Short Story Competition 2022 - Results and Book Launch

It's been a long time in the editing but here at last is the podcast/slideshow/video/audio thingummy from the competition results event and book launch for New Short Stories 12. (Ed.)

NOV 8, LONDON: Who will take the coveted one-off Willesden Herald inscribed “The Willesden Short Story Prize 2022”? All will be revealed on the night. Plus ten cash prizes to the writers of the stories in New Short Stories 12. From The Performance Space, upstairs in The Library at Willesden Green. 

With special thanks to Katy Darby, Claire Lacey and Liars' League

Wood End Library boarded up

It's not looking too good for Wood End Library and Children's Centre, Whitton Avenue West, in the borough of Ealing, this Sunday.

The windows and doors are metal-shuttered.

Another view with the shelter

The library is next door to a very large school population from Wood End Infant School and Greenwood Primary school. 

Looking up trees again, November 2020

Pictures taken on a sunny, cool Sunday morning

Wood End Lane

Same tree (lime?)

Next tree along

Wood End Library and Children's Centre, Whitton Avenue West

Singapore London Property for sale: The Library at London Willesden Green

SingaporePropertyHunt.com says:

QUOTE:

for Sale: The Library at London Willesden Green*

"a good time for investment both for capital appreciation and currency appreciation London properties are worthy investment as investors can also look forward to reaping good yields ... a rare opportunity to own a piece of heritage London in a much sort [sic] after north west London Borough of Brent."

Note: "The Library" now means the investment apartments. The former library becomes "a cultural centre". Doesn't it make your blood boil? Ed.

Meanwhile this: Anti-Homeless Spikes Outside London Flats (The Independent)

Willesden Library Centre redevelopment

 

We're to have a Stalinist patronising "Cultural Centre" instead of the library centre and several blocks of flats advertised for sale in Singapore, guaranteed to contain "no affordable housing" and "no key worker housing". And Willesden Green now has no car park.

Nearly gone - Willesden library centre & bookshop

Brondesbury Park

Vulture / Moon

Grange Road this evening

As good a time as any to tell you that The Willesden Herald is moving, decentralising from the rebel capital of Brent, across the border to Harrow. But Red Woodward would like to assure our many subscriber that we will continue to broadcast on Radio Free Willesden and publish The Willesden Herald "until the Mahamanvantara be done". We will be moving in with the Sudbury Hill Times. There will be no compulsory redundancies. Instead we will be issuing everyone with new zero hour contracts and applying to the Department for Unemployment to provide us with free labour. Here's to the next 10 years. Sláinte mhaith! 

Demolishing the library centre

Brondesbury Park

Demolition of the library centre in progress

View from Grange Road this morning

Demolition: A digger biting and water being sprayed over it

Where's the poetry?

Opening times for the Willesden children's library

I went into the half of the library that's been plonked in The Lewinson Centre on the High Road. The other "half" is at George Furniss House, Grange Road. I asked the man, down behind the desk, where the poetry books were. He suggested looking in the other half of the library at George Furniss House. I told him I'd been there and they have no poetry. The man said, "We only have children's books here." I said, "Oh, is this the children's library?" "Yes." "Okay," I said. "By the way, children should have poetry too!"

Feargal

The steampunk dinosaurs that ate Willesden

Demolition of the Willesden library centre continued today.

Demolition of the Willesden Library Centre (video)

A perfectly good building, which contained the local library, museum, cinema, art gallery, concourse, bookshop, café bar, performance spaces, meeting rooms and council one-stop shop is being demolished. In its place there will be a Stalinist sounding "Cultural Centre" with council offices and four blocks of luxury flats, currently advertised in Singapore as "For Sale - the Library at Willesden Green" with a list of features including "No affordable or key worker housing", "Gated development" and "Underground car park". Our library centre (by the way a good, literate and fluent name for it, now appropriated by developers of the apartments) was used by innumerable community groups and was nearly always packed with schoolchildren studying at the reading tables. There will be two years at least now during which pupils and students who would have made use of the spaces will lose out on their education. This is all thanks to our local Labour (would you believe?) council, which has also closed six other libraries, out of 12, in the past year. One of the libraries they closed and stripped and sold to property developers, was the Kensal Rise library, on a site donated by All Souls College in Oxford on condition that it be used for a community library and opened in 1900 by Mark Twain. In the past five years or so, they have taken £600,000 from the Heritage lottery fund to renovate the building you see being demolished, and to move in the Brent museum from its previous home at The Grange (where have they sold that, by the way?). What a rotten shower they are. They are not fit to run a whelk stall let alone local government. They sold the town hall as well and got themselves a new office block with no parking and not enough space, hence more offices on top of where our old library stood. Don't they make you sick?

The demolition of the library centre (2)

Thursday

I wonder if they are smashing that wonderful theatre lighting rig. I think they've reached where it was now. Wanton vandalism, waste of public resources, betrayal, sellout. Thank you Labour.

Demolition of Willesden Library Centre

1. From Grange Road

2. Closer up, with jet descending

3. The Willesden Bookshop is next.

"The heart of Willesden Green"

They have painted the hoarding around the library centre.

