Greenacre Eco Film Club

Presents:

Film/Presentation - Earthship Brighton

This was the Low Carbon Trust's first project and was the first Earthship to be built in England. The project was built as a community centre for use by Stanmer Organics, built on a Soil Association accredited site in Brighton. This pioneering demonstration project has evolved over the last six years and enables people to come and experience a cutting edge eco-build and be inspired to respond to climate change in their own ways back at home and work.

Refreshments available.

Mon 26TH April 2010 7.30-9.30pm

Trinity Church Hall, 15 Nether Street, London N12 7NN

Admission by minimum donation £3
For more details: MrGreenacres001@aol.com

A Whiter Shade Of Green - Mr Greenacres Has A Look At The Winter Olympics

Dear friends, never let it be said that your Green Sage doesn’t embrace at least SOME new things. Now here is a very simple modern invention that’s totally brilliant – straight out of the Dragon’s Den. Picture if you will a 2” diameter plastic roller, some 4” long, a bit like a mini paint roller but with the handle in line with the roller body, covered with reams and reams of double sided tape all rolled round and round. You simply peel off a layer of plastic film to reveal a new sticky surface that rolls over soft furnishings and clothes picking up all the dirt and debris in its path – and that includes the dreaded CAT HAIRS.

Now you know, Humphrey is a nature lover, a real out and about little fellow, always following me around the garden or workshop in fair weather but in the depths of a cold, damp, bleak mid-winter he gets terribly bored and moody and tries to get up to all sorts of mischief about the house. One of his favourite winter pastimes is trying to uncover a new secret place for a kip – preferably on some of my clothes if I’m stupid enough to leave them lying about anywhere – he’s even been known to knock a cardboard box off a chair to get on the cushion underneath. Trouble is — beastly grey and white hairs everywhere – YUK! I nickname him the abominable snowman. What a mess – but now I have the answer – roller-bowler-boo to you Humphrey – nasty hairs all stuck to my new roller gizmo.

I’m not too bright eyed and bushy tailed at the moment, chums, even with spring on the way I’m distinctly off colour, all boggle headed and bleary eyed, not on top form at all. True I’ve just recovered from a nasty bout of flu but that’s not it – I’ve been burning the midnight oil, staying up far too late into the small wee hours watching all the thrills and spills of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics on BBC.

I’ve seen things I never knew existed or even thought possible. Brand new Olympic sports like snowboarding – with its amazing flying acrobats – or ski-cross where four skiers race each other to the bottom of the course. I’ve learnt about long track and short track ice skating, and curling, I’ve seen the spectacle of 140kph bobsleighs and I must confess I’d never heard of ‘Skeleton Sliding’ before last week. Imagine a miniature sledge appearing to be little bigger than a tea tray – the rider sprints along the top of the course and leaps on, head first, and hurtles down the infamous Whistler Sliding track at speeds of over 80mph. Three cheers for Britain’s Amy Williams who won gold at this little known event – HOORAH!

And whilst we’re on the subject of hoorahs we’d better save some puff for Gregor Robertson, Vancouver’s dynamic and forward thinking young mayor. Since he took office in December 2008, Mayor Robertson has made it his mission to put Vancouver firmly on the map – as the greenest city in North America and to make Vancouver 2010, the first ever carbon neutral Olympic Games.

So what do we know about Vancouver? Capital of British Columbia, located in the far south-west corner of Canada, just 30 miles from the U.S. border, this coastal city was named after British explorer George Vancouver who landed here in the 1790s. Sawmills were opened in 1867 and a logging industry was established in the area. When the railroad came in 1887 it became a trade route to the orient. Today Vancouver is the third largest Metropolitan area in Canada and its eighth largest city. It has a population of 578,000 (less than 10% of London) and has remained very diverse ethnically with 52% of residents not speaking English as a first language. It’s also the birthplace of Greenpeace and a world leader in Hydro-electric power – 90% of electricity comes from renewable sources.

Mayor Robertson has sanctioned the introduction of ‘Vancouver Green Capital’ and says: “We’re saying we’re open for business and the days of Vancouver being seen as a sleepy, laid-back West Coast town are in the past”. Mayor Roberston is a 45 year old former organic farmer who ran the Happy Planet juice company and is also a committed cyclist. His achievements in the city so far are quite remarkable. In February 2009, he launched his ‘Greenest City Initiative’, which includes policies on: Energy Efficiency, Green Economy, Green Jobs, Nature and Green Spaces, Clean Air, Clean Water, Local Food and Protecting Health. He then set about: doubling Vancouver’s cycle infrastructure budget – introducing new cycle lanes including one across a major city bridge, expanding the city’s ‘car free days’, and setting ground breaking standards for electric vehicle charging in new buildings. He put in place several other strategic initiatives including a new Economic Development Strategy for Vancouver and a Low carbon Economic Development Zone in order to promote economic activity and create jobs. “We’ve got cutting-edge businesses, we have the opportunity to lead the world in green technology research and development and we have a dynamic highly educated and creative workforce”. Not bad for the first year in office! And then he began to focus on the forthcoming Winter Olympic Games.

Of course Gregor Robertson can’t do it alone, he’s the leader of a whole green movement. The Vancouver Organising Committee (VANOC) worked with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for three years to achieve the greenest possible Winter Olympics. Once upon a time the Winter Olympics could be held in a sleepy Alpine village – not so anymore – this world event now attracts over 7000 visiting athletes, coaches and officials and requires a city venue with substantial, hi-tech and sometimes purpose-built facilities. Vancouver is the third games to be held in a major city. Salt Lake City was the venue in 2002 and Turin in 2006. These new games can have a huge environmental impact – villages, stadiums and ice rinks to be built, new roads or rail connections – or worse, whole sections of forest cut down for the construction of ski jumps and bobsled runs. And what happens to all these facilities after the games have finished? So there was quite a challenge in Vancouver to achieve a zero-carbon Winter Olympics. Did they manage it? And if so how?

