Can you help trace the Willesden Morozoff family?

Letters

Can you help me find the mystery lady in the photograph? This is the story:

My great aunt Emily Elizabeth Hall married a Russian Tailor called John Morozoff. They had children: John (1891) & Vera Maria (1893), both born in Westminster; then Leslie Paul (1904) born at 18 Grange Road Willesden; then Henry Frank (1898),  Pauline (1900) and Emily Elizabeth (1901) all born at 13 Hawthorne Road Willesden, which subsequently became no.51 Hawthorne Road.

My great aunt died in childbirth with Emily Elizabeth. After that the father moved to l, Brenthurst Road, Willesden and had the children baptized in St.Marys Church Willesden.- they were there but

They moved to Belgium in 1904. Later 3 of the children came back here; they were John, Vera Maria and Henry Frank and I am in contact with this part of the family. However  we don't know what happened to the other 3 children: Leslie Paul, Pauline and Emily Elizabeth.

I have been in touch with the Belgium archives and I was very fortunate that they had the Morozoff file. As they were foreigners in the land they had to inform the authorities when they moved address. So I know that Pauline was leaving Ixelles in Belgium in 1926, unfortunately don't know where to.

The photograph I have is in 1904 in Belgium. But apparently this woman figured in the family when in Willesden. She would have descendants somewhere and if recognized may be a stepping stone to finding where the rest of the family went. I have done work on the Ancestry Search engine and have trawled all the passenger lists and cannot find any of these Morozoffs so have hit a brick wall at the moment.

Kathy

If you have any info. for Kathy, please contact kathleenpjones at  live.co.uk. Ed.

Letters / Emails

Feargal, tell that blaggard Moran that he is on a final warning for moonlighting. Do you see his name on the attached? If he can't devote his entire day to the job, there are plenty of others who are only too willing - and for nothing, nada, zippo. Internees they're called. If you need anything I'll be at my accountants (Coral). And whatever you do, don't put this on the front page.

Red Woodward prop.

Liars' League, Tuesday 8th March, 7:30 pm
Downstairs at The Phoenix, 37 Cavendish Square, London W1G 0PP

"Entry costs a bargain £5 (cash only) and doors open at 7pm for a 7.30 start as usual. See you in court!"

https://www.facebook.com/events/1576911725965600/

Let's stick together #indyref

Dear Scotland,

Please don't Balkanize the island of Britain. If you do you'll be out of the EU and without a proper currency and it will be a right royal mess. We can get a Labour government for Britain next year and more devolution is on the cards.

And wouldn't your children become foreign students at English universities and have to pay the very high tuition fees rate per year for foreign students? According to HSBC these average £11,933 and range up to £38,532 for the top places, without taking into account living costs.

It would be better to try and create a sort of "Benelux" zone - actually it partly exists already - in the islands of Ireland and Britain, if only we could get Republic of Ireland to join the sterling zone! That's not at all likely, to put it mildly, but we might all end up in the Euro zone eventually, perhaps.

Wouldn't it be much better to have devolution but economic integration within Britain and Ireland, including the Republic? That would be my ideal. It's only this writer's personal opinion of course but it would be very handy for nipping back and forth to Dublin - and Scotland.

Now if Scotland increases divisions in these islands by voting Yes, it only makes life more difficult from my point of view. The difficulties that I foresee will also apply to you but you may think the benefits of independence and separate EU membership outweigh such considerations, but I hope "No, Thanks!" carries the day.

Regards, best wishes,
Harry Lemon

Friends of Kensal Rise Library update 20th July 2014

THIS JUST IN:

Hi Everyone,

Two important points:

1. The planning application for the Kensal Rise library was approved at the planning Committee Meeting on Wednesday 16th July.

2. The developer has agreed to name FKRL as the 'actual' rather than 'preferred' tenant of the community space. This means that subject to lease and management arrangements being agreed the space will not have to be tendered out to other groups (The 'Exception' in the Localism Act allows for this) and FKRL can look forward to being the new tenants.

