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Haven House Children’s Hospice’s annual Sparkle Walk was cancelled due to the current crisis, but the Woodford Green charity is now encouraging residents to take part in a virtual walk this month.

“This can be any distance at any time on 15 May. Make sure it is safe and that it adheres to government guidelines on exercise and social distancing… Dress up in sparkly or pink clothing and take a selfie,” said a spokesperson for the hospice, which will host a webinar at 8pm for participants to celebrate.

Visit swvg.co.uk/vsw

With kerbside recycling collections suspended, Redbridge Council is keen to assure residents that recyclable materials are not going to landfill.

“We can assure residents that recycling materials are not going to landfill. General waste collected from households goes to a waste processing plant, where it is initially shredded and dried. This process reduces the volume of the waste and minimises the production of methane…From the dried waste, recyclates can be extracted, such as metals, glass and organic material. The remaining material, known as Refuse Derived Fuel, can be used for energy generation. No waste from this process is sent to landfill,” said a spokesperson.

Mermaid lovers and members of the UK mer-community will gather at Sylvestrian Leisure Centre in Snaresbrook on 18 April for Merfolk UK’s fourth annual convention (11am to 5pm; tickets: from £20).

“The event is the only one of its kind in the UK and was created to allow the growing community of mermaids and mermen from all over the country to get together,” said organiser Jessica Pennington. Attendees will be able to browse stalls of mer-related memorabilia before attaching a tail and taking to the pool, with swimming sessions for adults and children aged 10 and over.

“This is an amazing opportunity to swim in a pool with mer-friends! Don’t worry if you don’t have your own mermaid tail, tail hire will be available… We happily welcome anyone and everyone!”

Visit swvg.co.uk/merfolk20

In the fourth of a series of articles by members of the Woodford and Wanstead Photographic Society, Anila Hussain tells the story behind this image of the Reichstag staircase

Architecture was one of the first things I photographed. It opened another door called perspectives. Every angle, every viewpoint; the structure looked so different to me.

I challenge myself to see how I can photograph one building but use every angle possible, giving it a completely different view. Great light also plays havoc with the shadows. I find it exciting. I never look at anything head-on. I still photograph everything, but for some unknown reason, architecture pulls me in more and more.

In any city I visit, I will always look for architecture and perspectives. Apart from liking what Foster and Partners create abroad and in London, my other most favourite architect is the late, great Zaha Hadid. Her curvaceous structures, which bring a feminine flair to such a male-dominated area, are jaw-dropping. The results are just superb. I think my dream job would be to travel the world, photographing her superb creations with my own added flair.

When visiting Berlin, it’s a must to pre-book a tour at the Reichstag. My advice: book it for an hour before sunset. That way, you can capture the glass spiral staircase in a wonderful light, and believe me, it’s stunning. A favourite by architects Foster and Partners, its innovative design shows one way up and another way down. The creative flair makes it mesmerising and leaves you wondering how.

Sometimes, it’s good not to stick to one form of photography. I always aspire to try everything, then chose what I adore. At the moment, I’m photographing flowers and food. Tomorrow, it could be something else. Keep challenging your abilities.

Like so many other businesses that are impacted by the increasing restrictions designed to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, we must also make changes to how we operate.

For the first time since February 1992 – when the first issue of the South Woodford Village Gazette was published – our magazine will cease to be delivered door to door until further notice. We will be distributing them via our display stands instead.

The reasons for doing this are twofold. Most importantly, we all have a responsibility to adhere to social distancing guidelines, so I believe it would be wrong to ask my delivery team to walk the streets of South Woodford and risk interacting with others. In addition to this, a recent study by the US National Institutes of Health (as reported by the BBC here) has found the virus can survive on cardboard for up to 24 hours. So I can’t, in all good conscience, allow our magazines to be posted through letterboxes on a mass scale when there is a potential risk that this may be contributing to the spread of the virus. Instead, we will allow those who wish to pick up a copy to do so from our stands (by virtue of our normal processes, a period of at least 24 hours will elapse between our magazines being packed at the printers and placed in our stands).

A decision on the publication details of future issues will be taken in the coming weeks.

