Vilmos

It was a really good turn out at the War Memorial this morning. The Pastor of the Church got his congregation there and really boosted the crowd. There are a couple of issues: There is no sounding of the Last Post and Reveille before and after the Two Minutes Silence and it is sorely missing. I am going to get on to whoever organises the event to see if we cannot get even recordings of the two calls played next year. The other issue, which I wrote Jonathan Mitchell our local councillor about, was the very dangerous situation that is created by having such a large crowd stood next to a busy road. Something does need to be done about that. Otherwise I have never seen the memorial so well attended on Remembrance Day. Long may it continue.

Where my son lives, near the south coast, if you don't put your bin out on the pavement the bin men wont empty it. At least here they will go into your yard and take the bin out of the gate to get it to the lorry. Also, where my son lives, you have to buy your own disposable bags to put in the food recycling bin, and they are expensive. You also have to pay to have your garden waste taken away, or take it to the dump yourself. Things could be worse!

And don't even think about a bike! Some of these people carrying youngsters on their bikes leave me cold. They don't wear any bright clothing or day glow vests, but God help any motorist who collides with one.

The double decker carries far fewer passengers than the Bendy Bus. It is OK if you are boarding a double decker number 12 on Barry Road, but by the time the bus reaches Camberwell, or even before, it will be full to capacity. The Bendy Bus does have draw backs in that they have to withdraw it from Barry Road when it is snowing because it jackknifes when it tries to turn into Ethrow Street, and a number of cars there have been damaged. But I for one will miss the Bendy Bus and as for the newly designed one.....no comment!

I am thinking of going, just to have a look, the same as I did when I went to see the Westfield in west London. I thought I could get the 185 to Lewisham, then get the Docklands Light Railway to the shopping centre. Will this work out?

Living so near to a school is bound to create parking problems anywhere in London. This is one bugbear of living in the Capital and when I was working I frequently had to park at quite a distance from my home. Now I am retired I can at least keep an eye out for a space close to my home and get my car in there as soon as there is the chance. If there is a controlled parking zone created in your street, then as others have have said, the traffic will simply overflow to surrounding streets. Then how long before we hear another 'stressed' mum complaining of all the things you are complaining about? Bringing up kids? Been there, done that, and it doesn't get any easier. On the bright side, they will be grown and flown the nest before you know it and you will be left saying to yourself 'Where did all the years go'.

To tell the truth, I hadn't noticed until the subject was raised. There is so much going on that contrasts with the environment in E. Dulwich, not least the building that has taken place over the past two decades. When I first moved here E. Dulwich was heavily built, yes, but with many open spaces which since the mid eighties have gradually disappeared until it is like living in a sardine can now. One particular item irks me continually. I live on Barry Road, and the Victorians who built it (bless their cotton socks) put the church door at the top of the road bang in its centre so no matter where on the road you live, if you look westward, up the road, there is the church door reminding you of your Christian duties. So, what does some clueless individual from the highways do? They go and plant a NO ENTRY sign bang in front of it, instantly spoiling the the whole effect. So help me one dark night I am going up there with a hacksaw and I am going to fell the thing.

Why Worlingham Road? It is cramped, heavily parked and doesn't have much character. The only good thing I can say about Worlingham Road is that when I was courting my wife in the early seventies she lived on Worlingham Road. I remember we walked up and down that road, arms round each other, oblivious to the rest of the world, for hour after hour. Wouldn't have bought a house there though, even in those far off days.

The argument to keep East Dulwich Hospital open was flawed. Maintaining a building of that age is very high. It is expensive to heat, to clean and to run clinical services in. There must be asbestos hidden all over the building and maintaining it, i.e keeping rain and draught out, against maintaining a new building that is Eco friendly must be quite marked.

We have lived on Barry Road for seventeen years now. It has always been a busy thoroughfare for traffic, but not excessively so. I rarely have problems parking for instance. There are two bus routes that run along the road. The 197 starts from Peckham and terminates in Croydon, (or the other way around if you prefer) and the number 12 (a Bendy Bus due to be withdrawn and replaced by standard double deckers in November) starts from the top of Barry Road and terminates at Oxford Circus (and vice verca). I find both routes very useful and the buses are quite frequent. From the top of the road you can catch a No 40 (East Dulwich Library to London Bridge) or a 185 (Lewisham to Victoria) or a 176 to (Penge to Oxford Circus). From the bottom of the road there is a 63 to Kings Cross and a 363 to the Elephant and Castle. There are two parks you can choose from, both of them quite outstanding. Peckham Park is directly at the bottom of Barry Road and Dulwich Park is a short walk from the top of Barry Road. The populace of the Road is very mixed. There are ultra wealthy and professional people living cheek by jowl with people who live in council or housing association properties and with people who live in buy to let properties. The road is relatively crime free when compared with other parts of London. We know our immediate neighbours, but beyond that we know very few people on the road, they do tend to keep themselves to themselves. At our previous location (in London) we knew quite a lot of people along our road and had many friends, but not on Barry Road. Do I like it here? It is OK because I have a large back garden, but I still miss the friendships I had at my previous location.

The only time I have bought cheese that was mouldy, or cucumber that was rotting or yoghurt where the pot was cracked was when I shopped at Waitrose. You don't pay for extra quality at places like Waitrose and M&S, you pay for the name. Food at Iceland is just as good and wholesome as it is in the up market supers, so long live Iceland on Lordship Lane. I use it (Iceland on Lordship Lane that is) quite often actually.