FKRL knows that this is not an ideal but a compromise solution, and we know there are challenging times ahead, but there has been so much support for our campaign, and there remains so much goodwill, that we are determined, with this continued support, to have a library back in our building. We are looking forward to planning our library and community space and we hope as many of you as possible will want to be involved.

Thank you to everyone in the community, and beyond, who have supported us for nearly four years, any success we have had is due to your support.


Regards,

Margaret Bailey
Chair
FKRL

Save Kensal Rise Library! | Agreement to be signed

This just in:

March Update - Agreement to be signed.

Hi Everyone,

At a Trustees’ meeting of the Friends of Kensal Rise Library, on Thursday 20th March, it was agreed to sign an agreement, in good faith, with both All Souls College, Oxford, and Andrew Gillick of Kensal Properties Ltd.

The agreement means that we will publicly support the D1 aspect of the proposed development of the library building: namely, the provision of the D1 space.

In return, we trust the agreement will ensure that we, as the named preferred tenants of both the College and the developer, will be the operators of a community library in the space.

This is the fourth year of the campaign to Save Kensal Rise Library. Our intention has always been to make sure there is a library in the Kensal Rise Library Building. In this, we have had the support of the community - and beyond.

We have greatly valued and respected this support over the years; we now ask that the community continues to maintain its faith and trust in FKRL.

For, having seriously considered alternatives, we have not taken lightly the decision to enter into the agreement.

However, we think it is the best chance we have of ensuring that a library continues to function in the building for the community of Kensal Rise and Kensal Green.

The Save Kensal Rise Library campaign will continue until this objective is achieved.

Regards,
Margaret Bailey

Save Kensal Rise Library! | Campaign to Save Kensal Rise Library

Amazon KDP versus Willesden Herald

Amazon: "Our records still show we haven’t received valid tax identification information for your account. In order for Amazon to comply with U.S. tax reporting guidelines, you must complete our short online tax interview by 10/25/2013 to avoid your books being removed from sale on Amazon."

WH: 'I am not obliged to conform to "U.S. tax reporting guidelines". When Amazon pays its fair share of U.K. tax I might consider it. Until then you can get stuffed.'

Update (September 2014): I relented and filled in the form.

Thieves in the night

Letters


This morning between 2 and 3am Richard Barrett, Brent's Property Officer, raided and stripped our library.
About 15 workers took the books from the library and also took the murals painted in the 1930's specifically for the library along with all the plaques commemorating the library's opening by Mark Twain.

They took tables and chairs and other assorted objects including a microwave and a box of sticky tape.

They were assisted in this action by about 12 police officers.

In a meeting with campaigners last week the new leader of the council Mohammad Butt promised that the murals and furniture would not be taken.

We asked him to hold off stripping the library until he had organised a meeting with All Souls College, the council and ourselves.

This action this morning is proof that the council had no intention of trying to ensure that the reverter on the library had not been triggered.

Cllr Mo Butt said he wanted to listen to the community, engage with them.

This is how he listens. By taking this action he has jeopardised the ability of this community to run this library.

We may be finished with Brent council but our campaign continues. We will not let their cowardly, middle of the night plundering defeat us.
Cllr Butt's words to us are worse than meaningless.
They reveal what a cowardly, conniving, bunch of dishonest panhandlers they are, but what else would you expect in the Banana Republic of Brent?

You may want to email Cllr Mo Butt at Brent Council and tell him what you think. cllr.muhammed.butt@brent.gov.uk *

Margaret Bailey

* Also let him know what you think on Twitter, where he lurks under the moniker @lwxmb19. Not that they care at all, but they will go down in the annals of shame for their destruction of the libraries of Willesden and Brent. What Willesden could afford at the time of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee in 1900, "it cannot afford" at the time of the present monarch's jubilee in 2012. What was created by the generosity of previous generations has been destroyed by the stupidity of a few reckless councillors. But make no mistake, it's not that they cannot afford it, they are spending £650,000 (yes, oh mateys! who will get the contract?) on repainting Kilburn library. They just don't want us to have local libraries, they don't want study space for local kids, all they want is more flats because that is how they get more money. And that is all they care about. (Ed.)