Robert Putt, who attended Woodbridge High School 80 years ago, is collaborating with the school’s History Department to document his memories of the area. In the second of a series of articles, Robert talks to Headteacher Steven Hogan about World War Two

The History Department at Woodbridge High was delighted and extremely honoured to host an audience with Mr Putt for our Year 9 students on Armistice Day last year. As an alumnus of the school, Mr Putt not only captured his young audience with tales of bombed-out homes, heartbreaking evacuation and chocolate gifts from none other than Clementine Churchill herself, but was able to bridge the gap between past and present students, showing them that as the years go by, and as important and life-changing events take place, the one constant is that education liberates us all.

Mr Putt’s visit came, rather coincidentally, as the History Department began looking into the history of the school, and whilst there is not much to be found online, we did come across a rather surprising find: that in the summer of 1939, mere weeks before the Second World War began, a number of boys, along with their teachers, visited Nazi Germany and were hosted by the Hitler Youth.

The trip was very successful and good relations were seemingly formed with the boys from both countries as promises were made to host their German counterparts later in the year. But it wasn’t to be, the trip being abruptly ended five days early due to the growing hostilities between the German and British powers. Year 9 had been learning about this extraordinary school trip and of the Home Front of the Second World War, so a group of 30 were chosen to listen as Mr Putt spoke of his experiences of growing up against the backdrop of war, of the Blitz spirit, which bolstered so many to ‘keep calm and carry on’ and of the strain it inevitably took on peoples’ lives.

Robert remembers walking home for lunch one day along St Barnabas Road when a plane flew over and he started to run. A lady came out of her house and called him and two girls into her home to take cover in a Morrison air raid shelter in her back room. He said: “We could hear the machine gun firing, then the first bomb dropped at the end of the garden and her French windows were shattered. Glass was flying everywhere, but thankfully, none of us was hurt.”

Robert also has very fond memories of the time. He said the war really helped with his understanding of geography as every day he would sit with his grandfather and study the maps in the daily newspapers, showing where the Allied troops and the Germans were. He knew the names and locations of countries all over the world. He also has happy memories of the school dinners, especially the shepherd’s pie, which he really enjoyed. He said they were very good meals and there was plenty, despite it being wartime.

Robert also has very vivid memories of some of the teaching staff, including Headmaster Colonel Bransden, Mr Harvey, the science teacher (who they called ‘Stinks’, not because he smelt but because his classroom did due to all the experiments he undertook!), Mrs Vale (the only female teacher) for history and Mr Laurie Carr (lots of jokes were made about his name!) for geography.

Robert remembered the class clubbing together to buy one of the teachers a gift for their birthday. They bought him an ashtray (he remembers all teachers smoking then) and they wrapped up a new cane for him. As a thank you, the teacher caned every single member of the class!

Summing up, Robert said: “I enjoyed my schooldays more than anything. They were happy days, despite the war.” He advised our students that: “You should always treasure your schooldays as life after school becomes repetitive and is therefore harder to remember. But your schooldays are when lots of things are new and they stick in your memory forever.”

The history of local war memorials will be the subject of a presentation for the Woodford and District branch of the National Trust on 15 April.

“My interest in war memorials focuses on two points… Firstly, this country is most certainly a better place than it might have been had we lost the major conflicts in the 20th century. Thus we do, in my view, owe a debt to those commemorated on the memorials… Secondly, I believe war memorials are very much part of our social and cultural heritage,” said Richard Speller, whose talk will take place at All Saints’ Church hall in Woodford Green from 2.30pm (visitors: £3).

“Having been born in Wanstead and attending Forest School, I recollect local Remembrance Day services, at the Wanstead Memorial with its angel, St Mary’s in South Woodford and at my school. I then happened upon the War Memorials Trust, which does such good work in monitoring and providing grants for memorials in need of repair.”

Call 07774 164 407

John Meehan, chairman of the Friends of Wanstead Parklands, reveals some of Wanstead Park’s secrets and the surviving features of its long history. Photo of the Repton Oak by Richard Arnopp

Wanstead Park has had a variety of uses, styles and functions over hundreds of years. It has been a royal retreat, a deer park, a landscaped garden and, since 1882, a public open space managed as part of Epping Forest. Many surviving features of its long history are still there if you know where to find them!

