The Society’s meeting for the Wandsworth Arts Fringe on 9 May saw some 60 people learning to sing together – in the way that Singing with Friends bring together people living with dementia. Anyone passing in the street outside would assume that we were at a choir rehearsal complete with a glorious descant! The meeting stared with an uplifting presentation on the way the music engages dementia sufferers.
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EU Election Hustings
Tuesday night this week saw well over 100 people in St Anne’s Church, Wandsworth, at hustings organised jointly by the Wandsworth Society and Putney Society. Representatives from six parties (ChangeUK, Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and UKIP) took to the platform for a 4 minute speech, followed by 10 minutes of questions.
The event was chaired by Jonathan Callaway of the Putney Society and organised by David Kirk of the Wandsworth Society. Considerable effort was made to secure the speakers at very short notice and our only regret was the absence of a speaker from the newly formed Brexit Party.
Debenhams in Southside to close
Today it was announced that the Wandsworth store is one of the 22 poor performing stores to close in 2020 (along with Wimbledon – Centre Court – but not Clapham Junction. This is something of a blow for Southside as Debenhams is the largest space user – and provides a useful cut through from Garratt Lane. In practice it has never drawn the custom from the south end of the centre (Waitrose end) end and it not really going to be missed. But a void will not be good for the north end of the centre. Watch this space.
Wandsworth Heritage Festival 25 May-9 June
The Festival line up has now been announced with a range of interesting events including tours, walks and exhibitions. The theme this year is Entertaining Wandsworth.
Meeting report: Thames Tideway Tunnel
On Thursday this week Colin Murphy, Senior Engineer on “our” section of the Tideway Project gave 50 Society members and friends a fascinating talk about the scheme. As well as an excellent overview of why Thames Water need to spend some £4.2bn on digging a very deep 25km tunnel under London we had a detailed update on the goings on in Wandsworth. The treatment of King George’s Park (see picture), where a number of mature trees had to be felled was particularly interesting and left us quite optimistic about the outcome.
