Editor

Rising at Molehill Green in Essex, the River Roding passes through the Wanstead and Woodford area en route to the Thames, bringing with it a very real flood risk to local homes. In the fourth of a series of articles charting the River Roding Project – which aims to reduce that risk – Andy Naish from the Environment Agency offers advice on protecting your property. River photo by Geoff Wilkinson.

The River Roding Project recently held a community drop-in event at Kelvedon Hatch Village Hall, near to the proposed flood storage area in Essex. This was a chance for local residents, community groups and landowners to find out more about the project, how we plan to minimise disruption and how it will reduce flooding impacts in the Wanstead and Woodford area.

Once we know which existing defences need refurbishing, we will hold a similar community drop-in event in Woodford so you can find out more. We will also be looking for opportunities to include environmental enhancements along the River Roding in the local area. Stay tuned for further details on our website.

Protecting your property
If your home or business is flooded, it can be costly, not just in terms of money and time but also inconvenience and heartache. While it’s impossible to completely floodproof a property, there are lots of things you can do to reduce the damage flooding can cause. The most important thing is to act now so you’re prepared if there is a flood in your area.

Whether you rent or own your home or business premises, there are many things you can do to be prepared. Some are simple and temporary, while others involve permanent structural work.

You can also make improvements so that even if the worst happens and floodwater enters your property, it causes less damage, so drying-out and cleaning up is faster and easier. This means you could move back home or open for business far more quickly.

Options to limit floodwater entering your property include:

• Installing flood doors
• Flood boards, which can be installed when flooding is imminent
• Air brick covers: specially designed covers for ventilation bricks
• Non-return valves: to fit on drains and water pipes to prevent water backing up

Options to reduce the damage floodwater might cause inside:

• Put irreplaceable or valuable items on high-mounted shelves
• Fix your TV and hi-fi to the wall 1.5m above floor level
• Fit a pump to extract water (needs to be Gas Safe)
• Lay tiles rather than carpets
• Use water-resistant materials such as stainless steel, plastic or solid wood rather than chipboard in the kitchen and bathrooms
• Raise electrical sockets and fuse boxes 1.5m above floor level

Professional advice
We strongly recommend seeking professional advice before investing in any flood protection. It is important to get an impartial flood risk mitigation assessment completed by a qualified flood risk specialist who is completely independent from any product or measure. You could contact the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (rics.org) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (architecture.com).

How much will it cost?
The average cost of reducing the flood risk to your property is between £6,000 and £8,000, including a survey, products and installation.

Buying products
Before you buy any product, check it’s been tested and is up to the job – it should display the BSI Kitemark or equivalent national quality standard PAS 1188. A comprehensive list of flood resistance products and information can be found in The Blue Pages directory on the National Flood Forum’s website (bluepages.org.uk).

Circles, colour and the trees of Epping Forest are among the inspirations for self-taught artist Sue Mayne, one of many local creatives to join the recently founded Woodford Arts Group.

As a traveller, I have always enjoyed looking at art as an art tourist, and it was while in Madrid in 1988 that I went to the Prado Museum and saw The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. I was captivated and my love of art history began.

Frustrated with my career in the banking industry, I decided to return to study in the 1990s while still working full-time. I did an A level in Art History and the following year enrolled with The Open University and studied all the art history modules available at that time. By 2002, I achieved a BA Honours.

While studying a modern art module in 1999, I decided to have a go myself. I bought a set of acrylics and some paper, and never looked back. I’ve been painting now for nearly 20 years.

Over the years, I have experimented with pretty much all media, but I always return to acrylics as I love the flexibility and immediacy of the medium, which suits my style of painting. I often change my mind about a planned composition or colours, and with acrylics, it is usually easy to paint over and change. With such a diversity of types of acrylic paints on the market, experimentation is so interesting and rewarding. I rarely produce a painting in one sitting, and if it’s of a local scene, I often revisit the site many times to contemplate the next stage of the painting.

I always have my camera with me, taking photos of good compositions for a painting and reinterpreting them back in my studio at the bottom of my garden. My paintings cover an eclectic mix of genres from still life, landscapes and seascapes, animals and flowers to various abstract themes I have developed over the years. I love painting water and mountains and have travelled widely, including spending time living on the south island of New Zealand.