Well, the starting point was, why build new facilities if we can manage with what we already have? Saves time, money, environmental impact and of course you don’t have to worry if construction work will be finished on time. To this effect it was decided to hold the Opening and Closing Ceremonies in the existing Canadian Football League Stadium, whilst ice hockey events are being staged in its NHL rink, even though the size of the ice does not meet current Olympic standards. Nowadays two massive media centres are required for an Olympic games, one for broadcast and one for print. Both these facilities have been incorporated into the Convention Centre that overlooks the harbour.

Some new construction has taken place, a nine block Olympic village for example, but it has been built to the highest green standards – half the buildings have energy efficient green living roofs, clad with grass, there is a low flush toilet system that uses recycled rainwater, separate bins for compostable waste, and an energy generation unit that converts sewage to power. In fact organisers are claiming it to be a “net zero building” that produces as much power as it consumes. Last month the Vancouver Olympics Athletes Village was awarded its own medal: the highest environmental certification in the world, ‘Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (or LEED) Platinum’. After the Games, the village will become environmentally friendly apartments.

Other venues also have green technology – heat from the curling rinks refrigeration plant is used to warm an aquatics pool, the day lodge at Whistler Olympic Park features an on-site waste water treatment plant and the Whistler Sliding Centre uses heat from the tracks refrigeration system to help heat the buildings. “We feel like we’ve raised the bar’, Robertson said. “Some of these technologies will be a legacy for generations to come that will benefit cities all over the world”.

The Games' green performance will be very carefully monitored and UNEP will produce an ‘Environmental Assessment Report’ later this year but we can already see that the first five days readings showed energy saving methods to have saved 112,700 kilowatt hours – a 16% saving compared to conventional buildings and don’t forget that 90% of power is generated from renewable sources. VANOC is also using the Games to inspire broader awareness and action on climate change solutions. Together UNEP and VANOC launched a ‘Do Your Part’ video contest that called on young people across Canada, aged between 13-24, to produce a short 90 second video or animation clip to show youngsters how to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle both during and beyond the 2010 Games. This is part of a wider ‘Vancouver 2010 Sustainability Program’.

Obviously Mayor Robertson has a car and driver at his disposal to whisk him through the Olympic crowds but on most days he can be seen arriving for events on his trusty mountain bike, with the bottoms of his suit trousers tucked into his socks. Mass transit is a key to sustainable travel and much has been done to promote this in Vancouver, for example a day’s worth of free transit travel is included in the price of ticket and there is no spectator parking at the venues. There is also a fleet of hydrogen-powered SUVs and buses for Olympic use. Even the Olympic torch is 90% recyclable and emits minimal greenhouse gases and the Gold, Silver, Bronze medals are made from recycled electronic waste.

There have been concerns that Climate Change has begun to affect the Winter Olympics. Did anyone notice that the temperature in London at the end of February was actually 8ºC lower than Vancouver? Well, they did have problems with the weather, after a long period of unusually warm weather, heavy rain washed 40cm of snow off the slopes and snow had to be imported in by truck and helicopter and kept topped up throughout the event! Organisers insist that the snow emergency only boosted the carbon footprint by less than 1% and they will still meet all their environmental goals.

Another criticism centred on the felling of thousands of trees to make way for a new highway and cross-country skiing trails. The organizers, via private sponsorship, have put in place what they believe to be comprehensive carbon offsetting projects – with at least $3million investment in clean-energy projects. Half gets invested in British Columbia projects such as a cement plant that burns construction debris or a greenhouse heated with wood chips whilst the other half goes to projects around the world.

The travel from the 1.6million spectators the Games will have generated, an estimated total of 268,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases – I dread to think what it would have been if Britain had staged the games!

Mayor Robertson’s goal goes beyond a green Games, he wants to use the Olympics to help develop a new clean-technology industry base around Vancouver – to see the city as a hub for green jobs and sustainable industry – a major player in the seismic shift towards a green economy. He predicts that the new green businesses will “thrive as they roll out their goods and services to other cities that are still playing catch up”.

Wow! What a story and I bet you thought the most exciting thing about the Games was the Great Britain 4-man bobsleigh crashing on turn 13 at nearly 150kph! I can’t help thinking of our very own Mayor here in the Borough of Barnet, who just last year, at the opening ceremony of the 2009 Greenacre Bicycle Rally was politely heckled by a cyclist, “Mr Mayor, can’t we do more for cycling in this borough?” He replied, “Well, what exactly do you want me to do?” When the cyclist speedily said, “How about better cycle training, more cycle stands, or what about some proper dedicated cycle lanes?” our wonderful Mayor replied, “I’ve always been against cycle lanes, because they slow up the traffic.” And all this in front of the press and 169 assembled cycles! Not for nothing is he nick-named Toad of Toad Hall. No green medals for you Mr Toad! And another 3 cheers for Mayor Gregor Robertson of Vancouver B.C., green capital of North America.

No Humphrey, I will not build a cat sliding mud track in the back garden. Come on we’ll have a look at how the bulbs are doing. Keep happy, comprades, Spring is on the way and all the beautiful, beautiful flowers, till next time, adieu mes amis.

(From an article published in the Spring 2010 edition of The Greenacre Times)

Rainbows Over Bexhill by Mr Greenacres

Bexhill-on-Sea is one of those rather unusual seaside towns that still has a railway station. In fact there’s a line from Ashford in Kent that runs to Hastings, along the coast to Eastbourne, Brighton, and on to Portsmouth, so you see the south coast is still relatively well served by trains with three per hour calling at Bexhill in both directions. The station itself, built in fairly typical Edwardian style in 1902, is nothing much to speak of but it is remarkable for the length of its platforms - some 150 yards long and it still stands as a testament to the popularity of the resort in times gone by. The line runs fairly close to the seafront. A 400 yard walk straight down Sea Road and you’re there but a much better way to go is back along Endwell Road, that runs alongside the platforms and turn in to Devonshire Road a grand Victorian-built road with elegant four storey buildings over shop fronts and the closest thing Bexhill now has to a High Street. (There is a High Street half a mile to the north but this is no longer a shopping centre.)

