This edition of Brentham News has been adapted for the Brentham website Private telephone numbers and addresses and commercial ads have been deleted

Brentham Society Chair’s Notes unique community asset it has the potential to be. I’m delighted, as the new Chair of the Brentham We hope to see more joint events, like the Wine Society, to welcome you to the new year and a new Tasting Evening held in the autumn to raise funds to restore the main entrance door to its former glory. look to Brentham News. 2009 promises to be a busy year: with Lane and Brentham’s own Fred Promoting high standards of planning and Perry celebrating their centenaries, look out for architecture in Brentham is one of our most some special events in addition to our established important roles. Following the publication of the calendar (enclosed in this issue). Area Appraisal last year we now urgently need Council to produce Planning Guidelines to Rosanna and I have lived in advise residents who want to maintain and improve Brentham since 1984, first in their own homes. Heather Moore will continue to Fowlers Walk, now in Meadvale lead on this in conjunction with the Brentham Road. We’ve been involved Advisory Panel. Meanwhile, we plan to restore and with the Brentham Society in a replace some street signs and we’re currently variety of ways since 1997 and creating a new Welcome Pack for residents.

have made many good friends Finally, if you’ve always wondered why we have a as a result, so I’m looking Brentham Society and a Brentham Heritage Society, forward to taking it forward we’re looking to make it all much clearer and and meeting many more of you simpler this year — watch this space. along the way.

In the meantime, please show your support by signing One of Tony Miller’s major achievements as Chair up as Brentham Society members (still only £2 – over his four-year stint was to negotiate with Ealing subscriptions are due now). Brentham belongs to all Council over the provision of suitable replacement of us and the Society is here to help us retain its street lights for Brentham — first mooted back in delightful character and community spirit. If you have 2001. We’re finally seeing the fruits of his efforts any comments on the new format of Brentham News, and should all be grateful for his contribution. or indeed on any issue at all, please get in touch.

Tony will continue to be a valuable member of the Alan Henderson Brentham Society Committee and we welcome David Ballard as Treasurer following Richard Costella’s six years of keeping our finances in order. Enclosed with this newsletter is a list of all committee members and their contact details. However, one vital position - Street Representative Coordinator - is currently vacant.

Keeping in touch I believe that the Brentham Society exists to care for our area and it is extremely important to keep residents involved in its activities. We keep you informed through this newsletter, notice boards and the Brentham website, but our network of Street Reps ensures that you have a direct link back to the committee via the Coordinator. If anyone would like to get more involved, this is the ideal opportunity. Retiring Brentham Society chairman Tony Miller Contact me for further details. sampling vintages with John Ducker, aka John

Pitshanger Lane’s 100 th birthday, and Brentham Leeson, voice of K9 in Dr Who, at the wine tasting Heritage Society’s plans for a Blue Plaque to mark which raised £572. Fred Perry’s formative association with the estate, mean that we’ll be working with the PCA and the Stop Press Brentham Club to support and create celebratory For pictures of Brentham in the snow go to events. The Club is a valuable local facility and we’d www.brentham.com like to work with its Committee to make it the

Your diary date for May Day There are also aesthetic and social consequences. An invitation to assist As gardens disappear, areas lose their attractiveness and neighbourliness may decline alongside the loss Brentham May Day this year will be held on Saturday of the social interactions which gardening 16th May. We are hoping for lovely sunny weather encourages. Clear boundaries go as front walls and instead of the torrential rain that has ruined May hedges are sacrificed for the sake of easy access for Day and upset the children for the last two years. vehicles, but vandalism and trespassing increase. We are always very grateful for the various Brentham teams who erect the maypole very early How this affects Brentham on Saturday morning, dress Jack in the Green's Our Article 4 Direction means that there are frame and sell programmes. restrictions on installing crossovers and paving front

