Free ✱ bi-monthly ✱ in-house news & events ✱ February 2021 ✱ issue No 6

Despite the virus: snowfall 'ONE FOR THE BIRDS' DRAWING and then spring blooms! COMPETITION:

DEADLINE: 11 MARCH

We have a big pile of Amazon vouchers worth £10 each waiting for the best drawings of a bird (or birds) sent in by any of you talented artists aged 3-16.

Pick your own drawing materials (paint, pencil, crayon, pastel, chalks or even make a mosaic). We’ll print

PIC: DOT GIBSON PIC: DOT the best pics in the next issue of Barnsbury News and display them Snowfall transformed Lockdown Islington last month. in the window at 60 Morland Mews. Email a photo or scan of your Dot Gibson writes from her flat in Highbury View artwork, together with your name and phone number by It is Saturday and I am looking out The trees are bare today and I can Thursday . All emails to editor Dean of my window at Highbury Fields. see the shape of the boughs. Later 11 March McGlynn at It is lit by a watery, wintry sun and with the setting sun the branches [email protected] there are dozens of well-wrapped- take on a beautiful fairytale glow. up ‘masked’ people of all ages. But what a difference a day makes! On Sunday it is snowing. HOW TO CONTACT US Winter scenery The Fields are a playground for They walk alone or with their 'bubble' families snowballing and building or the dog, or push a pram. They run, snowmen. It is great to see the joy All our offices are staying cycle, play football with children or and to know that, despite the virus, closed until the Covid-19 risk work out with their trainer. Some soon the budding new season's is properly under control and send the muzzled sound of their green leaves will reveal themselves the London vaccine roll-out boxing gloves across the fields. and the golden daffodils will is much more advanced. The scene reminds me of a Lowry brighten up everything. painting – figures moving this way A smiling face appears at the Our staff remain hard at and that across the landscape, going window. I am not only John's Mum, work, using online systems about their own business but also but his ‘bubble'. He has cycled over to run your services almost united in time and place. from south London. as normal. I have never been more pleased Maurice arrives with my biscuits that I chose this flat 12 years ago. from his shopping trip. I am so lucky To get in touch email us on It was the window looking over – it is not just the scene through my E [email protected] or call Highbury Fields that decided me window that keeps me happy, it is q020 7704 2324 between and I am never disappointed. my family and my friends and 9.30am-12pm and 2-5.30pm. The scene is constantly changing. neighbours here at Highbury View.

Find out more ✱ barnsbury.org 1 ✱ February 2021

BHA news Feb 2021 6pp.indd 1 09/02/2021 14:34 GET THE COVID JAB! Holding the fort: caretakers

Getting the Covid-19 vaccine and cleaners stay on duty will help protect you and other people who come into Steve and Spencer are keeping the contact with you. It may not caretaking service going so shared stop you catching the virus, areas in and around our properties or getting it a second time, stay tidy and safe. Our cleaners are but should make you far less also on duty and disinfecting door likely to be very ill or suffer handles and buzzers. Please do for months, as many have. your bit too by making sure no one The vaccine is given in two from your household makes a mess doses, with the first making outside and that your rubbish and you better protected within recycling are bagged or binned and two to three weeks. only put out shortly before the Spencer and Steve remain on duty council collects household waste. The vaccine is free and is your passport EMERGENCY REPAIRS SERVICE ONLY

to a safer world. We are for now only able to carry To report an emergency repair out emergency repairs or work, like during normal office hours, please www.nhs.uk/conditions/ gas appliance checks, that is vital call us on q020 7704 2324. coronavirus-covid-19/ for your health and safety. coronavirus-vaccination Outside office hours please report emergency repairs to the service Please let us know if: run for us by ISHA on: you or anyone else in your Mother-in-law's covid jab ✚ Mon-Thurs 5:30pm to 9:30am home is self-isolating was a walk in the park, q anyone in your home is 0772 530 2389 reports housing officer ✚ Weekends, 5:30pm on Friday showing symptoms of Covid-19 Graham Vine to 9:30am on Monday or has recently tested positive. q 0300 131 7300. Yesterday I took my 80-year-old mother in law to be vaccinated at Brimfield Street Health Centre in Caledonian road. Smart safety for you and There was a safely distanced queue to reception. Inside within our emergency workers minutes, we were given a squirt of In the ongoing effort we’re all making to stop the virus spreading hand sanitiser and sent to a freshly anyone working for us who needs to come into your home to sort out a sanitised seat. After a few minutes repair problem will wear full protective gear. We expect you to make we went to another room for a sure they can work safely while they’re in your home by: short wait then onto a private area. Here a very calm and patient ✱ Keeping all the windows open ✱ Making sure anyone in the same woman checked June's medical to increase ventilation. This helps room as our workers wears a history and told her she’d be getting lower the risk of any virus levels mask unless they are aged the Oxford Astra vaccine. ‘That’s present building up in the air. under 5 or exempt for a medical fine,’ we said. It was over in a flash. ✱ Leaving all doors open to avoid or other good reason. We next moved to another freshly their having to touch your door ✱ Keeping, as far as possible, two sanitised area with a stopwatch set handles (exception: see below) metres between yourself and to go off in 15 minutes – and a card ✱ Send anyone not needed to our workers inside your home for June to return in 12 weeks. help with or explain the problem and outside. We could have stayed longer but outside or, if that is not safe or ✱ Don’t share with our workers June was fine so we left. June has reasonable, into a different any pens, pencils, or any other had no symptoms other than a room. They should shut the object, no matter how useful. slightly numb arm. Please do get door behind them and stay your vaccine when it is offered. there until the workers have left. Thank you for helping out! It’s the only way out for all of us.