My abstract paintings generally follow a theme. In 2002, I began a range of paintings based on ‘colours of the rainbow’. I started out strictly using seven colours, but in later years used more, or less, to make my paintings more diverse. In 2005, I began my circles paintings. Based on the ‘colours of the rainbow’ theme, but using circles, I brought in basic colour theory that says the eye is attracted to ‘fire’ colours (red, orange and yellow). The intention is your eye is drawn to the centre of these paintings, and moves around and out to the edges containing the ‘cold’ (blues and greens) colours. That’s the theory anyway!

I am always looking to explore a new idea, not necessarily taking a ‘conventional’ approach to the subject matter. There is one thing that just about all of my paintings have in common whatever the genre… they are very colourful!

A love of walking, especially in the forest, has inspired me to focus on my paintings of Epping Forest over the last few years. Every forest painting is a specific location – favourite spots include Connaught Water, High Beach, Highams Park Lake and Wanstead Park.

I have exhibited and sold many paintings over the years. My first solo exhibition was at the Lopping Hall Gallery in Loughton in 2016. In November 2018, my second solo exhibition was at The View in Chingford. As a member of Essex Art Club, I exhibited at their recent exhibition at The View and also took part in Woodford Arts Group’s even more recent exhibition at Packfords Hotel.

Some South Woodford scribbles from DD, our resident diarist, commentator and observer of all things local.

I have just bought a new broom. The old one was shedding bristles, so it was more of a hindrance than a help. My neighbour observed that it was “follically challenged”. I enjoyed that, and was prompted to head for Wickes without delay. (Sadly, no longer any hardware store locally.) I bought the one described as ‘heavy duty’. New brooms have developed a rather scary reputation. For doing away with what others, perhaps, had established before: “Making a clean sweep of things.”

Not applicable, of course, in this instance, as that was exactly what I wanted. But on my drive over to Loughton, I found myself thinking about new beginnings in general. Specifically, with the car radio tuned to Classic FM, I thought about my beginnings in music. I was eight. I had pigtails and a brown leather music case. Leather was rationed then, so I expect the case was second- or even third-hand. Quite an expense though, so my parents must have been confident I would stick at my piano lessons. They were right. I did. Somehow, even at the age of eight, I knew I must make a go of it to sort of ‘honour my family tree’. My mother’s mother had been an accomplished pianist. She had died in the flu epidemic of 1918 leaving four children under 10 and a husband fighting in France. My father’s sister had been a concert pianist. She also died in her thirties. In childbirth. On Christmas Day. Hard times!

I might have started earlier if my twin brother and sister hadn’t arrived when I was six. Things got rather busy, but I’m pretty sure I had mastered Chopsticks even before I was taken through the French doors of the elegant Georgian house on Broomhill Road, Woodford Green, to meet Miss Goodwin. I learnt quickly and was soon playing Dolly’s Lullaby and Gathering Peascods. My other grandma came to tea every Saturday. Always wanted the lullaby. I loved her, of course, but not when she regularly interrupted my playing to remark: “I think, dear, you must imagine that this room is larger than it is.”

Just think of the tedium for the adjudicator and the hapless supporting parents when, at my first music festival, I was the eighth of eight players to perform Gathering Peascods. The Congregational Church was almost next door to Miss Goodwin’s house. It had been irreparably damaged by a flying bomb late in the war. So, perhaps that lovely room where I played my first scales, and experienced the inevitable weekly feelings of guilt at not having done enough practice, had also suffered in the attack. It was destined, like the church with its impressive steeple, to be demolished. It disappeared finally under the Sir James Hawkey Hall and the road-widening scheme at the top of Broadmead Road.

I learnt last week about another beginning. I was talking with Marcello in his restaurant opposite the cinema. It’s called Bella Naples. My son and his family took me there for a birthday lunch on Good Friday. We all loved it. A different dish for each of us. All freshly cooked to order. To begin with, Marcello asked if he might join us at our table so we could chat through what we’d like to order. A very relaxed and unusual approach. I started with a baked goat’s cheese dish served with thin slivers of courgette, fried crisp, almost caramelised. Delicious. I asked our host if I could come back for a chat to hear his story.

He had made a new beginning about 15 years ago. Left Naples for London. He was ambitious. “I wanted to travel but if I was going to work as a chef somewhere, Japan perhaps, or Malaysia or South America (or even South Woodford, I thought), I needed to learn English. It was the first requirement.” He visualised taking perhaps six months. But “doing things properly” was something he had absorbed from his family, especially from his grandmother. “I was very close to her. She was a hard worker. It wasn’t an easy life. She died only a few weeks ago. She was 101.” So, he worked his way through college in London for three years, cheffing for a number of “mega operators” and emerging with fluent English and a love of books. (By the way, the phone rang several times while we talked, but “don’t worry,” he said, “that’s just Mum. She rings every day”. (From Naples, of course!) “What are the most popular dishes?” “Probably the seafood pastas, especially the calamari. I do it in the proper traditional Italian way, coated in flour and deep-fried and served with aubergine baked with mozzarella.”