We would be so grateful for help with:- gardens. Consequently we are spared the visual blight, noise pollution, acute parking problems and • teaching the maypole and country dances and loss of wild life which some other parts of helping at rehearsals; suffer from. Brentham householders need to be • stewarding on the field on May Day; • aware that building regulations now require any new walking with the procession; paving in rear gardens to be permeable. However, • selling programmes; natural gardens are much the best and where low- • helping to set up the field on May Day. maintenance garden designs are wanted, hard For more information contact: Send an email to the surfacing should be avoided. Brentham webmaster, for forwarding to Pat Chapman, Brentham May Day Committee Brentham Gardeners The Brentham Garden Groups welcome new Hard facts about hard surfacing members. The afternoon group meets on the third The guest speaker at the Brentham Society’s AGM, Wednesday of each month, 2-4 pm – contact Eleanor Christine Eborall (left), spoke Cowie. The evening group meets every first Tuesday on behalf of the sustainable of the month, 7.30-9.00 pm – contact Em development project Local Cunningham. Agenda 21, which grew out of If you would like to open your garden for the the UN’s 1992 Rio conference Brentham Garden Day this June contact Gina on the environment. She Jenkins. explained why the loss of front For contact details for Eleanor, Em or Gina, please gardens has become a concern email [email protected] in outer London boroughs.

Causes Neighbourhood Watch Part of the problem is caused The Safer Neighbourhoods Team for the by increased car ownership. Ward has recently helped to set up a Neighbourhood House owners solve their own Watch group for the eastern part of the Brentham parking problem by paving over Estate. It covers the area their front gardens. But once a from Brentham Way to few houses have pavement crossovers that must be the east side of Denison kept clear to allow cars in and out, competition for Road and includes the the diminishing on-street parking space increases. eastern end of Meadvale Soon other houses follow suit, and before long Road in the north, and hardly any kerbside parking space or front gardens Woodfield Crescent in the may remain. south. We hope the group

Other influences on the loss of gardens are the trend can encourage effective towards low-maintenance gardens with only token communication between areas of vegetation, and the absence from some the police and residents, communities of a tradition of gardening. That particularly developing close links with our PCSOs, gardens are shrinking was shown by a research who want to be available to deal with concerns project conducted in Ealing in 2004-5. about crime in the area. The group plans to meet three or four times a year. Consequences This decline of gardens, involving the loss of trees, If you would like to know more, join the group or shrubs, hedges and grass verges, has a number of just display a sticker, please contact the coordinator very undesirable environmental consequences. One or PCSO Geoff Fox. The latter can also supply free is increased danger of flooding as the run-off from anti-theft screws for car number plates. Recently downpours overwhelms the capacity of sewers. some have been stolen for use on vehicles that fill Paving over gardens and removing trees and shrubs up and drive off without paying. Jane Robinson also drives away wildlife and increases summer temperatures, as the cooling and shading effects of lawns and trees are lost. Noise levels also rise once Ramsay Hughes, 1910-2008 nothing is left to absorb sounds, while hard surfaces Ramsay Hughes was one of the first residents of reflect them. Brentham. As a very young girl she moved with her

parents into 11 Winscombe Crescent in 1912. Here 2008 garden awards, presented at the she lived until she married, but her husband died Brentham Society AGM young and, after 20 years away, she returned to the same house, where she lived until 2003. The Spring Award went to 119 Fowlers Walk. In this small north-facing garden, large blocks of colour When we moved in as her neighbours it soon became have been achieved by the use of hyacinths, scarlet clear that Ramsay was the life and soul of the tulips and blue grape hyacinths. The door was Crescent. The window of Ramsay’s dining room brightly framed with pots of orange and yellow looked out over the street and she enjoyed keeping tulips, which gave the garden a real spring zing. a benevolent eye on the comings and goings. She The runners-up were 32 Brunner Rd, 17 Woodfield had a genuine, caring interest in the families around Avenue and 20 Winscombe Crescent. her, regularly inviting us in for coffee, sherry or one of ‘Pa’s specials’ – a martini-based concoction. Three of Young mums living nearby joined her for weekly the coffee mornings, when she would always like to hear winners about what we were up to and how the children accepting were doing at school. Ramsay loved children, their although she had none of her own, and they were awards at always made welcome - despite parental fears for last her precious china and objets d’art. Her affection October’s for children may have been a result of her long Brentham service in schools, lately as a teacher at Beacon AGM House. Her kitchen gallery proudly displayed many a child’s artwork.