The library centre is being demolished.

By the way, I think it's Willesden, not "Willesden Green", which is down by the station of that name, to be more precise. They were two separate hamlets. Willesden was also the name of quite a large London borough before it was merged with Wembley to create the horror that is the present London Borough of Brent.  However, nobody cares, as the word Green will probably help to sell new flats overseas, making a killing for the developers at our expense.

They are now in the process of demolishing the excellent pub restaurant and beer garden, now known as The Queensbury, formerly The Green (which is in Willesden Green), for another block of flats, ten storeys high, which will be in a place with nothing left of any value anymore to recommend it, except to overseas investors. None of the people in charge seems to give a damn about what is left for future generations. They are too busy looting and pillaging what was left to us by previous generations.

More: Singapore: "For Sale - the Library at Willesden Green"

Singapore: "For Sale - The Library at Willesden Green"

Willesden's loss is Singapore's gain.

The site surrounded by hoardings this week,
including the council's recent £3,000 worth of graffiti.

Well, well, well. If this isn't a new low. The library centre is being demolished, a council offices cum "cultural centre" (w.t.f.t.i.) with their lordships traipsing through and parking their lardy arses on the top floor, with their deadening glassy eyes overseeing everything in their tiny empire, is to replace it. Oh and the small matter of luxury flats now advertised in Singapore, while the library centre's corpse is not yet cold and while Brent Council is holding officious, plausible sounding meetings about the "lack of affordable housing". CUI BONO?

And remember Brent Labour council have closed six other libraries in the past year, including the one donated by All Souls Cambridge and opened by Mark Twain in 1900, and that one is being turned into flats as well, so keep an eye out if you're in Hong Kong, Dubai or Singapore for that when it comes up.

Here is the advert:
http://www.stproperty.sg/overseas-property-for-sale/united-kingdom/condo/the-library-@-willesden-green/3885312

Here is what they are offering, which was formerly owned by the people of Brent, now expropriated.

"THE LIBRARY @ WILLESDEN GREEN, LONDON
PRICE FROM GBP350,000 (SGD6xxK)

Willesden Green is one of North London’s liveliest and most cosmopolitan areas, whose excellent Zone 2 Jubilee Line connections really set it apart. 

The Library takes a prominent position on Willesden High Road, and sets new standards in contemporary accommodation for the area. This exciting scheme comprises four buildings, offering ninety-five highly specified 1 and 2 bedroom apartments, many with balconies or terraces. The development is gated and has underground parking for residents: always a bonus in London. 

SELLING POINTS:
• Prominent position on Brondesbury Road and Willesden High Road
• Next door to the forthcoming Cultural Centre
• Within 3-minutes ride to Zone 2 London tube station or 5-minute walk
• Within walking distance to Queens Park
• Willesden High Street is thronged with shops, supermarkets (Sainsbury’s Supermarket is a few minutes’ walk from The Library), cafes and restaurants and is a few minutes’ walk from Brondesbury Park
• Excellent transport links – Zone 2 Jubilee Line with direct connections to key interchanges including Baker Street, Waterloo, London Bridge and Canary Wharf
• No key worker/affordable housing
• High quality fixtures, fittings and finishes 
• Fully fitted kitchen by Symphony with integrated appliances and granite worktops 
• Estimated Selling Price: From £350k (SGD 6xxk)

UNIT MIX:
Milne Place (Block A)
1 Bedroom: 545 sqft – 626 sqft
2 Bedroom: 759 sqft – 1005 sqft

Lewis Court (Block B) 
1 Bedroom: 546 sqft – 554 sqft
2 Bedroom: 614 sqft – 862 sqft

Developer: Linden Homes and Green Urban 
Address: 95 Willesden High Road, London, NW10 (Zone 2 on Jubilee Line)
Tenure: 999-years
Estd Completion: Summer / Winter 2014; 4Q 2014
Site Area: 83,958.50 sqft

CALL SALES HOTLINE: + 65 90933158 TO REGISTER YOUR INTEREST☎

View More Project @ www.singaporeproplaunch.com"

* Our emphasis in bold.

"For Sale - The Library"... "a few minutes walk from The Library": No mention of "Cultural Centre" then, oh no, it's Galliford Try that have stolen the good name, and Galliford Try that is trading on the good name of "The Library", which belonged to the people of Brent. Brent Labour have sold us out. Ed Miliband, are you reading this?

Perhaps even more sickening than the moneygrabbing, wanton vandalism and philistinism of it all is the fact that one of the key features, the unique selling points (oh yes) of the new flats is this:

• NO KEY WORKER/AFFORDABLE HOUSING

They add that it's a "gated development". There was supposed to be a public space at the back of the new development, a fig leaf to compensate for the playgrounds, car park/event venue removed, by the way, so how will that fit with a "gated development"?

They refer to their flats as "The Library" and use what are presumably operating company names or cronies of Galliford Try, Linden Homes and "Urban Green". Oh that sounds nice doesn't it, Urban Green. That is exactly what you want if you live in Singapore.