Find out more ✱ barnsbury.org 2 ✱ February 2021

BHA news Feb 2021 6pp.indd 2 09/02/2021 14:34 Tips for keeping CASH STRAPPED? warm without breaking HOW WE CAN HELP into the piggy bank We know many of you are worried about losing your job and, if it happens, how you'll ✱ Set the timer on your boiler so it ✱ Thermal blinds do a fine job of pay the rent and other costs. starts heating your home at a cutting out heat lost through If you do lose your job put in lower temperature 30 minutes windows. You can buy reasonably your claim for universal before you get up. This uses less priced blinds online from a wide credit at once. Let us know gas than turning it on at a higher range of retailers, including Ikea. too. We will back your claim temperature when you get up. ✱ Curtains lined with insulating and can help you apply. ✱ Lag (wrap in a suitable material) material will make rooms warmer. your water pipes. Pre-cut foam Leave the curtains open when the Call our debt and welfare advice lagging from DIY stores costs sun is shining, but close them as very little and keeps hot water soon as the sun goes. service to make an appointment with pipes warm for longer. You’ll use ✱ Covering your window panes with Priscilla for help and advice on less gas and protect the pipes cling film may cut out some heat from freezing in very cold weather. loss. A sceptical Barnsbury News welfare support, grants and other ✱ Cut out draughts by putting tried this and it seemed to make a ways to cope with financial hardship. adhesive backed fabric or rubber little bit of difference. strips around the edges of your ✱ Don’t put your sofa (or curtains or q [email protected] or call doors and windows. a clothes airer) directly in front of E ✱ Close the doors to any rooms a radiator. It stops the warm air Priscilla on 020 7704 2324 you are not heating. circulating around the room.

Are you on our call list? Warm your home for less: free Regular wellbeing calls to check on residents expert help from Green Doctors We are again calling some of you to check on your wellbeing Have you tried calling Green Doctors? This service, free to all our tenants, gives free expert help and advice on warming your and ask if you need any practical home without costing the earth. Green Doctors can also tell you if help or support during this you qualify for the warmer homes discount, which could save you lockdown. £140 a year, and can help you apply for this government discount. If you would like to be added to our ‘call list’ please email To book your free chat (by phone) with a Green Doctor call us at E [email protected] or q0300 365003 or E [email protected] call us on q020 7704 2324. Helping hand if you are Antisocial behaviour: what you said about lonely or troubled how we've been handling your reports Help is at hand if you are lonely or troubled by stress, anxiety, In November we surveyed all of you while we investigate a problem. grief or depression. We Are who over the past year reported a We have set up a focus group Islington, run by the council problem with antisocial activities in with the survey respondents to see with local charities, may be able your neighbourhood. how we can improve our handling to help or it will direct you to an We wanted to know how you of your reports of antisocial agency it thinks suitable. If you rated our response to your report. behaviour, making it more likely are 50 or older, Age UK may Most of you have told us you you will get a helpful outcome. also be able to offer support. thought we dealt with the problem If you are interested in joining the in a good or satisfactory way. WE ARE ISLINGTON q020 7527 8222 But you also said we need to do a focus group let us know. Email E AGE UK ISLINGTON q020 7281 6018 better job of keeping you updated [email protected] or call us on q020 7704 2324.