Here we see the old colliding with the new for as well as the obligatory WH Smiths and Bodyshop there are still many traditional shops such as ‘M and Co’ the local department store and ‘Priceless Tools’ a real old-fashioned hardware shop with an old and slightly worn bare wooden staircase that leads to a basement full of real old-fashioned screws and fixings. Also worth a visit by all budding artists is ‘In-Perspective’ a ‘Windsor and Newton Premier Art Centre’, a small shop that is positively stuffed to the gills with everything an artist could desire.

Anyway there’s enough time for shopping later, there’s only one place to head for now - the seafront. Ah! Bee-you-tee-full sea air - fill your lungs. There’s nothing quite like it for reviving flagging spirits and tired feet. Trouble is I do detect a touch of rain in the air, good job we packed those modern plastic macs with a zip up front and a hood. Oh dear, it’s started to shower and the white horses have raised their heads, we’ll just sit here a while, see what we can see and contemplate the sea.

Shimmering, shining, beautiful and boundless, the source of inspiration for countless poets and paintings, our oceans are vast - simply huge - you know the oceans cover 70% of the Earth’s surface: the Pacific Ocean alone covers more square kilometres than the entire landmass, and in places it is over 10,000 meters deep. It is the depth of the oceans, this third dimension if you like, that means oceans make up 99% of the living space on our planet. And did you know that half of our oxygen supply comes from the sea? No, thought not. But this billowing briny wilderness, that most of us rarely give a second thought to is vital for the wellbeing of the whole planet, and it could be in an age where we are now all facing up to climate change, busily installing low energy lightbulbs and saying no to plastic bags, that we might have just overlooked something crucially important that could have catastrophic consequences, for the scientists are now starting to discover and understand new information about this watery underworld, and they are telling us -
THE OCEANS ARE CHANGING.

Now, a lot of you brainy bods out there are probably aware of marine pollution - things like oil spillages, plastics, dumping of sewage, waste and other chemicals. Many of us would invariably rather head for clean Blue Flag beaches than risk ingestion of raw sewage and a consequent bout of gastro-enteritis but important as these things undoubtedly are, there may be something even more important going on out there. In a word, PLANKTON, or to be more precise PHYTOPLANKTON, for it is these phytoplankton, these minute creatures at the very bottom of the marine food chain, that produce the oxygen. And recent research has shown their numbers may be in serious decline.

The term ‘plankton’ refers to the whole range of miniature, often microscopic, organisms that live in the ocean. There are two main types - phytoplankton (tiny plants) and zooplankton (tiny animals). Phytoplankton live on or just below the ocean surface and affect it appearance. The more plankton, the cloudier or murkier the water and it usually takes on a greenish tinge. Now stay with it, compadrès, these one-celled plants take energy from the sun and convert carbon dioxide and other nutrients into complex organic compounds to form new plant material - in other words in order to grow they absorb carbon and produce oxygen and this process is called PHOTOSYNTHESIS. In fact life on this planet only came about some 3.6 billion years ago at all because plankton began to produce oxygen. And as we said they now produce half the world’s oxygen. (The other half is produced on land by trees, shrubs, grasses and other plants) so really these miniscule sea beasties could be described as the lungs of the planet.

Phytoplankton are at the base of what scientists call ‘oceanic biological productivity’ or as we said bottom of the marine food chain. Just about everything that lives in or off the oceans owes its very existence to phytoplankton. Herbivorous marine creatures eat the phytoplankton. Carnivores in turn eat the herbivores and so it goes right up the food chain, fish, crabs, dolphins and so on to the top predators like killer whales and sharks. There are many fish as well as a few mammals, even some whales that survive by eating only plankton.

So tiny yet so hugely important, for as well as the oxygen cycle, plankton control the planet’s carbon and nitrogen cycles. Boris Worm, marine scientist at Dalhousie University in Halifax puts it like this: “If everything on land were to die tomorrow, life in the ocean would be fine. But if everything in the ocean were to die, everything on land would also perish.”

Detailed scientific study of plankton is relatively new, there isn’t much reliable data prior to 1980 and what the situation was before 1950 is anybody’s guess, but scientists are now sure that there has been a steady decline in phytoplankton concentrations in northern oceans over the last twenty years, in fact the drop may be as high as 30%!

Phytoplankton are fundamental to the ability of a body of water to be able to support marine life and there is an interlinked and interdependent relationship between phytoplankton and zooplankton. Zooplankton feed on phytoplankton. Some of these zooplankton are actually newly hatched ‘larval forms’ of bigger fish that will grow up and move into deeper water. The decline in some fish species, such as cod, is a direct result of the decline in the plankton that the fish larvae eat. A drop in zooplankton levels of 70% has been recorded by scientists off the U.S. west coast in the last 50 years. Zooplankton not only feed on phytoplankton, their levels become the ‘fertilizer’ that phytoplankton require to grow thus if zooplankton levels are declining it follows that phytoplankton levels are dropping as well.

What’s going on here? Well the trouble is, we haven’t been doing the right amount of research for long enough - so no-one is quite sure. Scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) say warmer ocean temperatures and low winds may be depriving the tiny ocean plants of vital nutrients. Phytoplankton need two things for photosynthesis and thus their survival: energy from the sun and nutrients from the water. Robert Frouin, a research meteorologist at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolia, California, said understanding the process by which phytoplankton obtain ocean nutrients is important to understanding the link between the ocean and global climate. So it seems that oceans are a much more important part of the planet’s problems than we may have realised, with plankton playing a vital part in maintaining the balance of the earth’s atmospheric oxygen. Don’t forget you can survive for about 40 days without food and 7 days without water but without oxygen you will be dead in minutes.

