Tag: watling avenue

another wander up the watling

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Watling Avenue 071124

While we are currently sweltering under this impossible Central Valley heat, it’s a good time to fly back to Burnt Oak. It’s always nice to go back home, for as long as I can still call it home. When I was a small kid going to Goldbeaters School, I don’t think I ever wondered what I’d be doing when I was in my late forties, and whether that would also involve flying back from America and doing drawings of Watling Avenue. (No, when I was six years old I just wanted to be Ossie Ardiles when I grew up). It has been a very busy past year, I say ad infinitum, but it really has. It felt like a long gap between trips back. I’ve wanted to come back for family reasons during this time, but I just hadn’t had the opportunity. I didn’t have time to mentally prepare, as if it was just never going to really happen, I wanted it so much. So, when I finally got back and walked around the old area, I felt a pretty big wave of emotion and even relief. Yes, a huge wave of relief to be home. It has changed so much, no doubt, but the Watling Estate is still old and recognizable. Communities have changed and evolved, but it still, in its way, belongs to me. That won’t last forever, so I draw it while it is still there. I’ve done a lot of Burnt Oak sketches on my trips back over the years – probably not enough. There are places that have now long disappeared that I wish I had drawn. There are places that disappeared many years before I left Burnt Oak that I wish I had drawn. The main thoroughfare of Burnt Oak is still Watling Avenue, although the shopping up here is not as good as it used to be. It was still possible to do all your shopping on the high street when I was young, rather than all in the supermarket, although we did have a Tesco up on the Broadway, a smaller one that annoyingly closed recently (Burnt Oak was the first place in the UK to have a Tesco, here on Watling Avenue in fact). At least there are still shops though. In many places I’ve been, the old shops sit empty, not deemed profitable enough by the property owners to serve a local community. Places evolve, but the Watling is still alive. Communities change, but I can tell there is still a sense of love for the area among the locals. It’s not always a safe area, for sure. Yet I do get the sense of the community feeling like the place is worth it. I love the colourful ‘Burnt Oak’ mural opposite the station. What really surprised me though is the new colourful ‘Welcome to Burnt Oak’ mural painted on the corner of Barnfield Road and Watling Avenue. It’s amazing, and features very Burnt Oak elements inside the big letters. (I will add a photo of it below). So that’s what I decided to sketch. I didn’t get as far as adding the colours, or even really finishing the scene, but I quite liked it like that. That corner, there used to be a fruit and veg stall there, I remember a guy I knew from scouts (Dillon? I just remember he was a QPR fan) worked there. Opposite where it says ‘Aksu Food’, there was another fruit and veg shop that my brother Johnny used to work at for quite a while. I do remember being sent down there regularly by my mum to pick up potatoes, five pound of spuds was fine, I hated being sent down for ten pound of spuds. Long walk back up Orange Hill with those. Next door to that there was a fishmonger, I still remember the guy’s face, I would go in there for crabsticks, they were cheap, tasted nothing like crab. Looks like there’s a fishmonger still, but further up. There was a hairdressers too just up Barnfield where the mural is, and I would be taken there as a kid, but as soon as I was old enough to get my haircut on my own I went to the barbers, not the hairdressers, and would go to the little one at the top of Market Lane (one of two small streets that run behind the Watling, the other being Back Lane, and neither being places you want to spend much time), and then later to Syd’s, in the alley behind Woolworths (now gone), where I would get my hair cut well into adulthood, the last time I went in was about ten years ago, right before a funeral. Ah, I wish I had drawn Syd’s.

Here are some photos of the big public artwork in Burnt Oak now. I love them, brightening the old place up. I couldn’t find the name of the artists, but they were delivered by Accent London, and there’s some information about them on the Borough of Barnet website. I did notice that the big ‘Welcome to Burnt Oak’ mural on the corner of Barnfield is painted over some concrete which has some old carved graffiti on it. I remember seeing those names carved into the wall a couple of years ago when something was removed from the wall revealing it, those names must have been hidden for years. Lots of ‘Bill’, a few ‘Jackie’, and even a ‘John’…are these my uncle and older siblings? This is where they grew up, went to Barnfield School, played Space Invaders in the chip shop nearby. I like to think it was them, back in the early 80s. Either way, I love that these names of young Burnt Oakers from the past, whoever they were, are preserved behind this new mural.

