’s house of Bancroft’s School on 2 December 1908. Her father, Herbert Clement Playne, was the headmaster at Bancroft’s from 1906 to 1931.

Beatrice trained in mural painting in Mexico under Diego Rivera and returned from Mexico before the outbreak of the Second World War, during which she worked in a London hospital. Later, working for the British Council, she hoped to return to Mexico, but a combination of events led her to travel to Ethiopia for the council, where she taught English to army officers and to the daughters of the Emperor, Haile Selassie. While in Ethiopia, she studied illuminated manuscripts and wall paintings and frescoes. This led to the publication of her book, Saint George for Ethiopia, in 1954, which documents her journeys through the Ethiopian highlands, where she searched for and studied early Christian paintings and ancient mural art.

She was a talented artist, but her work as a muralist has suffered over time, and few examples remain. Her most impressive work was done for the Reading Room of the National Library of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa, which is apparently still there. A large abstract mural Beatrice did for the dining room at Bancroft’s was touched up by her following minor damage in the 1970s, but the wall had to be replaced due to damp in the 1990s and the work was lost.

All that remains locally of her work is the mural around the west door at St John the Baptist, Buckhurst Hill, showing ‘joyous motherhood’ (pictured above). It was painted in memory of Anna Dora Howard, who died in 1935, and was given to the Church by her daughter Lady Crossman.

Beatrice Playne died on 16 October 2000 and a service of thanksgiving was held at Malvern Priory.

Beatrice is only one of the many women I shall be discussing at this event.

Lynn’s talk will take place at Wanstead Library on 13 April from 8pm (visitors: £4). For more information, call 07949 026 212

In the third of a series of articles featuring images by the Woodford and Wanstead Photographic Society, Anuraj Theivendram explains his passion for canine portraits

As publicity officer of the Woodford and Wanstead Photographic Society, I’ve felt privileged to share stories in this series about how photography connects us with our community. In earlier articles, I explored how images can celebrate local heritage and inspire creativity within our club. In this article, I highlight a passion that has personally brought me both joy and purpose: volunteering my photography skills at two remarkable dog shelters, Love Underdogs and All Dogs Matter.

Love Underdogs began after witnessing the harsh conditions faced by dogs in Romania, inspiring a mission of compassion and change. With the support of UK volunteers and Romanian partners, they’ve given countless dogs a second chance, turning despair into hope. Their team provides veterinary care, behavioural support and lifelong rescue backup, ensuring every dog has the best chance of finding a loving home.

All Dogs Matter is a dog rescue and rehoming charity working across London to transform the lives of unwanted and abandoned dogs. Guided by care, commitment, collaboration and determination, their team and volunteers ensure every dog, regardless of age or breed, has the chance of a safe and happy forever home.

At its heart, photography is more than documentation; it is an art form that reveals emotion, character and story. Through light, composition and patience, my objective is to capture portraits that show each dog not simply as an animal in need, but as an individual with personality, resilience and charm. Volunteering in this way has been deeply rewarding. It’s a privilege to use my photography skills to help these underdogs shine, and to support shelters that believe, as I do, that all dogs matter.

If this series has inspired you with the power of photography, why not join the Woodford and Wanstead Photographic Society? Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned photographer, we offer a welcoming space to learn, share and make a difference through images.

For more information on the Woodford and Wanstead Photographic Society, visit wnstd.com/wwps

Children are invited to take part in an Easter Egg hunt in Elmhurst Gardens on 28 March.

Two sessions will take place, from 11.30am to 12 noon for under-3s and from 12 noon to 2pm for older children.

“There’ll be ice cream, face painting and an Easter Egg raffle… It will be a great chance for children to explore the park and celebrate Easter in a safe and friendly environment,” said a Friends of Elmhurst Gardens spokesperson.

Austin MacDonald – a 17-year-old student from Woodford Green – has launched a campaign calling for the introduction of law as an official GCSE subject in England and Wales

Law shapes almost every aspect of society, and yet young students like me rarely get an opportunity to study it. We can change that, but I need your help!

For the majority of young people in the UK, the opportunity for legal education is available only at university, and by then, it is often too late. Undoubtedly, the introduction of law as a GCSE subject would be a crucial step towards improving legal literacy, widening access to the profession and helping to enhance our collective knowledge, understanding and respect for the laws that govern our society.