Okay, we’re all pretty well agreed on the basic source of the problem; excessive carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) released into the atmosphere - mainly by the burning of what we now call ‘fossil fuels’, coal, gas and oil - which collects in the upper atmosphere thus trapping heat from the sun in the earth’s atmosphere and warming the planet up with the consequent effect of climate change and rising sea-levels. Now, this ‘heating up’ of the oceans may very well be causing the drop in plankton but new research is showing other alarming changes in our oceans as well.

It seems that a third of the carbon we’ve released into the atmosphere has actually been absorbed into the oceans causing a chemical change to take place. Carbon dioxide gas reacts with water to form a mild carbonic acid. In short, we’ve begun to acidify the planet’s oceans. This phenomenon was unknown until 1999 when the first paper on ocean acidification was published in the journal Science. Before this scientists didn’t believe, short of some kind of cataclysmic action, that this sort of change could happen.

But it has happened. The Ph level (measurement of acidity or alkalinity) of the sea, which stood at 8.2 for millions of years, has now dropped to 8.05. And in the incredibly short period of 200 years! (Scientists tell us it hasn’t been this low for 55 million years.) What will all this mean? Scientists are now going full speed to try and find out, but at the moment nobody knows for sure.

Some plankton have shells made of limestone and as the sea becomes more acidic, the vital calcium levels needed to make these shells, drops. If acidity rises enough, the ocean will actually start to dissolve shells made of calcium which will affect every living sea creature with a shell as well as all our coral reefs.

And it doesn’t stop with the plankton or calcium problem. ALL sea creatures have evolved in the Ph level we had before these recent changes. Whilst early research shows that SOME creatures may adapt to new levels of acidity including some plankton others will not. If acidification of our oceans continues we may well be facing mass extinction on planet earth of the sort that has only occurred five times before in the planet’s history. In each instance this mass extinction was preceded by a warming of the oceans, a shortage of dissolved oxygen and increased acidity levels - the last time this happened was 65 million years ago when dinosaurs ruled the earth!

Oh dear, I get the feeling that perhaps dinosaurs do still rule the earth, and what with the rain coming down at a fair lick now, it hasn’t been that much fun sitting and contemplating the sea. It reminds me of a funny scene in the movie ‘84 Charing Cross Road’ where Anthony Hopkins and Judi Dench take their two children to the seaside. They’re all huddled together under raincoats and one of the children says “Daddy, why does it always rain at the seaside?” Hopkins looks befuddled for a few seconds before they all fall about laughing. You see, that’s the one question that doesn’t have an answer. One just has to see the funny side, Oh dear! I don’t think Mrs Greenacres can see the funny side, she looks decidedly damp. Better head off and get her a posh tea, pronto, in the De La Warr Pavilion no less! There’s certainly no sea bathing on the cards today.

Now the De La Warr Pavilion is a wonderful building, a sight for sore eyes, for coming out of a town that was in its heyday in the Edwardian era and is predominantly filled with late Victorian higgedly piggedly buildings, we see, all on its own, standing on the sea-front the most amazing piece of award-winning Modernist Architecture from 1935. All glass, and concrete and metal, sweeping curves, flat roofs, looking like the superstructure of an ocean going liner, and in its isolation right by the sea it looks as if it were dropped out of the sky by a giant Art Deco spaceship. But this building as wonderful as it is, grew out of controversy and resentment and in some ways it remains controversial today.

Like a lot of English seasides, Bexhill is a bit of a yesterday place and a bit of a muddle. Historically it has been a place of divisions. Perhaps the most obvious one being between those who wished to cater for visitors and had ambitions for Bexhill to become a ‘Seaside Resort’ and those who were rather more insular and resentful of outsiders wishing Bexhill to remain a ‘Seaside Town’ mainly for residents. Traces of this division remain to this very day.

Most of the land around Bexhill had been part of the Earl De La Warr’s estate but in the mid 19th century a considerable portion of land to the west of the town was turned over to local builder John Webb in part payment for works carried out. This land has become known as Egerton Park Estate. The boundary running north-south between these two estates ran right through the middle of the town along Sea Road thus creating an east-west division. It was agreed that Egerton Park Estate would include the majority of shops and services whilst the De La Warr Estate consisted mainly of large houses and fine hotels. Yet another division was therefore created, this time more of a class division, for the tradesmen although accepted as a practical ‘necessity’ by the upper classes were never to be mixed with socially. For their part, many of the traders became resentful and suspicious of the De La Warr Estate’s influence in town politics. In the early days of the resort there were two entertainment venues - The Colonnade for the lower middle classes and below and The Kursaal for the upper middle classes and above which typifies this position. There were many period cartoons and when a new Colonnade and Bandstand was opened in 1911, The Bexhill Observer published a cartoon which depicted the two rival bands trying to drown each other out and scaring away all the visitors in the process.

An even more damaging division was that between the tradesmen and hoteliers versus the more insular residents. This split had nothing to do with either class or the two estates, in fact it united the Egerton shopkeepers and the posh hoteliers for it was a conflict between those dependent on tourism for their livelihood and those who opposed it. For some time Bexhill’s claims of clean air and longevity had attracted residents of ‘independent means’. It had acquired a reputation for being populated by ‘gouty colonels’ and ‘old colonials’. Now this was not good for the prosperity of the town. These residents of independent means regarded visitors as intrusive and resented the preferential treatment given to them by shopkeepers and traders, but more importantly this faction objected to the higher rates and taxes needed to properly develop the town into a tourist ‘resort’ and as we know the two precursors to imaginative development are the will and the money. Many arguments and heated debates took place in Council chambers and whilst sometimes discussion and compromise can work as a catalyst for change and progress, more often than not it just holds things up.

As early as 1907 proposals were made for a new entertainment pavilion or ‘Winter Garden’. By this time the Kursaal’s popularity was in decline and the 8th Earl reportedly lost £30,000 on it before selling it in 1908. The Kursaal was subject to extensive and unflattering refurbishment in 1925 which was unable to halt the inevitable - The Kursaal was demolished in 1935. The most ambitious proposal mooted was for a ‘Music Pavilion and Enlarged Band Enclosure’ which was part of the ‘1930 Bexhill Borough General Development Plan’ a radical plan advocating the demolition of most of the town, which would then be rebuilt in a 1930s style. This included proposals for a new town square and railway station. The long-standing disagreement between those for and against tourism prevented any of these plans reaching fruition.