If you enter Wanstead Park from its western end, through the Blake Hall entrance, you enter an area known as Reservoir Wood. Walk for perhaps 150 yards and you will come upon a magnificent oak to the right, with huge outstretched branches and with a newly cleared ‘halo’ around it. It is believed to be a ‘bundle tree’, which means it was not grown from one sapling but a number of young trees planted together in one hole. The object was to produce a large specimen tree with a spreading form, as all the stems merge into one huge, fluted trunk. This was a practice associated with the late Georgian landscaper Humphry Repton, and the tree is known as the ‘Repton Oak’ after him. Humphry Repton did produce proposals for Wanstead Park in 1813, in one of his last major projects, and the tree was probably planted not long after.

Reservoir Wood was named after a lake which once occupied the area. In fact, it stretched from the golf course to beyond Woodlands Avenue, and from Blake Hall Road to a large embankment, which is now cut by the path a little way beyond the Repton Oak. The Reservoir was drained by 1818, probably because of problems with the water supply. Its site was planted with a wood, perhaps to block the open view of Wanstead House from the public road.

The path continues to the east, past the Heronry Pond and, as you pass the second of the two islands, the Temple comes into view. Built around 1760, it seems originally to have been planned as a small building with an earth mound to the front, making it look as though it was sitting on top of a small hill, and looking like a beautiful Roman temple you would expect to see in the romantic 17th-century paintings by Lorrain and Poussin. At a slightly later date, or perhaps even while construction was still in progress, two brick wings were added, making the structure sit heavier within the landscape. Perhaps these were intended to house the menagerie, which we know the building was later used for.

Bearing around to the left of the Temple, taking the vehicle track to Warren Road, you will notice a huge evergreen yew tree. The path here leads past a big mound in the woods, which is covered in bluebells in the spring. This path leads out onto the Great Ride, and if you walk across the ride, you will find another, larger, mound. The two Mounts, as they were known, were roughly symmetrical features on either side of the Great Ride, designed to allow visitors to get above the highly formal garden to view the mazes and avenues. From above you could have made sense of the complex formal garden designs. The Mounts would have had a spiral path leading to their summits and the northern one seems to have been crowned by a little temple. Today, they are overgrown sentinels of a 300-year-old landscape that once covered huge areas, with avenues radiating out across Wanstead Flats to Leytonstone and Forest Gate.

The work of the Friends of Wanstead Parklands is to reveal these secrets in cooperation with the owners of the various parts of the park, the main owner being the Corporation of London. The landowners and other stakeholders, including the Friends, have jointly created a Parkland Plan, which sets out a long-term restoration and management programme that respects history, people and nature.

Colin Spence runs dog training classes in Snaresbrook and has been working with man’s best friend – and their owners – for 23 years. Here, he explains how much exercise a puppy needs

This is a much-talked-about topic and a conversation I have with new puppy owners on a daily basis, as many are not sure how much exercise their very young puppy should get.

Well, let’s take a look at this and what we trainers and behaviour practitioners believe in how much is too much and how much is just right and why.

Once we get our eight-week-old puppy home, for the first few hours or first few days, they will be getting used to their new environment, moving around the home, investigating everything. As the hours and days go by, puppies get more energetic, and roughly around the 16-week mark, will have had their last injection and be ready to exercise and explore the outside environment.

Many owners then take their puppy out for a walk; some even allow the puppy to start running and jumping obstacles. Allowing puppies to exercise outside is important, but it is also important that the common sense factor comes into play. Puppies are very vulnerable creatures, and if we allow them to be over-exercised from a very young age, we are very likely setting them up to fail. Why? Because they are still growing and their growth plates are at the very early stages of developing and coming together and strengthening. If we allow puppies to have too much exercise while they are young, they will put too much pressure on their joints and can have problems, such as arthritis, in the future.

As a rule of thumb, we should only give puppies five minutes of exercise for each month of their life; for example, a four-month-old puppy can have 20 minutes of gentle exercise, nothing strenuous, and please take into consideration the exercise your puppy already has in the home each day, moving around on those incomplete growth plates. So, I would take three minuets off the five-minute rule, and as they grow, you can then add more minutes accordingly and appropriately.