This sort of thing happens even on double deckers. I was once riding to Forest Hill on a 176 when two blokes came down the stairs and were watching a Chinese guy on his mobile. You could tell there was going to be trouble because the two blokes' eyes were glazed and it was obvious they were high on goodness knows what. They laid into the Chinese guy and myself and a very old coloured lady were trying to pull them off. One of them hit the woman and sent her sprawling across the floor. Luckily she was OK but very shaken. The two blokes grabbed the mobile and jumped off the bus at a bus stop.

At the very least we need a STOP sign putting up there, like the one at the north side of the junction of Goodrich Rd with Barry Rd. I do remember the council running a survey some years back to ask people what modifications they would like to make traffic safer in this area. One of the 'improvements' that came out of the survey was the speed sign on Barry Rd just down from the junction with Ethrow St. Although several people highlighted the junction to which you refer, nothing seems to have been done in that vicinity.

You don't say what model it is. If it was a 125 then it could well have been kids who took it and they are riding it around the area. If it was a 500 or a 750 then someone has taken it away in a van and you are going to have a real problem getting it back..

This has been wanted for a long time now. East Dulwich suffered its share of bombing during the Second World War, a 500lb bomb landed on, and totally demolished, a Church in Friern Road. A new one was built and consecrated around 1950, but there is nothing there to tell people what happened. East Dulwich suffered badly when the V1 and V2 rockets were launched against London in 1944. There were several nasty incidents in which people were killed, but two particularly bad ones were when a V1 struck the Coop shop on Saturday the 5th of August 1944. Around 23 people perished. Another incident of note happened when a V2 Rocket landed on Ethrow Street at the junction with Friern Road killing over twenty people. There is nothing to commemorate these fatalities, or to say what the people living hereabouts went through during those terrible days. We do owe it to them to commemorate their suffering with the mounting of plaques describing the incidents and listing fatalities. Many people who died as result of the bombing did so days or weeks after the incidents, in hospital, and there is nothing to link their deaths with the bombings. One final thought: There was an incident at the junction of East Dulwich Road and Peckham Rye, where the King's Arms pub used to be (now a converted block of flats). A house had been converted into a factory making womens' undergarments and several young girls worked in there. On the 22 of June 1944 a Doodlebug was heard and the people working in the factory hurried into the shelter just outside the house. The bomb destroyed the house, much of the rubble landing on the shelter. People hurried to dig them out, and the factory people could be heard singing in order to keep their spirits up. Tragically, by the time the rescuers reached them they had all suffocated to death. There were around 16 fatalities in that incident and very few people know anything about it. All these incidents can be researched in the John Harvard Library on Borough High Street where all the records relating to the bombing of Southwark are kept.

Why oh why don't cyclists make themselves more visible. The number of times I see cyclists wearing dark clothing which renders them barely visible, even when they are carrying children on their bikes for goodness sake. There should be a law that makes it compulsory for cyclists to wear some kind of visibility aid such as a day glow bib, or a sash or anything that makes them visible. How on earth can they expect motorists to see them if they do not take precautions to make themselves seen. There used to be an advert that encouraged people to 'Wear something light at night'. Cyclists should wear something that makes them more visible all the time they are riding their bikes. I ride a cycle, and yes, I do wear a day glow sash and day glow cycle clips.

I am getting perilous close to seventy and I have a dodgy foot. So, can I just do the pint and short at the Plough, catch the bus down Barry Rd then do the pint and the short at the Clockhouse?

I have done this journey more time than I care to think. I would opt for the M11 route. Just getting through central London to the M1 on a Friday evening is a good hour and a quarter. You should be on the M11 by then, barring closures to the Blackwall Tunnel that is.

The TV listings are much better in Saturday's Daily Mail than they are in Saturday's Guardian. And there is a much better puzzle section (in the Daily Mail that is). But don't ask me to take either tablet seriously.

I remember when I was a child and the first Census after the war was held. People were talking about nothing else for weeks, and not filling out your Census form was never mentioned, everyone filled it out without question. But there again, people did not have the time on their hands in those days to start these infantile protests that I see going around currently.

We have a coalition government because that is what the electorate wanted. No party won an overall majority so it was either go back to the electorate and ask them to think again (not a popular move) or negotiate a coalition. I think we know enough about what went on behind the closed doors while the parties were negotiating, and I think it is clear that Ed Balls took a very arrogant stance, almost expecting the Lib Dems to rubber stamp Labour policy. The Tories on the other hand were prepared to talk on an equal basis with the Lib Dems. We have little experience in this country of coalition governments. There is a lot of horse trading while they put together a manifesto that represents all parties concerned and sacred cows are sacrificed on all sides until the negotiators have a working agreement to go forward on. I have never voted Tory in my life, but I was of the opinion that the Lib Dems took the best offer. And don't think things around the economy would have been much different if Labour had retained power. We would still have been facing swinging cuts across the board, and the Lib Dems would still have had to relinquish their promise of doing away with Student fees.

I once heard Charles Kennedy say that if all the empty rooms above shops were let out as dwellings a huge dent would be made in the housing shortage. I started to look up above shops, and he was right! There are more empty rooms than enough above our high street shops that would make good homes for people. Surely a little pressure on shop owners would make these empty spaces available.