At this point enter the 9th Earl De La Warr, Mayor of Bexhill from 1932 to 1935, vegetarian, pacifist, Bexhill’s first socialist mayor and the first hereditary Peer of the Labour party. He was a remarkable man, principled, visionary, with great drive and determination, he was also a diplomat and he succeeded where those before him had failed on two counts - he got a new pavilion built and in so doing perhaps for the only time in its history he united the town.

In April 1933 the ninth Earl, in his capacity as Mayor, put forward a £50,000 plan. He was determined that the project should be funded by the town, not by private development and should remain in public ownership. The design brief indicated that a modern building was required and that ‘heavy stonework is not desirable’. In order to create such a modern building of note Bexhill Borough Council asked the RIBA to stage a competition to design a new building. Thomas S. Tait, who was known to be sympathetic to Modernist Architecture was selected as judge, and the competition was announced in The Architect’s Journal on 7th September 1933. The closing date was 4th December 1933 and the results were announced on 8th February 1934. Eric Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff were adjudged clear winners and won the £150 first prize. The estimated cost of building was £56,260. Tait said their design ‘indicated a thorough grasp of the nature of the problem, is direct and simple in planning, and shows a masterly handling of the architectural treatment’. The Architect’s Journal commented ‘Mr Thomas S. Tait must have had little difficulty in choosing the winner’.

Originally the scheme included the redevelopment of the 1910 Colonnade and Bandstand area as well as a new sea-front swimming pool with small pier and diving boards that was linked to the main building by a raised, enclosed walkway. (The original architect’s model showing these features is still on display in Bexhill Museum.) Unfortunately neither of these schemes was ever built. A new resident’s association was formed specifically to oppose the new building. Their main objection was the spending of so much public money on a facility for the benefit of visitors. At a council meeting on 28th October 1935 the decision was taken to postpone the £18,600 swimming pool, and on the 19th November 1935 the £8,734 plans for the new Colonnade and Pergola were also put on hold. Period photos show that part of the Pergola had already been constructed but was subsequently taken down.

Construction of the pavilion began in January 1935 utilising as much local labour as possible, and the contract stated ‘work should be completed in 50 weeks’. At an early stage King George V and Queen Mary became interested when a model of the pavilion was shown to them. They were so fascinated that they made an unscheduled visit to the building site and a commemorative plaque was laid on 6th May 1935 - King George V’s Silver Jubilee day. The De La Warr Pavilion was opened on schedule by the Duke and Duchess of York on 12th December 1935. The correspondent for The New Statesman wrote at the time: ‘you could not find a stronger argument in favour of town planning than Bexhill, which is not so much a town as a chaotic litter of hideous houses sprawling higedly pigeldy along a lovely coast. Lord De La Warr, whose ancestors were responsible for this muddle, has now made an act of reparation. The most satisfactory example of modern architecture I have ever seen in this country. One has the impression of being on a great transatlantic liner. The functionalists can complain that the staircase on the north side is mere ornament and its great glass bay looks only on buildings better not looked at - but it is good ornament. The traditionalists on the other hand will complain that this is not so much a pleasure pavilion as a pleasure machine, ominously appropriate to the standard amusements of Mr Huxley’s Brave New World.’

Cor! Grand words indeed and perhaps a bit unkind to Victoriana but, you know, this building is very impressive and it is fine architecture - Grade I listed, and people travelling from all parts of Britain for a visit. I couldn‘t get an egg and tomato sandwich here though, they’ve got everything else mind you, including a bloomin’ grand piano in the café. I had to settle for cream cheese and smoked salmon no less - not bad though for a new-fangled taste sensation.

So one hell of a building with a hell of a history - it even got bombed in WWII. Although rebuilt post war the plan to build a grand dance hall on the east end of the Pavilion was a non starter. Unfortunately the building suffered many unsympathetic modifications in post war years and even a ridiculous attempt to hide the building under ivy in the 1970s! It fell into a state of disrepair and was eventually mothballed. Fortunately for us all, proper restoration was started in 2004 and a jolly fine job they made of restoring it to its former glory.
Amazingly this building although considered a national architectural treasure, remains locally somewhat unloved, undervalued and even resented. The old chestnut still rears its ugly head as we discovered to our horror there was even a local petition to try and have the annual grant axed/reduced! And in some quarters there is still resentment of visitors. What’s new?

Guess what - the rain’s stopped. Straight up to the roof top sun-bathing terraces to get a look at the ‘crummy town’ and the wonderful sea. Funny place this - bit of trivia for you, folks, did you know that the only school in Britain to incorporate a swastika in its school badge in the 1930s was the Augusta Victoria College in Bexhill. This was a school for German girls to improve their English and pupils included von Ribbentrop’s daughter and Himmler’s god-daughter. Needless to say the school closed in 1939. Trivia no. 2 - who wrote these words…“at 4.30, June 2nd 1940, on a summer’s day all mares’ tails and blue sky, we arrived at Bexhill-on-Sea, where I got off. It wasn’t easy. The train didn’t stop there.” Answer: Spike Milligan. He was stationed in Bexhill from June 1940 - February 1941 and recalls his time here in both the book and movie entitled Adolph Hitler: My Part In His Downfall. He also immortalised the town in the wonderful 1954 Goon Show sketch called ‘The Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler of Bexhill-on-Sea.’ Tee-hee-hee!