Silkstream Parade Burnt Oak 061324

Above is Silkstream Parade, or one side of it, the little section between the station. There is another barber shop at the end of this row now, where years ago there was a little second hand bookshop packed to the gills with interesting old books (I would go in looking for old Roy of the Rovers annuals). It closed when I was a kid. Where the Afro Cosmetics shop now is, that was Alfred’s, where people got their school uniforms. It’s probably funny to Americans that British kids wear school uniforms, but that’s what we did. These days though I notice that most junior schools have uniforms too, which might have been true years ago as well (my little sister’s junior school did) but wasn’t the case at my old school Goldbeaters. I got my first school uniform at 11 at Edgware, though we got it from the school, not from Alfred’s. I think all the kids who went to St. James’s probably got their uniforms at Alfred’s. Who knows, it’s long gone now. There used to be a launderette along here too, until just a few years ago. I might even have a photo of it, I’ll try to draw it from that one day. And at the end there, a phone box. Remember I drew an old phone box that is now gone? This one is still there. I would have to go and use that one sometimes, there would often be a gang of kids sat outside the library yelling abuse across the street. I sat outside the same library to sketch this view. The sky was dramatic that first week I was back home, threatening a little bit of everything; a bit like London itself.

watling park entrance

Finally, at the nearby junction with Orange Hill, a quick sketch of the entrance to Watling Park. I drew in burgundy coloured pen. The entrance to the park has always been sketchy, but I did love this park growing up. However I still avoid going down the left hand path beside the stream, because that’s where the gluesniffers used to lurk. You definitely still get wrong’uns hanging about there, and worse than the old glueys. Underneath the entrance is The Tunnel, a small, dark and foreboding portal which follows the Silkstream into the sewers, underneath the shops in total darkness until coming out some way up the Watling towards Silkstream Park. I never ventured far into The Tunnel as a kid, we were always a bit too scared, and never brought a torch (we did have the bright idea that you could float polo mints which glowed in the dark (!) and follow them down the stream) though I know my older brother and sister and my uncle Bill did venture deep into the tunnel to a place called The Witch’s Cave. Too many rats down there for me. Growing up in Burnt Oak though, Watling Park was the heart of the area for us kids, and it was at the end of my road so I spent a lot of my childhood down there. We knew all the hiding spots. It was a country unto itself in our imaginations, one that has never dislodged itself from the subconscious, and still appears in dreams just as it did when I was 8. Anyway. I do have a few more Burnt Oak sketches from this trip, but let’s get off one bloody memory lane and go down others. Incidentally, if you want to hear that episode of the Robert Elms show that I appeared in briefly talking about this little stretch of Burnt Oak, it’s still available still on BBC Sounds, for another 8 days. I have plenty more London sketches to share, and quite a few from the South of France as well, so check back soon…

what we have said will always remain

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BurntOak - Watling Ave - 2022 Before I flew back to the States, a couple more sketches of Burnt Oak, the hometown. After all the sketches from France and Belgium I needed a couple of drawings from up the Watling to be getting on with. I’ve had a lot of Burnt Oakers get in touch over the years, people who have moved away, sometimes pretty far (like I did), to say they like my drawings of the old manor, the place is a shared memory, and one that is always changing. I stood at the top of Watling Avenue and looked downhill. Those chimneystacks stepping downwards towards the station are iconic to me. I drew the other side of the street looking downwards way back in 2008, and then again looking upwards back in 2012, a decade ago. This time I added colour, and also a lot more of the people that passed by, because it was quite busy. We are a very multicultural area. The Romanian foodshop across the street (Food 4 Less) is where Pennywise used to be (I drew that in 2013), and next door you can make out a place called Bella. When I was growing up Bella, which was run by an Indian family if I remember, was a place where you could get all sorts of stuff. Household products, kitchen items, cleaning gear, cups (I have that mug that says “I’m a Mug from Burnt Oak” which comes from Bella), batteries, toys, you would come here to get your keys cut, oh and it was also a video rental store, this is where I would come with my uncle on a Saturday morning to pick out what films we would watch at his flat that afternoon. It seems that it’s just a cafe now. There is a clothes shop just out of view to the right that is called ‘Respect Men’, but has prominently displayed in the window what can can only be described as the illegitimate offspring of a tuxedo and a cardigan, white on the top half and black on the bottom, divided by an ugly carpet pattern going across the middle. Respect Men. I should have drawn it. Instead, I walked down the hill to the corner of Orange Hill, outside the library, and drew Woodcraft Hall. I’ve never been in there (never really wanted to either), but it’s one of those buildings I’ve known all my life that is just there, and long may it be just there. This crossroads was pretty much junction number one in my life. I lived up one arm of it, Orange Hill. Up Gervase Road, my mate Terry lived, and it was the way to Montrose and then on to Asda, where I had my first proper job (but not my first work). Left up the Watling towards Woodcroft Avenue, that was the way to my junior school, and on the corner opposite Woodcroft Hall is our local doctor’s, where my mum works. And then right is up Watling Avenue itself, you have the library, the shops, and of course the tube station which for me was the key to going everywhere else in the world, which I couldn’t wait to do. It started raining as I was drawing this, though I was sheltered in the doorway of the library, but I went home for dinner, and coloured it in later.