I had a confession to make to Marcello: since he first opened for business, I had been discouraged by the name: why not either Beautiful Naples or Bella Napoli? Not this hybrid: Bella Naples. He gave a rueful smile. “When I first opened, people asked me where I had come from. I told them Napoli. They mostly replied, ‘Oh, where’s that?’ So, I changed my plans for the name. It was to have been Bella Napoli, of course. ”Well, dear readers, imagine how I felt, considering the time and effort he had put into learning our language! And time and effort is what he puts in today: Bella Naples is not part of a chain. There is no fall-back position. What you get is this young Neapolitan and his chef.

I had my hair cut today. I asked Cathy if she had been to Bella Naples. “Oh yes! We love it. Small. Intimate. Lovely atmosphere. And, of course, Marcello, with his tall black chef’s hat, his beaming welcome… and his spectacular eyebrows!”

I can’t follow that!

‘This is Essex’ is the theme for an Essex Art Club competition, which will be judged at the group’s annual exhibition at this November. Mary Springham invites artists to join the historic club and enter. Image July-Thaxted by John Tookey.

Essex is the theme for our special competition for members of Essex Art Club. The prize is £120 for a picture of 120 square inches, to celebrate the 120th year of the club.

We are pleased to announce the submitted works – which will be displayed at our November exhibition at Wanstead House – will be judged by Professor Ken Howard OBE, who was our club president for many years and is now our patron.

Essex Art Club has been encouraging artists and holding exhibitions since 1899, and the post of president has been held by Royal Academicians, such as Sir Alfred Munnings and Professor Howard. Sir Frank Brangwyn and Walter Spradbery were vice-presidents, as was John Nash, brother of the more famous Paul Nash. Our current president is John M Tookey, a member of the Pastel Society.

An annual exhibition has been held at Guildhall in the City of London many times and one Winston Churchill MP contributed a painting in 1950. The club did abandon the annual exhibition in 1916 due to “exceptional circumstances”.

Walter Spradbery played a significant role in the development of the William Morris Gallery as a memorial to the aspirations, achievements and fellowship of William Morris. Sir Frank Brangwyn presented a substantial gift to Walthamstow in the form of paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture, including pieces by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Brangwyn’s own work included large murals depicting the British Empire, which are still held in the Brangwyn Hall in Swansea.

Ken Howard says painting should be about “celebration, communication and revelation“, and with that in mind, we offer members a varied programme of demonstrations, talks, painting sessions, three exhibitions a year and a regular newsletter. We welcome new members.

South Woodford’s Young Writers Club is nurturing the creativity of local budding authors, under the guidance of the group’s teacher Shameem Aziz, who knows to never underestimate a child’s potential.

The Young Writers Club was the brainchild of Agnieszka Kazmierczak, a friend of mine who was looking for a club that would encourage her son’s love of writing. There were no such clubs already in existence, so being the determined person she is, she set one up herself!

Prospective attendees submitted samples of their writing and were picked from these submissions. What was the criteria? Excellent  grammar? Sentence structure? High-level vocabulary? All of these elements had a bearing, of course, but the real requirement was a passion for creativity, ideas and a love of writing. The children’s ages range from seven to 10. Very young, you may think, for potential talented writers…my mantra, however, having worked in both primary and secondary schools for 16 years, is never, ever, underestimate the potential of a child.

My enthusiasm for writing, words, communication and utilising the power of language to inspire children remains unabated. This passion has found a natural home in the Young Writers Club.

Of course, I subtly check for accuracy, but much more important is that their interest in writing is nurtured, encouraged and inspired. Call me biased but I think articulacy and confidence in writing and communication is so important, and not just in an academic sense. It is a life skill. What better way to encourage this than through the children’s creativity? This puts them firmly in the driving seat when it comes to the form and shape the sessions take.

Do we analyse the components that make a good story? Frequently. Do we explore ways to produce effective writing? Regularly. Do we laugh? Always. Do the children leave the session feeling empowered and confident? Of course. Am I left with the feeling that children’s potential is limitless? As ever.

In today’s society, so much emphasis is placed on exams and league tables, but it is no bad thing to place importance on skills that advance and champion a child’s inherent sense of wonder and exploration.