I am also asked if owners can take their puppy out jogging with them. The answer here is we should not allow puppies to jog with us until they are fully grown and have good, strong, healthy growth plates. We also need to take into consideration the breed. A border collie, for example, may fare well on an hour’s jogging, but the dachshund, with its very short legs, could find this very uncomfortable.

So please, let’s take our puppies wellbeing seriously and let them grow into healthy, strong dogs with good healthy ligaments.    

Woodford Arts Group member Ged Rumak explains his love of life drawing and why he thinks a good portrait is more than just a representation of the subject

The BBC is wrong to think it is bringing life drawing to the masses in Life Drawing Live! Life drawing is inherent in art education for the simple reason that working from a live model is a unique, complex experience.

A life study is a record of the relationship that exists between the artist and the sitter. To put out a programme of life drawing, even with expert tuition in the studio, ignores this relationship, looking at the image of the model on a flat screen as if it were a photograph. In drawing, the aim is to have no obstacles between the subject and the eye, the eye and hand, and the hand and paper.

Painting portraits expands this relationship between two individuals, one that unfolds as the two people involved get to know each other – through time. One of the strengths of a portrait is that all of us change all of the time – emotion, energy levels, responsiveness. This problem is felt by artist and sitter; we all feel different day to day.   

A good portrait wants to give you more than just a representation of someone. It wants to break the rules, to achieve the impossible by using such little means as a piece of carbon, charcoal or ground-up pigment to capture something of a living person, something hidden and unseen in a sitter, often giving the viewer the same jolt of recognition you get when spotting someone you know in the street. Nothing like photography, it still feels like the artist is presenting you with facts.

None of us knows what we look like. Of course, we see ourselves in the mirror every day, but that is a deceptive form that presents us reversed with our features carefully arranged in a way that pleases us. But, in the end, you are what you look like.

Painting from photographs is by far the most common form of figurative painting these days. In this time-short world, painting dogmatically from life is not always possible, and so, using photographs as an ‘aide memoir’ is a practical devise. But pure copying from a flat, two-dimensional image more than misses the point.

Nothing comes close to painting and drawing the figure from life in a studio.

A project which has been bringing the community together by collating wartime memories of Redbridge will stage a theatre production in South Woodford this April. Alfie James reports

Did you know that part of Beale High School used to be a prisoner of war camp and the local children used to swap coffee for teabags with the Italian prisoners through the fence?

From stories of rationing and being evacuated to blackouts and bombings, the Hope and Glory community theatre project set out to explore what life was like living in Redbridge during the Second World War. We have set up two groups: a group of researchers meeting regularly at Redbridge Museum and a group of local performers using performance techniques to explore what life was like during the period.

Thanks to the local press and the power of social media, as well as good old-fashioned word of mouth, the project has already generated a lot of interest. We’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of positive support received by the community and we couldn’t thank you enough. We’ve received emails and telephone calls from residents wanting to share family stories of memories. The project has even reached the wider community too. We had one former resident now living in Canada call us with information and we’re sharing our research with a school in Scotland who are learning about London during the war.

The project would not be the success it is without the enthusiasm of our members. Elizabeth McNally is one such member and believes the project is popular because people “love performing and there’s a real interest in local history of that era, and this is a great way of bringing the two together.”

Local history has been at the heart of this project and it’s given us the opportunity to develop our research skills by learning how to use archives, artefacts and how to interview people. One resident told us how she remembers a plane crashing and how the pilot sadly wasn’t able to eject in time. Another remembers the first time she heard the air raid siren as a young child. What has become increasingly evident throughout the project is that there was a great sense of community and that people came together and looked after one another.

The project could not have taken place without the support of The Heritage Lottery Fund and Redbridge Museum. The help given by the staff at the museum has been invaluable and it’s been fantastic to use the rich resources they have available.

The project is working towards developing a small play to be performed at Redbridge Drama Centre in April. We’re all excited to be given the opportunity to share some of what we’ve learnt with the local community. Theatre is a great way of bringing to life and sharing what we have learnt with others. The performance, entitled The Spitfire Club, will bring to life what it was like growing up during the Second World War through the eyes of a group of children and residents.