How the Greek bailout will work, in very simple terms

Letters (email)

It is a slow day in a little Greek village.
On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.

The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmers' Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks and food bill at the taverna.

The tavern owner slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him "services" on credit.

The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note.

The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole village is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works!!

Anon.

Stick your ebooks

Letters

Re: Amazon and Waterstones report downloads eclipsing printed book sales (Guardian)

Apart from the low pricing - the bestselling "ebook" cited is 49p to download - one factor not mentioned is that because these are online booksellers, it is natural for electronic books to be their default product. You probably could not get "an eBook for your Kindle"* from a high street bookshop. So it's not surprising when they find that electronic downloads are overtaking their sales of real books.

For high street bookshops, presumably ebook sales are zero. So if the electronic sites go over more to ebook sales, it might indirectly help traditional bookshops. Unfortunately, Amazon has the power like supermarkets to buy the market and force small local competitors out of business. But real books are not going to go away, ever. The sort of things being offered now are like the early digital watches: a backward step for the sake of technology, masquerading as progress.

People may be downloading cheap or free ebooks (though free ones are not included in the statistics above) but I have yet to hear convincing reports of anyone enjoying the reading experience with them. Reading is not something like laundry that has to be done as a chore where mechanisation is a help and a relief. It's a specific respite from technobabble, gadgets and the flim-flam of workaday life.

You can bet your life that people will always want to take a glass of wine or a cup of coffee (not delivered via a throwaway injector direct into the veins), a book and a part of their own day to devote to the mindful pursuit of reading a book.

Empanada Solero, Chiswick

* I think it is unlikely that any medium with such ugly words associated ("ebook" and "kindle" - as a device) will last. [Ed]

Vote whichever way will stop the Tory

Letters

All I want to know is which one to vote for in the new Hampstead and Kilburn constituency to stop the Tories. Should I vote for Glenda Jackson or Ed Fordham?

I don't want to split the progressive vote but that is the danger, for the following reason. The Tories claim it's a Labour/Conservative marginal, which would mean I should vote for Glenda Jackson but the Liberals claim that it's a Labour/Liberal marginal, which would mean I could vote for Ed Fordham. As the Liberals are riding high it could mean that Ed Fordham will suck a lot of votes away from Glenda Jackson, but if the Tory bumf is right that would mean a win for them.

The Liberals claim that Glenda Jackson is lazy and lives in Lewisham. Their man according to the billboard at Queens Park, lives here and loves the area, comes from four generations of his family living here. How do we know that doesn't just mean "gives his parents' address?" Is there any independent information available to enable us to evaluate all these conflicting claims?

Help! How can we avoid splitting the progressive vote?

Joe Public, Hampstead & Kilburn

P.S. How can it be right for the Boundary Commission to deprive us of our beloved Sarah Teather, without a by your leave?

St Paul's Pianos

Letters

The Willesden Herald: Faded signs on gable walls

"My great grandfather Sydney Chidley set up and ran St Paul's Pianos back in the 1920's - this was their head office. (There was another one further up the road, and also in Birmingham).

It was called St Paul's Pianos - because they lived in St Paul's Avenue (just off Willesden Green tube station)."

Anonymous

Campaign to boycott the BBC licence fee

Letters

The proposal: From April 1st 2009, no further licence fee subscriptions to be paid to the BBC. The BBC receives approximately two billion pounds extorted from every family in the country, with the exception of the extremely elderly, regardless of ability to pay. It is a poll tax.

Additionally the BBC has now proved that it is not representative of public opinion and is used as a tool of the craven government's corrupt foreign policy. As a result it is literally covering up, hiding the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, purely because it is beholden to the government and Israel for its luxuriant position embedded and dependent utterly in and on the status quo. The interests of the British public and the world on the other hand, depend on the dismantling of the status quo and on progressive policies.