This initiative set up by my friend is also a wonderful testament to the ability of one individual to contribute to the local community. Perhaps it will motivate others to start a project they are inspired by.

To paraphrase William Butler Yates, learning is not just about the “filling of a pail but the igniting of a fire”. Learning about, understanding and utilising potential is perhaps the most potent skill a child can possess. It is the portal through which a whole new world opens up to an individual. Every Wednesday, we journey through this portal.

Thanks to the work of the South Woodford Community Gardeners, it will be hard to walk down George Lane this summer without noticing the floral beauty that bisects the road. Judy Noble tells the story behind their work.

On many a Friday morning when you walk down the high street, you can spy us busy weeding, planting, cutting back and pruning the lovely gardens we are so lucky to have right down the centre of George Lane in South Woodford.

We so enjoy it when you, the local public, come up and tell us how much you too enjoy these gardens. Some of you stay and chat awhile, giving us a chance to straighten our backs, or give us tips and plants you can spare from your own gardens. All are welcome.

We’re gardening on some Monday mornings as well now, and we also garden the five large beds and pavement up to Grove Road on the bridge over the North Circular opposite Waitrose.

Who are we? We didn’t come from thin air, but started from a local initiative through the U3A – the local branch of the University of the Third Age – where people who have mostly retired share their hard-won life experience with others and their local community for free. We apply this to gardening. None of us are experts but we learn from each other and from seeing how the plants grow, and occasionally, don’t. Redbridge Council’s resources have been under pressure and, following a lead from Wanstead, where you may have seen the signs in the beds telling you of the ‘Wanstead Community Gardeners’, we set up our own.

Redbridge Council cuts the grass and initially pulled out some very prickly bushes on the bridge, whose only function seemed to be to catch flying rubbish. The recycling collection also keeps an eye open for our sacks of weeds, and takes them away, but the rest we do. Both Lily House in George Lane and Waitrose generously help by allowing us to fill our watering cans – very useful as the beds get very dry, especially in the summer on the bridge.   

Our aim is to have plants with a range of heights offering something bright, in flower or berry, or lovely varicoloured foliage in all the beds in every season. On the bridge beds, we’re aiming to find enough ground cover plants that love the heat and survive drought, to cover the soil and keep down the weeds that spring up whenever there’s some rain. This will help taller plants to stand out and survive. We’ve pruned and cut back some shrubs that were growing straggly, so that after a little time, they can grow stronger.

We’re constantly weeding, uncovering plants that are struggling to compete and giving them a chance to establish themselves. We don’t use poisons, and like plants that birds and insects also like!

Our plants come from several sources as we have no funds. First, many of us have gardens and split plants that are doing well, or bring seedlings. Different people brought the marigolds and hollyhocks, and now they look after themselves. One of the Wanstead gardeners has helped us here. People who pass do the same, giving plants from their gardens though they have no time to help, and some local businesses make donations. It is all we need, so do please keep it coming.   

The gardens are something living and constantly changing in the middle of our main street. They give us great pleasure, and we hope they put a spring in your step and bring a smile to your face as you pass. And if you’re interested in joining us, you can email us or stop and chat.

Woodford Green resident Linda Gough explains how what began as an interest in family history some 30 years ago has now developed into a satisfying vocation reuniting families

Television programmes like Who Do You think You Are? and Long Lost Families have tapped into a very human interest in who we are and where we come from. Added to this, many families have mysteries to solve, missing people to trace and information and stories which they would like to check for accuracy.

I became interested in family history about 30 years ago, when I researched my partner’s family who came to England from Germany in the 1830s. This research, undertaken in school holidays when I was a teacher, involved a Tube ride from South Woodford to Holborn to visit St Catherine’s House, spending hours and hours heaving huge leather-bound record books from the shelves, searching the copperplate handwritten details and noting information in lined notebooks. Today, with the available technology, a great deal of research – though by no means all – can be done from the comfort of our homes.

I seem to have an ability to hunt down missing ancestors and fill in gaps in knowledge. I have had such fascinating ‘detective’ work to do. One of the most challenging ones was of a man born around 1870 who did not have a birth, marriage or death certificate. Everything the family thought they knew about him was untrue. They didn’t even have his proper name. This family story led to Victorian workhouses, illegitimate children and the Old Bailey.

I was able to tell an 87-year-old the name of her father, filling in the blank on her birth certificate. Her mother had never told her anything about her father. During my research with her, she did her DNA and with astonishing, even miraculous, luck, a DNA match led to her father and to four half-siblings, all in their eighties, living in America.