Currently, students are leaving school with little to no understanding of their rights and responsibilities. Terms such as contracts, employment rights, criminal liability and the justice system are all abstract concepts and continue to remain entirely unfamiliar to them.

This lack of understanding helps to explain the current ambivalence and disengagement which a GCSE law course would hope to resolve, allowing students to better understand how the law works and, specifically, how it affects their lives.

Most importantly, the provision of a law GCSE would also help to facilitate social mobility. The legal profession is still dominated by individuals from affluent backgrounds who are often introduced to the legal profession from an early age through family ties or independent education. The implementation of a law GCSE would help to fix this, providing structured, accessible exposure to law and allowing students from all backgrounds to make informed decisions about pursuing legal careers, demystifying the profession and challenging the perception that law is only for a select few.

One might argue the study of law is too complex for a GCSE discipline, but I would argue this is a misconception not only of the abilities of students but of the entire point of secondary education. A GCSE law course would not just be about immediately fostering lawyers but would cover core legal concepts, reasoning and critical thinking skills, aptitudes already acknowledged in other subjects like History, English Literature and Politics.

In today’s world, an era of social change, technological advancement and development in rights, legal knowledge is no longer a choice, it is a necessity.

The question is no longer whether our students are able to study law at this level, but whether we can afford to leave them without it.

To view Austin’s petition to introduce law as a GCSE subject, visit swvg.co.uk/law

An embroidery workshop inspired by women who have sparked change will take place at Wanstead Library as part of Women’s History Month celebrations.

“Learn about influential women and draw inspiration from their words, stories and impact. You’ll be guided through simple embroidery techniques to create your own embroidered hoop featuring empowering quotes or original designs,” said a spokesperson. The family-friendly workshop will take place from 1.30pm on 31 March (£3 per embroidery set)

Visit wnstd.com/threads

Lynn Haseldine Jones will be presenting local postcards of the past at the April meeting of the Woodford Historical Society

The golden heyday of the postcard was the period from about 1902 to 1920. People used the postcard as the email of the day. In many places, there were four collections from every pillar box and four deliveries to every home every day, Monday to Saturday (and even one on Sunday), so it was possible to send a message quickly, costing just a halfpenny!

There soon developed the idea of collecting postcards, of places, people, cats, steam engines, in fact, just about anything. But the most useful for today’s historian is the topographical postcard, with images of towns and villages, houses and features, many of which have changed so much, or disappeared, in the intervening period. Here are some views of Woodford from my own collection:

1. George Lane showing the premises of the fishmonger Gildersleeve, tea rooms, the tower of Warne’s outfitters in the distance and horse-drawn delivery vehicles.
2. Woodford High Road around 1905. Note the neat row of trees in front of the shops. Weatherboarded Fuller’s Corner has now become Tesco Corner.
3. The top of George Lane, postmarked 1905. The policeman on point duty is looking down Woodford Road towards Snaresbrook. On the right is the corner of The George public house.
4. Elegant Edwardian ladies strolling down ‘The Avenue’ of trees, long before the Churchill statue was erected.
5. Woodford Bridge looking very rural.

The golden age gradually came to an end when postage went up to a penny, when people began to acquire their own cameras and telephones made leaving messages even easier. I shall be telling the story of the development of the postcard and showing more views of Woodford, Woodford Bridge, Woodford Green and South Woodford from my collection at the April meeting of the Woodford Historical Society.

Lynn’s talk will take place at All Saints Church, Woodford Green on 9 April from 2.30pm (visitors: £5). For more information, visit swvg.co.uk/history

Redbridge Council’s domestic abuse service Reach Out is seeking donations of toiletries.

“We support residents in South Woodford and across Redbridge. As well as emotional support, we also provide practical assistance through the Reach Out shop, offering free items for those in crisis. Community donations are vital to keeping the shop stocked. We welcome adult items, including toothpaste, deodorant and sanitary towels, as well as nappies and other baby essentials,” said a spokesperson.

Visit swvg.co.uk/reachout

When local resident Paul Hollins started digitising his family’s video tapes just over a year ago, he didn’t realise it would turn into a business with a mission to help local residents protect fragile memories

If there’s one thing many of us have learned over the last few years, it’s that the small, everyday moments often become the most precious. A wobbly camcorder clip of Christmas morning. A family holiday filmed on VHS. A wedding video tucked away in a drawer. These recordings aren’t just old tapes. They’re living snapshots of who we were, and they’re worth protecting so they can be enjoyed by future generations.