Can this day get any better? Just when we think we’re washed out the sun comes out and now we see not one but two rainbows over the sea. Beautiful. Got to start thinking about making a move folks. Back to Victoria Station, back to reality, for Humphrey will need feeding and there’s piles of leaves to clear up. But what a wonderful thought to take home on the train - RAINBOWS OVER BEXHILL. Have fun in the Autumn leaves, spare a thought for the plankton and for Gawd’s sake stop burning carbon. Till next time, mes amis - Adieu.
For further info on Bexhill -- Bexhill Chamber of Commerce and Tourism 01424 842892
Website: www.discoverbexhill.com

This article first appeared in The Greenacre Times Autumn 2009 edition:

The Woman Who Stopped Cars. From Valeria Acerbi

(This article first appeared in The Greenacre Times Spring 2009)



I have lived in London for 22 years, 12 of those in Mill Hill. I currently live in Sanders Lane with my husband and two children and am the treasurer of Bittacy and Sanders Residents Association (BASRA).

We first found out of Barnet's intention to turn Sanders Lane into a major road at the first Public Consultation meeting held at Frith Manor School in March 2007. It was not on any of the plans displayed, we simply heard it while listening to a council officer in charge of explaining to the public the traffic options. When some members of the public expressed scepticism at the options illustrated the officer said offhandedly: "another option would be to turn Sanders Lane into a through road". We were flabbergasted and shocked because nothing of the kind was ever hinted in a BASRA meeting with Martin Cowie as guest speaker (head of Planning for Mill Hill East Area Action Plan) prior to the Public Consultation and nothing was displayed on any correspondence or drawings. We then rang Martin Cowie to invite him to one of our meetings to expand on the subject further and for him to listen to the residents view, he very reluctantly accepted because, in his own words, we should not worry as it would be too expensive to build a road in SL with the bridge having to be rebuilt etc. He never turned up for the meeting.

This made me very suspicious and alert to any more developments on the subject. In February 2008 a resident called to my house to show me a Council Meeting Agenda which he attended with an item for discussion dedicated to the reopening of Sanders Lane. We decided to start a petition in Sanders Lane, Tavistock Avenue and Grants Close.

When we rang the council again we were told that no plans had been made for Sanders Lane and we had no grounds for a petition but as we discovered in the final document we certainly had because there it was in black and white " In the future Sanders will be reopened to accommodate for the increase in traffic".

Following the release of the final document BASRA went to the MHPS AGM meeting to put a few questions to the panel which included Brian Coleman. His reply to us was that we were overreacting and hysterical and there was no plan yet to make the road! At this point we decided to show the document to a Planning Barrister, a friend of a resident, who advised us to oppose the document via a series of written representations. This was because the document certainly stated that Sanders Lane should be reopened and if we didn't oppose it at this stage we would never be able to fight any future plans.

To try to get as many people to submit written representations we called a meeting at the Railway Engineers Pub to which the Hendon Times was invited. More than 60 residents attended.

We also organized a protest picnic to raise awareness and support which was well attended. Guests at the picnic included Andrew Dismore, Cllr John Hart, Wayne Casey, Jeremy Davies from London Wildlife Trust, the Mill Hill Preservation Society, the Green Party and the RSPB.

A resident in Tavistock Avenue set up the Website with photos of the lane and a list of wildlife to be protected. The day of the Hearing was nerve wracking as Zoe Rahman, Peter Jones, Sarah Bowen and I all representing BASRA had never been through this kind of process before but Zoe very effectively put our point across.

After the hearing we received another unexpected blow with the article in the Press which outlined Barnet's Plan to unclog Barnet’s roads which included Sanders Lane again as a highway option. This meant that even if Sanders Lane was taken out of the AAP there was now another plan in place which we would have to oppose. The Inspectors Report said that the argument for reopening Sanders Lane was "Thin, confusing and contradictory" and did not recommend it, so it is for us a win, but we have merely won a battle not the war which we feel will carry on as we are sure Barnet will be back! However we have been celebrating this outcome as it has given us more confidence to carry on campaigning.

Note: On Sunday June 21st at 12.00, we are having the Sanders Lane Green Picnic. Please bring your own food to our picnic on our community green. We are surrounded by green spaces – Bittacy Park, allotments, nature walks, golf club and Copthall sports fields. We will be having a guided nature walk, treasure trail, face painting and other family activities hopefully bat detecting and rickshaw rides! We are running this event as part of Love London Green Festival. Come to the railway bridge in Sanders Lane, approach from the junction with Bittacy Hill.

From The Greenacre Times (Spring 2009)

Debt Crisis By John-Paul Flintoff

Usury: 1. the lending of money at interest, esp at an exorbitant or illegal rate of interest. 2. an exorbitant or illegal rate or amount of interest

I've had an overwhelming response to recent posts (on the Times blog) arguing that our debt-based economic system is fundamentally unsustainable.
There have been many objections to this premise, but as far as I can tell others have also seconded my argument (or rather, since it was their work which led me to that conclusion, I seconded theirs). At the same time, a lucid and convincing (to me) article on similar lines, "The money pit", has appeared in The Ecologist magazine. (It's
by James Bruges, author of the really, genuinely wonderful Big Earth Book.)

But the thing that I have found most fascinating about the debate is the way it is whisked away from any suggestion that this might be an ethical matter. It's much easier, I guess, to debate practicalities.

At the heart of the subject is lending at interest - known for centuries as usury and still understood that way by, among others, adherents to Islam. But in globalised societies where people exchange ideas online, nobody seems able to take usury seriously. Even glimpsing the word here, on the oh-so-modern Internet, evidently strikes many people as laughable. But what were the arguments against usury that prevailed for so many centuries? Were they based on mere superstition? Have key facts come to light since then, overturning them? In both cases, the answer is no.

The arguments are many and various. They've been around for a very long time. And they’re just as strong today as they ever were. Among the Ancient Greeks, Plato said that, ‘The best procedure of the state is to legalise the refusal to the usurer of principal and interest.’ Aristotle said that usury was ‘currency born from currency’ and therefore ‘entirely contrary to nature’. (Cows produce calves, he pointed out, but coins don't produce anything.) Plutarch pithily warned: ‘You have money? Do not borrow on usury for you do not need it. You have none? Do not borrow on usury for you will not pay it off.’