I was also able to reunite a man with his sister and mother who he had not seen for 65 years. This last gentleman kept in touch with me and phoned to tell me he had received his first ever Christmas card with ‘son’ on it from his mother last year. This was real job satisfaction for me.

Although we are not all related to royalty in the spectacular way Danny Dyer turned out to be, it has been interesting to see how so many people I have worked on are related to well-known people from the past. One person I recently did research for turned out to be the great-great-great grandson of famous bare-knuckle boxer Tom Sayers, who has his own Blue Plaque and is buried in Highgate Cemetery.

Genealogy became an absorbing hobby and it has now developed into a vocation. It has brought such interest and enjoyment to the families I have researched, as well as the occasional shock and sadness.

Karen Humpage announces the launch of her book featuring artwork and anecdotes of the cows that once roamed the streets of Woodford.

Woodford residents may already be familiar with my work. My paintings of the cows that used to wander the streets have been shown nearby during Art Trail Wanstead and the Wanstead Festival.

I recently finished writing my book on the subject, entitled Common or Garden Cows, which is due for release on 28 July. I’m very excited about the book coming out, and keen to know what everyone thinks about it. I’m hoping to organise a ‘meet the author’ afternoon in a local establishment, and possibly do some readings from the book. It’s too early to give definite details yet, so check my website for details nearer the time.

I’ve already had the seal of approval from Year 3 pupils at St John’s C of E school in Buckhurst Hill. I spent a lovely afternoon there recently talking about when the cows used to come to town and showing them my cow paintings. In turn, they all drew and coloured in pictures of cows causing traffic jams and getting into people’s front gardens.

Growing up in Woodford in the seventies – Rokeby Gardens to be precise, as shown here in the first cow picture I painted – I remember the cows ambling up the road munching all the privet hedges and liberating the rosebushes of all their flowers. It seemed quite normal at the time, but I suppose if it happened nowadays, there would be letters to the council! Not that cows would find much to eat in gardens nowadays. My bugbear of people losing interest in their gardens and turning them into car parks crops up in the book on more than one occasion!

Here follows an extract from the book, taken from the beginning of Chapter Three, entitled Traffic.

‘A commuter’s day would not start well if they opened their front door to find a cow or three standing in the front garden. Having to run the gauntlet past a large cow to the gate was not an exercise most people would relish unless they fancied themself as a contestant on It’s A Knockout. So, most people waited until the cows moved on, leading to many seemingly outlandish excuses as to why they were late for work.

“I remember the cows well. We used to live in Beverley Crescent and I once had to call work to say I’d be late as three cows were in our front garden and I couldn’t get out of the house. They thought I was mad!”

The daily drudgery of waiting for a bus could be alleviated by the spectacle of a cow joining the commute. Not privy to the tradition of queuing, a cow could fill a whole bus shelter, leaving the poor commuters resigned to standing out in the inevitable rain. “There was a wooden bus shelter on Lake House road…in it waiting for a bus was an enormous cow just standing there minding its own business.”’     

Sue Page from the Redbridge Heritage Centre invites you to a reminiscence session at Woodford Green Library this August, to share your memories of food, glorious food

Our eating habits have changed a lot over the last 80 years. If you lived through the Second World War, you will remember the dietary restrictions brought about by rationing, which began in January 1940. If you lived in Woodford, you would have had to register with a particular retailer in the area to purchase bacon, cheese, fats and sugar.

Rationing meant some foodstuffs were traded on the Black Market.   A Woodford café owner was charged in 1946 with obtaining rationed foodstuffs “in excess of points allocated”. He had received 480 tins of salmon and 24 tins of syrup illegally. Hopefully, he wasn’t going to serve them together!

You may have eaten in a British Restaurant, communal kitchens which were created in 1940 to help people who had been bombed out of their homes or who had run out of ration coupons. They disbanded in 1947. There was a British Restaurant at the Memorial Hall in South Woodford, opened by Mrs Winston Churchill. The food at these restaurants was relatively cheap and filling.

Many foods continued to be rationed after the war and people were urged not to waste any. A letter to the editor of the Woodford Times newspaper in 1946 from “Disgusted of Horns Lane” stated that 11 complete loaves of bread had been found in the pig bin. He demanded the punishment of the miscreants for “wasting the staff of life”.