Find out more ✱ barnsbury.org 3 ✱ February 2021

BHA news Feb 2021 6pp.indd 3 09/02/2021 14:34 PIC: CHARLIE ROUND-TURNER MEET THE BOARD Chris Bell

Chris is one of the two tenants on our board of management. PIC: CHARLIE ROUND-TURNER We asked Chris to tell you a little bit about himself

How long have you been a BHA How important is having residents resident? Around 15 years. on BHA’s board? It is extremely important because BHA exists to Tell us one thing people don’t know provide services to residents at about you? I love swimming and am PIC: DOT GIBSON PIC: DOT affordable costs. With us on board missing it due to this new lockdown. Dot Gibson took this lovely shot of it helps bring a different perspective the oak tree in the garden at Highbury What makes you proudest? and can help make sure decisions View after the first snowfall in January Being a father and having a great are made with residents in mind. relationship with my children. How have you found it so far? LOCAL HISTORY: What is your favourite place? Good to date. I've found board I am going to be cheeky and members supportive and they have name two: Canada and Thailand. treated me as an equal. I get the Highbury Terrace feeling they do want to improve If you could only eat one meal for residents' homes and provide the rest of your life, what would it Once more into Islington’s efficient effective services. be? Steamed fish with vegetables. archives with Janice Walsh What do you hope to achieve as a Why did you want to join the board? board member? I hope I'll help the from Barnsbury Street I'd considered applying for a while board fulfil its purpose, ensuring and I went to a couple of meetings Highbury Terrace is on the corner of residents play a key role in shaping about the garages development. Ronalds Road, bordering Highbury services we get from BHA, that the After those I felt I could contribute Fields. Highbury View straddles the voices of residents is listened to and to the decision-making processes corner of the two roads. we influence how BHA operates. that affect all residents. Seven Highbury parks In 1874 the Metropolitan Board London Capital Credit Union: free, safe banking of Works complained to the Postmaster General about the Living in Islington gives you the right to open an account with Archway- inconvenience of there being ‘no based London Capital Credit Union. With so many high street banks now less than seven places called charging you to bank, credit unions offer free services if you want to Highbury Park in the parish’. save, take out a loan, budget for next Christmas, or get a credit card. Highbury appears on the 1735 Find out more at www.credit-union.coop map and the rate books of 1780. It had been part of the manor connecting it to Stoke Newington. Resident panel keeps our work under scrutiny A Highbury manor house is recorded there as early as 1338. The terrace we now know was built A new policy for letting garages and storage space on Morland Mews by various builders between 1774 has been debated by the residents panel. This will also be discussed and 1829. By 1841 the terrace by the Morland Mews garages steering committee (see page 6). population was 171. The panel is also considering work we are doing on a new vision and A lot of notable persons lived set of values for Barnsbury HA and members attended a workshop run there including pioneer of the by Take Stock Exchange, the agency advising us on this work. electric telegraph Sir Francis You can find notes from resident panel meetings in the window of 60 Ronalds, who gave his name Morland Mews and on our website at www.barnsbury.org to Ronalds Road.

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BHA news Feb 2021 6pp.indd 4 09/02/2021 14:34 PIC: CHARLIE ROUND-TURNER like them, they become a friend. Auld lang syne: into a new Stranger > acquaintance > friend. Taking just a minute to understand this rare word helps expand our year with hopeful hearts vocabulary and gives us more ownership of the song. We’re not Into another year we warily venture, treading with just singing a word or phrase, it also has an important part in the song. hopeful heart, writes Robin Don. Though many have It reminds and encourages us to lost friends or family, the immortal words of Robert Burns approach all our fellow neighbours with a renewed hand of friendship. once more give renewed hope to our troubled world

From Sydney to Stamford Hill, in With his lyrics, he had added a Auld Lang Syne tongues of many hues and through modest note: ‘The following song, First verse: multi-coloured masks, as the first an old song, of the olden times, Should auld acquaintance be forgot, moments of 2021 rang out, Mother and which has never been in print, and never brought to mind? Earth became united once more. nor even in manuscript until I took Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

