Local Stuff
This is a local site for local people! There's nothing for you here!
Where?
I'm currently residing in Hanger Lane (Central line) which is near Park Royal (Piccadilly Line) which is near Ealing in North West London.
Translocational schizophrenia
Stictly speaking I reside in the parish of West Twyford. This area suffers from considerable translocational schizophrenia. Part of the road has at times been considered to be the responsibilty of Brent council (cutting trees and mending pavements wise) but we pay our council tax to Ealing. We are also in the postal district for Willesdon. To cap things off we occasionally end up with Acton for one thing or another.
Local activities
Hereabouts or preferably somewhere slightly more visible I hope to attach some links for organising events such as walks and cycle rides. Instead here is a link to a bit on the canal on the 'walking' page.
Local Issues
- Guinesses brewery is closing down
The Guiness UK brewery was situated directly opposite my house. A lot of people thought this was great. Not so I as I don't particularly like Guiness or indeed any kind of beer. I did however resent the smell of brewing hops that wafted its way over every so often when the weather was right. Smelled rather like sick to me. Anyway, this is now closing down and I worry about what Diagio have planed for the land. When I were a lad, there were three cow fields on my road (with real cows in 2 at any one time). All of this land is green belt. One of these became a housing estate while I was still at school. The promise of building a relief road and further affordable housing has allowed them to build on further green belt land. Our local park has been chopped in half. Now as we speak a tower block is being put up just across the road. Our objections were ignored because Ealing council failed to pass them on to Brent who were in charge of that strip of land. I still have no idea how many floors its going to be but I rather suspect it will be seven. Green space is hard enough to come by in London without the last remaining bits being replaced by tower blocks. Direct action from the mixture of wrinkles and immigrants we have is unlikely. They did promise us a small lake (on what was the guiness football field) and a new train station (Coronation Park). I've no idea what's happening in this regard. Hanger Lane and Park Royal are close enough together to walk the change over station would leave about five metres of track between the new station and each of the old ones. Makes it seem rather pointless to keep all three. Perhaps its an excuse to redevelop them too?
- The Abbey
The abbey is also in danger of being redeveloped. The monks have long since moved on due to financial difficulties. They used to look after old folk there in days of yore. When I was at school we occasionally got sent there on visits or to sing hymns. Its supposed to be a listed building I suspect the plan is to wait for it to fall down of natural causes and then build on it. More housing is suggested with the inevitable human impact issues.
There is another link to the abbey here
I don't mean to sound down on progress but this kind of progress is progress in the wrong direction. We want to be spreading ourselves more thinly with more open space around rather than packing ever greater numbers into a smaller and smaller space.
Local Links
- A History of Middlesex - British History Online covering the local parish area.
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www.EalingToday.co.uk
- A local website for local people.
Actually there are several local sites for Ealing. This one seems to have the most active forum though. I should warn that it is far from the best implemented forum you will see on the net.
- Google
West Twyford
Googling here I came across my old school . I am not surprised to see all the teachers have changed. Slightly surprised that classes are now called nursery, reception, and year 1 to year 6 rather than F1-F4 & M5-M8 as I remember and gob-smacked to discover it now has a position specifically dealing with "Personal, Health, Social and Emotional (PHSE) Education" & "Ethnic Minority Achievement (EMA)". It was always a multi-cultural school but we never had to make a political point of it. On the other hand given the hard times I had there the social and emotional education thing might be a good idea. Sounds more like a loony left scheme to me though. As if to re-inforce this perception the dinner ladies are now called "school meals supervisory assistants".
- The local weather forecast