During the 1950s, some shops converted to self-service, although in Woodford there continued to be independent food retailers. The butcher, baker and greengrocer all existed side by side with the supermarkets. Packaging became more eye-catching and food became more plentiful. Pressure cookers and food mixers made home cooking easier. Woodford LEB advertised state-of-the-art new cookers with auto-time controls. In 1957, Dairy Cookery Week was organised by the Electricity Board and free demonstrations on cooking with milk, cream, cheese and butter took place in Woodford. No such thing as cholesterol in those days!

The 1960s saw an increasing variety of products hitting the supermarket shelves. The range of breakfast cereals also increased with the arrival of Coco Pops and Sugar Smacks. The 1960s may have been when you had your first Vesta Curry – foreign food became popular as travel increased.

In the 1970s most people owned a fridge and many also owned a freezer. This meant people were able to buy and consume more convenience food. This trend continues today with microwaves and fast food outlets changing the way we eat.

Counselling and psychotherapy training institute TA East will be hosting a listening post at South Woodford Library this summer. Victoria Baskervill explains what it means to be truly listened to.

We all need to talk, be listened to and be in contact with each other, to thrive in this world.

“Listening is about being present, not just about being quiet.” Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise, 2016.

In contemporary society, we often don’t have or take the time to stop and listen to the birds sing, to hear children’s laughter, or to look up from our phones and really listen and hear each other.

There have been moments in both my personal and professional life which I can pinpoint being truly listened to, heard and understood. Sometimes, these have been chance meetings with strangers, yet I have come away feeling ‘met’.

Carl Rogers, a pioneer of humanistic theory, explored ‘listening’ in his early work. From his findings, he surmised that when we truly listen, we hear a deeper narrative underneath. He talked passionately about the power of listening as a way of understanding relational dynamics with self and others, and a way to make personal change.

As a psychotherapist, I have worked with many clients who don’t feel listened to, resulting in low self-esteem and negative patterns. Yet, I have been deeply moved by the power of listening in the consulting room, resulting in a profound quality of relationship.

Rogers described a special way of being and listening, that to truly listen and hear the other, we need to enter into the other’s world. He coined this idea as ‘empathy’, the ability to share someone else’s feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation; a theory that has been embraced by many other psychotherapists.

TA East is a counselling and psychotherapy training institute. The training is delivered in the spirit that all people are OK, everyone has the capacity to reach their full potential and all people can change. And we are now inviting the Redbridge community to come along and be listened to, heard and understood by another, demonstrating the value of empathy and being listened to. Sessions will last for 30 minutes. These will not be counselling sessions, though they will be facilitated by trained and trainee counsellors and psychotherapists.

“People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying ‘soften the orange a bit on the right-hand corner’. I don’t try to control a sunset, I watch it in awe as it evolves.” Carl Rogers, 1969.

Library Development Officer Christine Thompson invites South Woodford’s children to take part in a space-themed reading challenge this summer and read six library books over the holidays.

The Reading Agency’s annual Summer Reading Challenge is aimed at children aged four to 12 years and helps get almost three quarters of a million children into libraries to boost their reading skills and confidence.

Children’s reading can ‘dip’ during the summer holidays if they don’t have regular access to books and encouragement to pick them up.

In 2019, children across the UK will be able to take part in this year’s Summer Reading Challenge, entitled Space Chase, an out-of-this-world adventure inspired by the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. It is also the 20th anniversary of the annual reading challenge itself. Children taking part will join our super space family, the Rockets, for a thrilling mission to track down books nabbed by mischievous aliens. There will be loads of fun, loads of prizes and, of course, a medal for each child who completes the challenge. Visit the new Eat It exhibition by Redbridge Museum to gain an extra sticker.

This year’s theme will feature bespoke artwork from top children’s illustrator Adam Stower, and will celebrate adventure, exploration, reading and fun. Taking part is easy. The aim of the challenge is for children to read any six library books of their own choice during the summer holiday. Children can read whatever they like – fiction, fact books, poetry, joke books, picture books, audio books or even eBooks – just as long as they are borrowed from the library. The scheme promises to encourage reading that is out of this world.

A number of events will be taking place at South Woodford Library alongside the challenge, including a galaxy jars workshop, star gazing activity, solar system magnet-making and a crazy comic workshop. This year there will also be a junior book reviewer competition for seven- to 10-year-olds taking place in partnership with Thy English Academy. Pick up your review sheet at the library. Younger children who are not yet reading can earn stickers and a certificate of their own for visiting the library and borrowing books throughout the summer.

Library staff, with the support of teenage and adult volunteers, will be on hand to listen to children read and to help them discover new authors and explore a wide range of books.