The Romans felt much the same. Convicted thieves, in Rome, were fined twice the extent of their theft, while usurers were fined four times the amount.

We work for years to pay off debts. This is why moneylenders were often described as bloodsuckers - draining life from borrowers - and why Cato wrote that usury was synonymous with killing.

Many people these days might flinch before any reference to scripture, but inasmuch as it conveys the wisdom of ages, it’s worth at least hearing what the Bible has to say. In the Old Testament books of Exodus and Leviticus, for instance, lending at interest to the poor, and between Jews, is forbidden; in Deuteronomy it is forbidden without either distinction. In the Psalms, it is twice asserted that a loan should be free. Ezekiel counted all ‘increment from loans’ among the most serious crimes.

In the New Testament, Jesus specifically stated that when we lend we should ‘hope for nothing in return’. Usury, by contrast, turns private charity into a form of trafficking.

The present-day Anglican commentator on usury John Richardson explains it like this: “If somebody has a genuine need for assistance and you make money out of it then you’re exploiting their need. And if they don’t need it but you advance the money then you are exploiting their greed."

More generally, Christ called on us to treat others as we wish them to treat us - a Golden Rule that can be found in every other major religious tradition, as follows:
‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow men.’ The Talmud
‘Do nothing to others which, if done to you, would cause you pain.’ The Mahabharata
‘What you do not want others to do to you, do not do to others.’ Confucius
‘One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter.’ The Dhammapada
‘That which you w ant for yourself, seek for mankind.’ The Qu’ran

Martin Luther, like the Catholic Church with which he disagreed on much else, vehemently opposed usury. Calvin too felt that, ‘usury is an ungenerous profit that is unworthy of a religious or honourable man. . . It is almost impossible for usuries to be exacted without hindering our brother.’

Calvin also argued that it might be possible to lend at interest to the rich, because they can afford to take a hit. But as Andrewes pointed out, the same argument could be put forward to justify burglary. And anyway, as Plutarch had long ago observed, the rich have no need to borrow at interest.

You might think that the lack of money lent at interest held back the trading and building aspirations of our medieval forebears. Not-at-all. Money could be made available where necessary. But lenders and borrowers went into true partnerships, sharing the risk of loss and the opportunity to make a profit.

Thus, even without money that had been lent at interest, our predecessors traded and built incredible monuments, from Westminster Abbey and the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, to many hundreds of abbeys and nunneries and parish churches that are less well known, as well as castles and great public spaces such as St Stephen's Hall in Westminster and various guild halls, and innumerable homes of rich merchants and aristocrats. These may not feature on tourists' itineraries - indeed, many are no longer standing, though that's not the fault of the original builders.

So why was the doctrine of usury abandoned? How did a crime as bad as murder become not merely acceptable but central to our way of life? On what basis did governments and bankers take a look at the Golden Rule and decide to unsubscribe? And - for the sake of the planet - can usury ever be made taboo again?

Published in The Greenacre Times (November 2008)

Why Wasps? Not Such A Pest Says Clive S.M. Cohen

Wasps have a bad press. People inherently dislike wasps which are notorious and looked upon as the public enemy of the invertebrate species.
When a queen wasp emerges from hibernation, with the first rays of sun emerging in the early spring, queens seek the nectar of early flowering willow and a suitable nesting site in accordance with their species of which there are now 9, including hornets and 2 new species, Vespa Media and Saxonica. Then, unlike bees, they produce half a dozen hexagonal cells that (instead of being made out of wax), are made out of wood. They protect these cells by a layer of cone shaped fragile balsa wood covering, having produced this from chewing local fence or rotten tree. They then mix it with water in their saliva and produce the substance, as compared with bees from their wax glands.

Soon young wasps emerge and the nest is enlarged by the young wasps taking over from the queen who quickly becomes an egg-laying machine. As the number of cells enlarge, the protective covering is removed internally and replaced outside, in layers, causing the nest to develop in size. Eventually by the end of the season it becomes at least the size of a large watermelon, or larger.

During all this time, the wasps are feeding on aphid, caterpillars, maggots of various species and a vast variety of spiders and other invertebrate species, for which they are endlessly hunting. Without wasps our flora and many species of trees would undoubtedly be stripped of their leaves. Examples of this have occurred recently in West Hendon, where the Brown Tailed Moth has festooned many trees and denuded them of leaves, causing expensive canopy mist-spraying by Council staff.

The feeding habits of most species continue until August/September when their appetite changes with the advent of less invertebrates on which they so readily feast and the availability of apple, plum and pear on which their appetite then becomes focused. It is at this time of year that most people are aware of the presence of wasps that become drunk on the alcoholic content of the rotting fruit and can sting on impact. Colonies die in their entirety in October/November, and this year will be as late as December because of the wet weather. This is after the production of young queens and their mating, who then hibernate until the following spring.

There are however some species which are the exception in their habit and diet. The tree wasp for example can consume exclusively caterpillars and complete their life cycle as early as July/August, when most of the caterpillars have finished for the season.

Hornets which are massive and intimidating, in common with bumble bees, are not aggressive unless their nesting site is threatened. In recent years hornets have spread from East Barnet and are largely present throughout the Borough of Barnet. Currently, they can be seen hawking for honey bees at the entrance of beehives, or even a wasp colony and recently a further new species is spreading throughout the United Kingdom from Southampton, where it was first observed, and is called "the bee woolf". This species lines its nest specifically with honey bees!

There are also over 200 species of solitary wasps that feed entirely on other invertebrates, as well as a large yellow and black windhover which, while feeding on pollen, lays its eggs in the debris at the bottom of a wasp’s nest.
Wasps undoubtedly, much maligned as they are, contribute to the quality of our environment. Unfortunately because of their presence frequently close to human habitat, it is necessary for colonies to be destroyed in accordance with health and safety risks. But there is every reason to suppose that this should be done as selectively as possible, so that we do not succeed in destroying an entire species.