People of Singapore: get your holiday home in London, and when you're not here, let it out. Be a landlord here! You know what, maybe you could even visit your investment occasionally. The locals can't even afford to live here anymore, what a laugh! Their local council is tidying the neighbourhood for you by demolishing local pubs, stately homes etc, removing all trace of local culture and establishing a "Cultural Centre" (a sort of "reservation") with offices for our controllers, from where they can continue their asset stripping and culturecide.

People of Singapore: Did you know that you should be able to gain residency in London by investing in one of these properties. (Check with your lawyer to be sure.) Think how handy that might be to avail yourself of the free NHS, schools etc available to local residents. But, again, don't worry: you never need see any local residents. We are in the historic process of expropriating and relocating them to the outer wilderness.

People who live in Singapore at present: "How can it be done, what is the catch," you may ask. Never fear, there is an endless supply of funding secured from the local populace and almost inexhaustible wealth of resources at our disposal. If you don't succeed in acquiring one of the choice properties in "The Library", Willesden Green, subscribe to our newsletter for announcements of other new developments. For example, we are building flats for you right beside Willesden Green station, on the site of the famous old Queensbury, formerly "The Green" (note, would make a good name for the flats) pub restaurant/beer garden. Yes, we're demolishing that as well. What a laugh! Do you have anything like this in Singapore? No.

******************

If some or all that doesn't make your blood boil, ask your doctor to test you for anaemia.

They wanted to demolish the locally listed Victorian library too.

Hoardings around the library centre

Willesden's loss is Singapore's gain.

Singapore: For Sale - The Library at Willesden Green

• No key worker/affordable housing
• Gated development
• Ideal opportunity for investment. Hey, become a London landlord, gain residency. With residency, pop over any time to use the NHS. 
• Compliant local government.
• 'Nuff said.

Being demolished: Willesden Library Centre including the two storey library, Brent Museum, Willesden Bookshop, Café Gigi, Bellevue Cinema, Studios 1 and 2, including theatre lighting, The Gallery, The One-Stop Shop, venues for many local societies, classes and local markets in the concourse. In two years, expect to see, council offices above the same facilities, no space in front and no car park behind, four blocks of four or five storey flats in a gated subdivision with an underground car park for overseas investors. Meanwhile the Willesden library is split into two temporary locations nearby, one in Grange Road and one a couple of blocks away in Willesden High Road. There was a temporary stint for community groups for a few weeks in Electric House, Willesden Lane, including Brent Artists but that has now been shut down.

Study spaces this summer & library split

Electric House "community creative hub"

Library study space sign

Details: 7 May to 30 June

"Willesden Green library @ Electric House"

The library they are demolishing was always full of young people studying at the tables upstairs. This appears to be an effort to replace that facility while it is being rebuilt. However, it is only available till the end of June.

As well as part of the Willesden library being at Grange Road in George Furness House (see our pictures here), another part of it will be in the Lewinson Centre, 165-167 High Road. This Brent Council web page has the opening hours but no details of what will be in each of the two locations. I certainly couldn't find poetry in George Furness House, (perhaps only a Betjeman could have?). It also warns that the study spaces in Electric House will only be available till 25 June, which is different to what it says on the sign there (30 June).

Sign on the wall of the Lewinson Centre

Ritual adornment of the sacrificial building

InkFetish

PositiveArts

The Willesden Library centre, home of the Brent museum, BelleVue cinema, Gigi's Café, the Willesden Bookshop, The Brent One-Stop centre, The Space I and II performance venues, The Gallery, The Gallery Concourse, the education room and other community spaces, the only town centre car park, and not least the busy upstairs and downstairs library with tables thronged with children studying, is about about to be demolished.

In the past few years, over £600,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund was spent on it to move the museum from its former location, and other changes. Since then it has been deliberately run down and the car park made practically unusable.

The whole place was continuously booked and busy with community groups and cultural events. We even had The Divine Cat on loan from the British Museum. But fear not, in another few years you will have an office building with community areas and a private block of flats where the car park was. The piazza at the front will be consumed and the Victorian library building conjoined to the new box.

And they're also demolishing the Queensbury, opposite Willesden Green station for - you guessed! - another block of flats. They've already demolished Dollis Hill House in nearby Gladstone Park and closed six out of the twelve libraries for Brent, so the culturecide continues apace. They must spend all their time thinking, "What else can we destroy?"

This library centre is the seventh out of twelve to close but they promise it will reappear as large as ever in a couple of years. Let's wait and see. Well, we have no choice. Money has spoken. You can thank your local Labour party representatives at the next local election.

A gift taken back

February update – Perfidious Oxford? | Save Kensal Rise Library!

The latest twist in the story of how the generosity of an Oxford College at the turn of the 20th century is being undone by the meanness of their 21st century moneygrabbing descendants, with the collusion of Brent Labour council and the Tory LibDem government. Make no mistake, they are all as bad as each other. It's the local people, ordinary people, versus politicians and greedy sods with sinecures.

World market and library fair

Library books on display in the concourse

The world market is a regular Saturday event

Cupcakes from the world market in Willesden library centre.
(Somebody's already had one of the Smarties!)