The ‘Just a card’ campaign has focused attention on how much difference just a small purchase can make to a small independent trader. The campaign came about when artist and designer Sarah Hamilton saw the quote “If everyone who’d complimented our beautiful gallery had bought ‘just a card‘ we’d still be open” by store keepers who’d recently closed their gallery. “Running a shop is often a labour of love” she says. “Without dedication and passion, and crucially sales, it would be another boarded up eyesore”.

Elias & Grandsons

A-Z of presents from independent traders

With that in mind The Chiswick Calendar has put together an A – Z of Christmas present ideas that you can buy from independent traders in Chiswick. 

A is for Art

In Chiswick we have lots of excellent artists. While many have their work on display in galleries and exhibitions, they are also happy to sell from home and to arrange viewings by appointment. The Chiswick Calendar has put together a directory of artists so you can browse their work online and then get in touch direct.

B is for Books

Foster Books, established in 1968, is a family-run business which has now passed to a second generation of booksellers. The oldest shop on Chiswick High Road, the building dates from the late 18th century. Fosters specialise in antiquarian books, fine bindings, illustrated children’s books and first editions, as well as a general stock leaning towards literature and the arts. 

C is for Cameras

This year’s must have from the Chiswick Camera Centre is a smart phone picture printer. The Tomy Kiipix is a nifty little box; you put your phone on top, load a pack of Fujjifilm and press print. Instant pictures from your phone. £39.99 from Chiswick Camera Centre.

Andy Sands, the owner of Chiswick Camera Centre, is himself an ace wildlife photographer. I wrote a profile feature about him earlier this year which you can find in the This Is Chiswick section of the website. If you’re wanting advice about cameras and camera gear, there’s not much that he and his staff don’t know

Kiipix smartphone printer from Chiswick Cameras

Elias and Grandsons

Under ‘L’ for Leather goods you will find Elias and Grandsons. 

Elias set up the business in 1974 and was, according to his son in law Frank, “the Basil Fawlty of the shoe-mending business”. The shop, at 3 Chiswick Common Rd, just off Turnham Green Terrace, went out of the family for some years but is now managed by Frank, whose own father was also in the shoe-mending business, in Richmond. Frank married Elias’ eldest daughter and their sons Elia and Pandeli now run both shops.

Elias and Grandsons offers the highest quality workmanship for shoe and bag repairs but they also sell beautifully hand crafted leather shoes and bags made by Pandeli (dubbed “the Mozart of bag making” by Elia). Although the name of the shop says ‘Elias and Grandsons’ in fact sons, daughters and grandsons are all involved. 

De-Joli

Under ‘D’ for Dresses you will find De Joli

Diane Bardon has been in business in Chiswick since 1989. Born in Baghdad, she came to London at the age of 17 to finish her education, became interested in retail working for British company RAYNNE shoes, a Harrods concession, and decided to go solo. She sells women’s clothing at her boutique De Jolie. This year, under pressure from Westfield, E-commerce and high rent and business rates, she almost folded but has decided instead to sublet part of her shop as a concession. Gabriela Pascu is now open for business with her range of children’s wear and Diane plans to reopen the rest of the shop to continue selling women’s clothes from 1 December.

To browse A – M of our Christmas present ideas from local independent businesses go to present ideas page. N – Z  will follow next week.

If you’re a fan of silly humour and you like Hugh Dennis, pop along to the Richmond theatre this week.

The Messiah is a comedy about a theatre troupe staging a production about the birth of Jesus. Hugh plays Maurince Rose, the proprietor and John Marquez (the policeman in Doc Martin) plays the rest of the company, with soprano Lesley Garrett as the chorus, trying to sing serious songs while they lark about around her (think Morcambe and Wise with Glenda Jackson).

It’s written by Patrick Barlow, known amongst other things for his two man theatre company the National Theatre of Brent, so he has form with actors playing lots of parts with merely a hat, or in this case a tea towel to indicate change of role. 

The comedians play very well off each other. Hugh the concerned Joesph trying to help Mary breathe through the contractions as John morphs effortlessly from bored teenager Mary to the midwife to the Archangel Gabriel. This is Lesley Garrett’s first play. It’s always fun watching someone known for their serious art unbutton themselves. She took to mucking about like a wise man to a camel. 

It’s 20 years since the first meeting at which Kathleen Healy and then Councillor Paul Lynch sat round a table and discussed the ambitious, some might have thought unattainably idealistic proposition that the bit of rough ground at Dukes Meadows where people regularly fly tipped rubbish and burnt abandoned cars might become a well kept park and adventure playground.

Photograph above: Dylan Carty

“They never dreamed we’d do it”

“The Council was quite patronising” says Kathleen, now Development Officer of the Dukes Meadows Trust. “They never thought we’d do it” she says. To be fair, it is a not inconsiderable achievement to have organised the local community into taking back the land (common land granted to the people by the Mason family), landscaping it, building an adventure playground, paddling pool and kiosk and maintaining it all on a voluntary basis, with only limited input from the Parks department. With the active encouragement of Riverside councillor Paul Lynch the group of volunteers started the Sunday Food Market within a year of that meeting and over the next 19 years the proceeds of the weekly farmers market have funded most of the rest of the development.

Children from the local primary school, Cavendish Primary, were drafted in to design the adventure playground. The zip wire – the ‘Flying Fox’ and slide were the brainchild of Dylan Carty, now 21, and his mate, both then in Year 5. “We wanted this elaborate system of tunnels as well” he says “but it just wasn’t practicable”. Dylan has just landed a job with global law firm DLA Piper, though at present he still lives with his mum and dad beside Dukes Meadows.