(From The Greenacre Times September 2008)

UFO Sightings Over Barnet? Not From Where I'm Standing, Says Donald E Lyven

Recently the Ministry of Defence released once secret records of Unidentified Flying Object sightings over the UK with our local newspapers concentrating on several sightings seen over the Borough of Barnet. Imagine my surprise when I was rung by a journalist during May and asked: ‘of all the people I know, you are the obvious choice to comment on UFO sightings…’ Now that either makes me well informed on such matters, or a complete and utter nutter. However, as someone who has lived in the Borough of Barnet since it’s formation in the sixties, and with interests in Aviation, Astronomy and Ornithology, I can honestly say, that in over 40 years of looking skyward with eyes, binoculars, telescope and cameras, I have never seen anything I couldn’t explain.

I have heard various reports over the years, about mysterious moving light formations at night, in the sky; but as we in Barnet are under the flights paths into Heathrow, Northolt, Elstree, Luton and Stanstead, this is only to be expected. Aircraft landing lights are powerful and can be seen for tens of miles. For instance, the main runway at Stanstead points in the direction of the Borough, and so, despite being nearly 30 miles away, aircraft lined up on approach to the Essex airport, appear almost stationary low above the north-eastern horizon as they slowly descend into the airport, giving the impression of a hovering bright light that disappears into the gloom of the thickening atmosphere.

Additionally, the north London aircraft stacks for Heathrow in Hertfordshire and Essex, provide a constant stream of moving and altering patterns of light shapes at night, as up to half a dozen aircraft circle at different heights before starting their approach vectors. This causes an ever-changing pattern of squares and triangles to the casual viewer, unaware of the incidental aerial ballet being choreographed by air traffic controllers and pilots.

Balloons are another source of observational conundrums. Often I’ve seen strange shapes wandering curiously across the sky, only to view in binoculars a clutch of several balloons let loose from shops, or children; and once, a collection of expensive shinny animal shapes, that had escaped from its no-doubt angry balloon seller! But these local daytime sightings are nothing to do with a proper nighttime sighting of a lighted object moving about the heavens, something I’ve always wanted to see….

Space: once the final frontier, yet most of us now use 'space' in our everyday lives, whether relying on Sat-Nav in the car (or used menacingly to track the van I drive), watching Sky television, or making an international phone call with that irritating delay. All these marvels are due to the myriad of satellites Earthlings have launched during the past 50 years. Look out after dusk or before dawn up into a clear sky, and you should see several slow moving pinpoints of light passing steadily between the stars, denoting the passage of a satellite as the sun reflects off its metal surface. Some, like the International Space Station are extremely bright, and its predicted orbits overhead can be found on the NASA website, and watched as it steadily passes brilliantly above.

As regards alien life visiting Earth, the distances and maths involved simply don’t add up. While I’m sure life has evolved on many suitable planets across the universe, consider this: we’ve had life on Earth for billions of years - but as simple bacteria; then for millions of years as creature life forms; but only during the last few thousand years, have humans mastered technology to the point we have today, and yet we still couldn’t send people beyond our few closest planetary neighbours if we had to. And nor will we.

For too much of Earth’s scientific knowledge and finance has been swallowed up in either war or the vain pursuit of happiness, and the modern industrial base we in the rich world enjoy now, will go into steady decline as populations increase while the oil runs out – (that’s why it’s currently going up in price). As food becomes scarce, and global warming causes sea levels to rise rendering the world’s coastal cities, ports, oil refineries and nuclear power stations useless - our modern ‘world-market’ economy will collapse like a pack of cards. Only poor subsistence farming communities who have little to lose will be able to survive. In the future, what use is a 4x4 in London with no fuel available to run it, nothing in the shops to buy, and no electricity? Rioters and gangs will take whatever they want from whoever has it, and society as we know it will not exist. Starvation and disease will wipe out entire populations of countries whose economies were based on the cheap availability of oil as its power source. Our oil based economies are doomed.

Had our planet evolved correctly, we would be using renewable energy sources – wind, solar and tidal, while we still had the use of cheap oil to fund their development. Instead we have squandered it, polluted our soil, air and sea, and not shared the planet’s wealth and resources, preventing knowledge and technology globally that would have eventually got humans into deep space – but now it’s too late. As the few rich countries get richer, the vast majority of the planet’s nations will suffer terminal decline until the whole world is affected.

There is every reason to think all intelligent life forms on planets have only a limited window in their evolution of a few hundred years in which to contact other worlds; for like on Earth, their industrial age, pollution and lack of natural resources will end up destroying them. The odds of two intelligent civilisations on separate but close enough planetary systems, evolving to a point where their technology periods coincide and being able to contact each other in the same time frame, are phenomenal. This is the reason I believe we have not been contacted by aliens and hence no genuine UFO sightings.

It is telling that nearly all classic ‘alien encounters’ are by lone individuals usually in the middle of nowhere. Wouldn’t a space ship making the effort of a thousand light-year mission land somewhere more public to make the trip worthwhile? It is also remarkable that nearly all images of aliens with their distinctive head shape, harp straight back to the 1950s Roswell incident in New Mexico; where shaven chimpanzees in silver insulating suits were discovered in the wreckage of a converted German V2 rocket that crashed near the desert town. Little did those who initially discovered the crash site realise how the legacy of that incident would have on sci-fi and popular culture for generations to follow.

Over Finchley one Sunday I once saw the proverbial weather balloon! These were released several times a day from Bracknell to collect data on wind direction, speed, air temperature and pressure, and the one I saw was a small white dot high in the sky with a box of data collecting instruments slung underneath, travelling northeast away from Bracknell’s direction. The only other sights I’ve seen over the borough are various aircraft - all identifiable - fascinating cloud shapes, spectacular lightning, and birds of all sorts. The most interesting was a high flight of swans at around two-thirty in the morning, their distinctive white shapes visible from reflective street lighting as their broad V formation rippled silently and eerily across a black velvet sky sparkling with stars. Truly breathtaking; but totally explainable.

From The Greenacre Times (June 2008)