Wide-ranging interests The Summer Award went to 46 Meadvale Road. A It was a privilege to hear Ramsay, ensconced in her small south-facing garden that always looks tidy and ‘book room’, talk of politics, music, art and colourful. Horizontal conifers and other small literature. Her wide interests came from her shrubs provide a permanent background to pots of journalist father, a friend of Labour Prime Minister seasonal planting, this time geraniums . The runners- Ramsay MacDonald, after whom she was named. We up were 18 Brentham Way, 22 Denison Road and 43 were regaled with Woodfield Road. stories of the early years in Brentham: The Autumn Award went to 47 Meadvale Road. A how she played on the large north-facing garden, which despite its aspect has managed to place many small shrubs and building site that herbaceous plants around a small square of grass. would become Brentham Way and in The garden has been made into further sections, the (then) surrounding which are colourful and well maintained throughout countryside; the visits the year. The runners-up were: 29 Denison Road, 9 Denison Road and 123 Fowlers Walk. from the muffin man, the coalman and the The Rose Bowl Award for 2008 went to 2 Ruskin milkman with his Gardens. A warm, sunny south-facing garden full of churns. unusual plants, ripe with seed and ideal for cuttings. Cheerfully tending her much-loved garden, or Plenty of colour throughout the year, always full of cycling to Pitshanger Lane until her eighties, Ramsay interest and well maintained. with her optimism and liveliness was an inspiration. Our thanks to the judges: Brian, Pam, Mike and Maureen. She remained upbeat when she had to leave Brentham to move into a nearby residential home, Are you thinking of making alterations to from where she took a close interest in the fortunes of old friends in Brentham until the end. She was a your home? Then you need guidance on any free spirit, unconventional even, from an age when aspect of planning and conservation. others were often buttoned-up. She will be hugely For an informal discussion contact either: missed by all who knew her. Heather Moore (email [email protected] for contact Carolyn and Martin Mortimore details) or Ealing Planning Department  020 8825 6600.

If you intend to carry out work to party walls , bear Carols for sick children in mind that there is a legal requirement for you to Brentham Carollers sang on 18th December and inform your neighbours. raised £164 for the Childhood Eye Cancer Trust. A big thank-you to all who supported the event by For Sale: their singing, collecting and giving. Sadly, too few Original Brentham stripped 4-panelled cupboard singers escaped the nasty cold which was circulating door. Height 193 cm, width 70 cm, depth 2.80 cm. for carols to be sung on 20th December, as planned. Any reasonable offer considered

Architecture corner - No.1 in a new series How well do you know the subtle design variations across Brentham? Can you identify the three roads in which the four porches illustrated below are located? (Answers are at the foot of this page.)

Brentham Society Membership Renewals 2009

Please renew or consider taking out membership of We want your email! the Brentham Society by using the form enclosed with this edition of Brentham News. We appreciate that not everyone regularly walks around the estate to view the numerous Brentham Membership plays a vital role in keeping Brentham the notice boards or visits www.brentham.com to check very special place it is, by bringing residents together the latest news. So by having members’ email in numerous projects to help retain the unique addresses we’re able to send out reminders and character that makes the a information about the numerous events that take truly delightful place to live. A yearly household place to ensure you don’t miss out! You will see on the new Membership Subscription 2009 envelope there subscription still remains at a very modest £2 per is now a space for you to include your email address. household. ( Garden Suburb’s membership is currently a suggested £15!) This is purely on a voluntary basis and your email address will not be passed on to any third parties or Tim Llewellyn, Membership Secretary will be disclosed in any of the messages sent, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Answers to architecture quiz. From left to right the roads are: Denison Road, Winscombe Crescent, Winscombe Crescent (again), and Pitshanger Lane.

Published by the Brentham Society Printed by Print Plus, Ealing W5 3NN You can contribute to Brentham News by emailing [email protected]