“It’s great to see it come so far” says Dylan, an old boy of Chiswick School, “it’s so drastically different. We spent so much time here hanging out”. He also helped out in the market and became the market manager before he went off to university at Exeter.

Photographs above L-R: Sophia-May Rodgers, Musab Bouyardan, Ruth Cadbury MP, Lily Daly and Isabela Sposito

“It’s fantastic” says parent Mette Rodgers. “Our kids are now of an age they can go on their own to meet up and they spend hours and hours here”.

“The paddling pool was great when they were younger. It’s a safe place where they can play” says Gemma Daly.

The Trust still has links with the school. Just last week they were involving the children in a project about local industry. They had a go at wallpaper making and tried making chocolate as well.

“I once tried making a Cadbury’s creme egg” Ruth told the children. “It came out alright actually”. I should hope so. She is of course a scion of the great chocolate making family which makes some 500 million creme eggs a year.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar

See also: Dukes Meadows park nominated for an award

See also: Dukes Meadows retains its Green Flag

Christ Church on Turnham Green is about to celebrate 175 years. As the introduction of the railway brought a huge new population to live in the area, so the only existing church, St Nicholas on Chiswick Mall, became full to bursting. Christ Church was the first of the Victorian era churches to be built to take the overflow,  commissioned in 1841 and completed in 1843 at a cost of £6,900; designed by the architect Gilbert Scott.

Turnham Green was less salubrious in those days, says current vicar Richard Moy, as the area to the north of the High Rd was famous for its washerwomen.

These days some 16,000 people pass through the church’s doors each year for all sorts of reasons, from toddler groups and youth groups to social events for elderly people. One major claim to fame is that parishioner Andre Lee organised a coalition of 15 churches in 2012 to create the Shelter Project. The churches take it in turns to open their doors to provide shelter and meals for homeless men for three months during the winter and help them find employment and permanent homes.  

The church has had a major refurbishment in recent years which gives it a cosy, modern feel inside. Hard to imagine now that in 1992 the Bishop of Kensington was minded not to renew the vicar’s living. He was persuaded otherwise and  Jim Dainty from Manchester took over. Ironically the congregation grew in number in the interim period when they were without a vicar! It continued to grow and Jim, says Richard, was known for his “firm hand on the tiller” to the extent that he measured with a ruler the space that there should be between the chairs. His successor Matthew Boyes became the chaplain at Feltham Young Offenders institution.

Clearly discipline has lapsed since Richard took over in 2012 as people seemed to be sitting anywhere, in a very relaxed and informal manner when I went in to see him. On his watch the church has managed to reclaim two other churches – St Albans and the Mission Hall on Cunnington St, which came close to being redeveloped as flats. To celebrate the 175th Birthday, Christ Church will be holding a special service this Sunday, 25 November at 10.30am to which everyone is invited.

Go and see this very funny play at the Tabard. The poster makes it look a tad corny but it isn’t. It’s is a very witty, well written dissection of a marriage which anyone who’s been in a relationship for any length of time will relate to.

The play, by Canadian author Michele Rimi, is set in a trendy spa hotel where the couple, Alice and Henry, have gone to put a little sparkle in their relationship. Working their way through ‘Sex for Dummies’ they’re finding that after being married for 25 years rekindling the passion is proving hard work and the trite suggestions in the book are humiliating and ridiculous.

What to do? Throw in the towel (they’re far too thin for such an expensive place Henry says when he phones the manager to complain) or be happy with what they’ve got and their shared history together? In the hands of two very experienced actors, Felicity Duncan and Nick Raggett Sexy Laundry is an hour and a bit very well spent. 

Noel Fielding

Noel Fielding was there on the night I went. As one half of The Mighty Boosh he appreciates how hard it is to keep up the energy in a two hander when you’re both on stage all the time and the script requires fast delivery and a high octane performance. He was full of praise.

 

The ‘Chiswick Oasis’, the living wall which parents at St Mary’s RC primary school are seeking to raise sufficient funds to build, has become a cause célèbre.

TV presenters Jeremy Paxman, David Dimbleby, Francesco da Mosto and Claudia Winkleman and actors Emma Thompson and Ciaran Hinds have all sent messages of support; the entire cast of Eastenders have signed a plaque which is to be auctioned to raise funds and the jeweller Swarovski, whose UK headquarters is in Chiswick, has pledged £10,000.

Andrea Carnevali, leading the campaign, says: “This has been an amazing week for this campaign. A campaign that really started off just with an frustrated tweet is now getting so much support that it’s really quite overwhelming”.

In the past week he’s been interviewed by the Metro on Monday, ITV on Wednesday and Sky News on Sunday.

But this is no time to get complacent. They still need to raise £11550 – £350 per day until the deadline to secure promised funding from the Mayor of London. So if you haven’t already pledged a tenner, go on to  spacehive.com/chiswickoasis and do so at once. The biggest donation between Sunday night and Monday 19 at 11.59pm will bag the Eastenders name plate.

The reason for all this effort is that St Mary’s has been named one of the 50 worst polluted schools in Greater London, due to its proximity to the A4. A ‘green wall’ would apparently cut pollution levels in the school by 40%.

Andrea would love well-known Chiswick residents Colin Firth and David Tennant to support the Chiswick Oasis. I’m sure they are both avid readers of this newsletter, so come on guys, declare yourselves. And David, the people campaigning for the green wall are not the same as those who kiboshed your house extension. I’m sure the parents of St Mary’s would love you to have a swimming pool in the back garden too.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar

See also: Mayor of London opens the Chiswick Oasis

See also: Chiswick Oasis appears to be working