it down from an old, old man.’ and auld lang syne*? Time travel Some of the lyrics certainly seem If only he could hear it now, I’d love to have been ‘collected’ from much Chorus: to see the look on the face of that earlier folk songs, rather than wholly For auld lang syne, my jo, penniless poet who wrote those composed by the poet. for auld lang syne, words. A farmhand in his 20s, it was Auld lang syne is a Scottish we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet, a cold December day in 1788 when phrase that roughly translates as for auld lang syne. Burns sent a copy of his new song ‘days gone by’. In this song we’re Second verse: to the Scots Musical Museum. saying how wrong it should be to And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup! forget old friends from days past. and surely I'll be mine! Another important word is And we'll tak' a cup o’ kindness yet, acquaintance. It’s not a word we Changes in hand: for auld lang syne. hear often even if we know the how we deal with general meaning. An acquaintance Fifth verse: service complaints is someone you know. Someone And there's a hand, my trusty fiere! you don’t know is a stranger. and gie's a hand o' thine! When you get to know more And we'll tak' a right gude-willie about a stranger they become an waught, for auld lang syne. At the last board meeting our acquaintance. If you learn more and members formally adopted a new code for dealing with any complaints drawn up by the HOUSING SUPPORT AND ADVICE Independent Housing Ombudsman service. Temporary manager Asif Along with advice and support We will now be expected to, steps in to provide vital on issues like debt and hardship, among other things, deal with housing support services Asif is responsible for letting any a complaint in just two stages. empty homes and for dealing with We must tell the person who Asif Mahmood reports of antisocial behaviour. made a complaint what we are has since late We are sure many of you will doing about it (even if little has December been join us in wishing Felicity well in her changed) regularly and clearly. covering the post new ventures. Felicity worked for We will also put one of our of housing Barnsbury HA for 16 years. Her role staff in charge of all complaints manager in place as our housing manager became so there will be no confusion on of Felicity Singh, absolutely critical over the part year, your part about who to contact. who left us late helping those of you hit hardest by A lot of work is needed to get last year. the pandemic. We are grateful too this right so we will be asking Asif is handling all queries on to Asif, for stepping in to help out. the residents panel, tenant tenancy matters until we appoint a board members and your tenants successor to Felicity. He is working association to offer advice and For tenancy-related queries, you remotely but has been in touch with q a helpful ‘critical eye’. can call Asif on 020 7704 2324 many of you by phone or email. or email E [email protected]

Find out more ✱ barnsbury.org 5 ✱ February 2021

BHA news Feb 2021 6pp.indd 5 09/02/2021 14:34 SAFE AS HOUSES: LEGIONELLA WARNING DOMESTIC ABUSE: Legionella is a bacteria that can cause the sometimes NEED HELP NOW? deadly Legionnaire's Disease. It thrives in warm water. SOLACE IN ISLINGTON To make sure legionella doesn't If you have a shower: affect your home: ✱ remove limescale from the LONDON FREEPHONE ✱ do not change the settings on showerhead at least every six q your boiler or hot water system. months and disinfect it. Soaking 0808 802 5565 This should be set so the water it in vinegar for up to 20 minutes If you need help because of heats to at least 60℃ should get rid of limescale. domestic abuse, contact ✱ tell us if the water coming out of ✱ If you don't use the shower very Solace in Islington for free, your hot water taps is not piping often, flush water through it once confidential support. hot after it has been running long a week. Go out of the room after enough to push out any cold turning it on and wait two minutes Solace helps men and women water still in the pipes before going back in to turn it off. affected by domestic abuse. ✱ tell us if warm water is coming out of your cold water taps Call q020 3795 5070 instead of cold or email E advocacy@ ✱ let us know if your tap water is solacewomensaid.org, discoloured or contains debris. Mon to Fri, 9am to 5pm.

DOWN ON MORLAND MEWS IF YOU ARE IN DANGER NOW CALL THE POLICE ON q999 Garages project: tenant steering committee The tenant steering group overseeing the garage conversion works met for the first time in January. Their main priorities will be your safety during the building A huge thank you to Diane, works, and minimising disruption Martin and Franck for your to you and to our services for you. splendid suggestions for news Members of the group so far are and features for future issues of Liam O’Dowd, Dean Holdsworth, Barnsbury News. They've been Richard Bull, Daniel Gooding, a big help with this issue and All set and ready to go Janice Walsh, Chris Bell and our planning for the next ones. Martin Peck. Your new recycling bins are now If you would like to get all set up and hungry for bags full If you would like to get involved involved with planning the of materials to be recycled. please email Dean (McGlynn) newsletter, want to write a We hope this will lead to less on [email protected] story for it, take photos or waste being left around the estate. just share an opinion with A reminder that the council will Pitch closed again other Barnsbury HA residents, empty the bins on Tuesday and please phone or email Dean. Friday mornings. With the return to lockdown following the rapid rise in Covid infections, we have had no choice Editor: Dean McGlynn but to close the pitch again. NEWS OF Send your contributions to Thornhill Primary is using the site email [email protected], THE MEWS occasionally for school sports but 16b Cloudesley Street, N1 otherwise the gates will remain 0HU or call 020 7704 2324. locked until it is safe to reopen.

Find out more ✱ barnsbury.org 6 ✱ February 2021

BHA news Feb 2021 6pp.indd 6 09/02/2021 14:34