The challenge is that the media we relied on in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s wasn’t built to last this long. Magnetic tapes slowly degrade over time. The binder that holds the magnetic layer can break down, tapes can stretch or stick, and if they’ve been stored in lofts, garages or damp cupboards, mould can become a real issue. Many people are surprised to learn the expected lifespan of tape was often quoted as around 10 years in ideal conditions. Now, we’re regularly dealing with tapes that are 30 to 40 years old. In some cases, a tape might play once and then fail, which is why acting sooner rather than later matters.

DVDs can also be vulnerable. Disc rot is a gradual deterioration of the disc’s layers, sometimes due to manufacturing issues, but also accelerated by heat, humidity or tiny cracks. It can show up as freezing, pixelation, missing sections or a disc that won’t read at all. If a DVD holds the only copy of an important family event, that’s a risk most of us would rather not take.

There’s another practical reality, too. Working machines are getting harder to find, and the era of widespread servicing and repair has largely faded. Even if you still have a player, it may not be running at its best. Many households simply don’t have the equipment anymore.

That combination of emotional value and technical fragility is exactly why I set up Tape Transfer Pro here in the local area. It began when my brother and I discovered some tapes belonging to our late mother. We were close to throwing them away, but curiosity won. Hearing her voice again was a proper stop-you-in-your-tracks moment. I started digitising my own family archive, then neighbours and friends in Wanstead, South Woodford and nearby areas asked if I could help with theirs.

The goal is simple: remove the stress from the process. People shouldn’t have to post irreplaceable tapes across the country and hope for the best, or hand them to a high street counter without knowing who will handle them or when they’ll be returned. Keeping transfers local, handled carefully and personally, makes a real difference. Because in the end, this isn’t really about formats. It’s about protecting memories now, so your kids and grandkids can press play later and feel like they were right there with you.

For more information on digitising old video tapes, visit tapetransferpro.com

The Friends of the River Roding’s Wanstead and Woodford local group are on a mission to restore the river and its tributaries, one bag of rubbish and one forgotten stream at a time. Derek Seume reports

In late winter and early spring, river guardians such as the Friends of the River Roding can really get stuck into clearing up our blue spaces. Over the last few weeks, we have been hard at work, taking advantage of the seasonally reduced undergrowth before the nesting season begins.

In the Woodford and Wanstead area, we have been litter picking like never before, in particular, targeting the area around Charlie Brown’s Roundabout, which suffers from rubbish being thrown out of car windows from the flyovers overhead. This either gradually degrades the soil or blows around until it finally makes its way into the Roding, down to the Thames and ultimately out into our oceans. Our lovely little corner of the world here in northeast London is but a tiny part of a far wider ecology.

In our first four litter-picking sessions of 2026, we extracted some 114 bags of rubbish, but we are literally only scraping the surface. It will take several more sessions to clear the area even superficially, but sadly, the reality is there are no doubt several further layers of rubbish beneath the soil in places. Realistically, we can’t get to all of that – and indeed we must tread carefully so as not to disturb the species that have made their homes among our mess – but at the very least, we are striving to improve the aesthetics of the local area. If the eyesore is allowed to fester, so too does the impression that it’s acceptable to treat our green and blue spaces as one big rubbish dump. Litter begets litter.

Further south, between the river and Roding Lane South, we recently discovered a forgotten stream, hidden deep within woodland. Its source is unknown (we presume there is a spring somewhere that has been covered by a road or housing), but it meanders a short way through the woods towards the main river itself.

Our volunteers cleared the choked stream of rubbish and silt, dug a couple of pools to improve its flow dynamics and cut back brambles and ivy to allow more light into the water. Once we were satisfied we had brought the tributary back to life, we continued picking up litter around its vicinity, finishing the day with another 80 bags of rubbish. The stream – which we’ve unimaginatively named Redbridge Stream for want of an official title – already looks much healthier, but we will revisit it over the coming months and years to see how it develops and supports native species to thrive.

If you feel inspired to get involved and help us in our mission to restore the River Roding and its tributaries, please get in touch for information on future volunteer days and other ways you can contribute.

For more information on the Friends of the River Roding, visit swvg.co.uk/fotrr or email river.roding@gmail.com