BurntOak - Woodcroft Hall - 2022

solid old oak

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silkstream parade, burnt oak
I always intend to sketch more Burnt Oak whenever I’m back home but I never quite get around to it. And I should – the old place keeps changing in small, and sometimes pretty big, ways. Since my last trip, at least one of the historic focal points of the area has closed down, probably for good: the Bald Faced Stag, the old pub on Burnt Oak Broadway. Love it or loathe it (and it was often pretty loathed), the Stag played a big part in many of our lives as Burnt Oakers, and it just doesn’t feel right that it’s no longer there. What then is left of old Burnt Oak? Rather a lot, B.O. fans, rather a lot. I did a quick solo-sketchcrawl one afternoon, starting with the distinctive buildings of Silkstream Parade, above. This is between the Library and the Station, and to many of us these were the shops you went to when you went Up The Road. The old newsagents on the corner, at one time called Magson’s but I don’t recall its previous name, was replaced by Costcutter’s many years ago, but you can still see the long-disused cigarette vending machine on the side of the building. Heron Pharmacy is still there, unchanged in decades. Zam’s chicken is where Toni’s used to be, an old ice cream and sweetshop, I remember showing my Mexico 86 sticker album the Italian guy Toni who ran the place and him telling me all about the Italy players. Whenever I think of Paolo Rossi I think of Very Cherry Slush Puppies (remember them? You remember them). The kebab shop is also long gone, that had one of the most often broken windows in the whole of England I recall. There used to be a butchers shop here too, and was there a greengrocer’s? Was that the whole set? Tanning salon now. Anyway that’s enough “How We Used To Live”, any more of that and I may as well start every blog post with “Who remembers Penny Sweets, remember them eh, Kola Kubes eh, not like that any more eh”).
hassan
I moved up Watling Avenue to Hassan, which has been there since before I was a kid, unchanged. They don’t make shop signs like that any more, it’s all primary colour plastics now, but Hassan has class, gilded edges which of course my sketch doesn’t really show. Not being much of a clothes shopper, and this being a clothes shop for Men (my Mum, not being a Man, never dragged me through this shop as a kid, unlike John Ford and other Burnt Oak shops), I’ve never ever been inside Hassan’s. I know people who do, people who live far from Burnt Oak and come out of their way to go there. Personally I just love that it is there, still there. So now I’ve finally sketched it. I stood opposite outside a closed-down cafe on the corner of Gaskarth Road. Cafes, eh, remember cafes? Don’t get cafes any more, it’s all Starbucks these days, etc.
captain's cabin
Sketching across Watling Avenue wasn’t too difficult. As busy a street as it is, it’s pretty narrow. Burnt Oak Broadway on the other hand is much wider, so when I sketched the old fish and chip shop the Captain’s Cabin I had to squint a lot more. Burnt Oak Broadway is what we call this part of Edgware Road, itself part of the ancient (and I mean ancient) Watling Street, the long straight road built by the Romans linking Londinium with the north-western reaches of Britannia. It’s from Watling Street that Watling Avenue gets its name, and in fact the name Burnt Oak is a reference to the old Roman custom of burning an oak tree to mark the boundaries between places, or so we were told at school. See, my town got some history, bro. This chip shop is pretty much the only one in ‘downtown’ Burnt Oak (to use an Americanism) left from the Olden Days (“who remembers fish’n’chips, eh, vinegar, chip butties, eh, it’s all piri-piri cappuccinos now”). I do remember there was a Kentucky Fried Chicken next door when I was a kid (remember those? No seriously, you don’t get them any more, all KFC now) and a Barclay’s Bank on the corner which got turned into an amusement arcade, not sure how amusing it really is though, maybe it amused NatWest across the street. The Captain’s Cabin is still there, the sign is different from when I was a kid, so I sketched it. Personally I used to get my chips from the Golden Fry down the Watling, where they had the Space Invaders games my brother used to play (“Who remembers Space Invaders, eh? Don’t get that any more, it’s all Minecraft and Halo and Words With Friends now”). Captain’s Cabin for me was always that bit further to walk for the same thing, but I still always liked their chips.
burnt oak map

And here is a map of Burnt Oak, you don’t get maps like this any more, it’s all iPhones now, but it was with maps just like this that I managed to navigate my way around town when I was a kid. No not really. I just wanted to draw a bit more of a fun treasure-island-style map (and yes I know north is in the wrong direction, I’m not working for the Ordnance Survey or nothing) for my home town (and yes Burnt Oak is not an actual ‘town’, just a small nook in the expanse of London, an offshoot of Edgware really, but Burnt Oakers everywhere, even those who have long since emigrated to the far-flung corners of the world, we know that it is its own place, our home town, but once you start getting too sentimental it’s only one step away from “Who remembers bus passes, remember bus passes eh, get on a bus and go somewhere yeah, can’t do that now eh”). I do love to sketch the place though, to capture it for old time’s sake, because by golly it changes fast. But…not that fast.