If we all sign up to boycott starting from April 1st, we will have strength in numbers. Meanwhile the prospect of bankruptcy can concentrate the minds of the grovelling, backsliding sluggards who run the corporation.

A Reader, Kilburn

The Colonels Blimp

Prize letter*

Magoo/Palin/Putin
All on a skidoo
Today Abkhazia,
Tomorrow Alaska,
Putin/Palin/Magoo

Shane Schlepolski (12), Cricklewood

* 5 weeks plenary indulgences for the best letter each week to the Colonels Blimp

From Stalin to Mr Bean to Mr Has-Been

Letters

It's all rubbish, of course, but I'm applying for a job as Vince Cable's gag writer. The election results coverage on BBC1 now includes pictures of three bloggers sitting at notebook computers like sewing machinists in a sweat shop. What's the bloody point? When everybody has a blog it will be the same as when nobody had a blog. Back to the status quo ante, Auntie. Thank God for real newspapers like the Willesden Herald.

A Genuine Reader, Neasden

Night vermin

Letters



They fly tip by night (Rowdon Avenue)



Somebody saved about ten pounds by dumping this rubbish in a residential street, creating a road safety and health hazard and cost to everybody else. They should be shot.

Branson Chiles, Brondesbury

<< Previous | Next >> (fly-tipping)

Inland Revenue trials sleepworking

Letters

The Great I, Comptroller of Britain, have determined that My employees can do just as much useful work while asleep as they can while awake, and so from today they will be provided with pillows, duvets and reclining armchairs. This arrangement should enable My employees to have more quality time when they go home to their families. Additionally Derry Irvine Decorators (Liberia) Ltd. and Pincher Martin Furniture (Bahamas) Ltd. have been awarded contracts to renovate ten million houses belonging to My workers (or sleepers as they will henceforth be known). If you have any problems with this, please phone The Great Me on 01274 539628 and listen to jolly muzak, copyright © Exorbitant Tracks (Cayman Islands) Ltd., for a few hours*.

The Great I

* Long distance rates may apply. Seek permission of whoever pays the bill before phoning. Interest will be charged while you wait.

A message from Comic Relief

"On behalf of everyone at Sport Relief we wanted to say an enormous thank you to Willesden Short Story Prize for sending us the £5,000 donation to Sport Relief 2008. ... £15 could buy a set of books for 3 street children in Bangladesh for a year. With an education these young people will be better equipped to get a job when they are older and thus escape from the cycle of poverty they would otherwise be trapped in. ... It just goes to show, the money you donated really will change lives and we couldn't do it without your support so keep up the good work." (Helen Kulbicki, National Fundraising). Thank you to all involved for their help. I think we can all be justifiably proud to have been part of something unusual and worthwhile. Steve Moran

Leave Britney alone and leave Pincher Martin alone

Chris Crocker - LEAVE BRITNEY ZADIE SPEAKER MARTIN ALONE!

Letters 

What a load of hot air about Speaker Martin's expenses! Surely the real public interest is in publicising these excellent schemes that he avails of, so we can all have a £17,000 housing allowance, not to mention a £4,000 taxi allowance for our spouses shopping expeditions. Surely the point is to level up not down? As soon as I can acquire the correct forms I shall be applying for the very same allowances. Why on earth would I want Speaker Martin fired? Catch yourselves on, people. 

Alf Watt, Cricklewood

Update: The judgment of Solomon

Dear Angry Willesden Herald Readers,

We apologise again for any upset we caused - it was all my (Zadie's) fault. Stephen is innocent! Better luck next year I guess. Power to the people, etc.

Yours,

Zadie, Stephen and co.

Note/update: Well, we tried. See Bilal's report for the final outcome/ decision/ result. (Ed.)

Funniest show in the world, media, sound, er, radio

Letters

BBC - Radio 4 - Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show!

Undoubtedly the funniest thing in the entire earth, world, place, earth, BBC, er radio. Indescribably funny.

Mrs Delaney, West Hampstead