Image above: Chiswick Cheese Market Guest blog by Lucy Cufflin At the last market, we joined forces with The Academy of Cheese for the first ever, LIVE, Big Cheese Weekender – and what a day it was! Fantastic demos from the Queen of Cheddar herself, Mary Quicke, who showed us how cheddar is made, sharing her love and enthusiasm for the miracle that is cheese. Next up… Perry Wakeman, Affineur of the Year two years in a row, showed us how the maturing process works. A fun event with the Academy and Patrick McGuigan introduce

Bill Hagerty receiving his award from the London Press Club - L to R children Adam and Will, wife and fellow journalist Liz Vercoe, Bill and daughter Faith Guest blog by Julia Langdon Chiswick journalist Bill Hagerty has just pulled off the scoop of his life and that’s not a bad claim for a man who started in newspapers as a boy “sixty-something” years ago. Hagerty is himself the star of this story because what he has scooped is the most prestigious award in British journalism – that of Journalist Laureate 2023. It is a prize so honoured that it has only been presented to four previous recipients and it went to Bill Hagerty not only because of his lifetime of significant achievement and his editorship of three national newspapers but because o

Winners of the British Street Food Awards bring an explosion of international flavours to the first Chiswick street food market Guest blog by Richard Johnson We’re BEYOND excited to launch Food St - our new street food market - in West London this Autumn. We’ll be taking over the car park outside the George IV - the site of Chiswick’s first outdoor market, set up by soldiers returning from WW1 - on the fourth Sunday of every month. And we’ll be hoping to entice visitors down to experience all of Chiswick’s independent shops, cafes and restaurants. We run the biggest street food competition in the world. Currently in 16 countries across Europe - and we’re launching in the US in November. So it makes sense that the opening of Food St will be peppered with

Image above: C9, Chiswick High Rd Guest blog by Michael Robinson on the final, final decision on the installation of the cycle lane through Chiswick High Rd C9, the cycle way which comes through Chiswick High Rd, has has its last and final sign off by Hounslow Council. The debate surrounding its installation has caused more division in Chiswick than any other localised topic in recent memory. Eight Conservative councillors, six of them Chiswick councillors (excluding Cllr Jack Emsley, who didn't see the point, and Joanna Biddolph who didn't get a vote because she sits on the Overview and Scrutiny Committee herself), made a last ditch attempt to get Hounslow's Overview and Scrutiny Committee to make the Cabinet reconsider, but the attempt failed and the intermina

Arit Anderson in Cultivate London's Salopian Garden in Isleworth Guest blog by Karen Liebreich Cultivate London, the local environmental charity founded thirteen years ago with a mission to make use of unused spaces in London to grow vegetables and maintain urban green spaces, had a busy summer. They moved their HQ, acquired new sites, acquired a new patron and received a substantial tranche of funding from LB Hounslow. READ ALSO: Hogarth Centre among community groups to receive grants from LB Hounslow This week Cultivate launches its new patron, Arit Anderson, star presenter of BBC TV’s Gardeners’ World and a

Image above: Leader of Hounslow Council Shantanu Rajawat at George IV in Chiswick Working with the Police and retailers Inspector Michael Binns, who is in charge of the Safer Neighbourhood Team across the whole of Hounslow, and Sergeant Jim Cope, who is responsible for community policing in Chiswick, addressed a meeting of Chiswick's retailers on Friday (1 September), and listened to their accounts of the impact persistent shoplifting has had on them. READ ALSO: Police ‘Safer Neighbourhood’ team in Hounslow severely understaffed Leader of Hounslow Council Cllr Shantanu Rajawat was also there, answering questions on behalf of the

Images above: Gherkins growing; gherkins pickled Guest blog by Lucy Cufflin A Chiswick tale… A fabulous lady called Lucy bought a packet of seeds from a lovely man called Alfonso at The Chiswick Cheese Market. She planted the seeds and green shoots soon grew. She looked after the plant in a pot on her patio and by August she was harvesting beautiful unusual little fruits. She pickled them, waiting for autumn to come so she could share her home-grown gherkins with her friends alongside a lovely warming, ooey-gooey raclette. The End It's not me – it’s Lucy Lee-Tirrell of the cheese market team and she has tended her seeds she bought from @Collanverdefarm stall back in March.  Alfonso is back with us after a visit to their olive farm in It

Image above: Lotte Moore, who died, aged 87 on 12 July Best known for her wartime memoir Lotte Moore - A Child's War Obituary by Nicholas Bromley Though Lotte Moore only took up her pen in 2006 at the age of 70, she managed to write and publish over 25 children’s books in her lifetime as well as novels, poetry collections and a biography. Ink ran in the family. Her grandfather was the writer and humourist A.P. Herbert and her father John Pudney, besides being a novelist and journalist, was one of the foremost poets of his generation. Lotte’s early childhood was spent as an evacuee during World War Two and this experience was embedded in her memory. Alan Herbert and his wife Gwen lived on Hammersmi

Image: From the school's dance production Aberfan It's a wrap! Guest blog by Tommy Robinson It's been a long year. Well actually it's been as long as any other year: 195 days 39 weeks, four full terms. However, when you fill an empty bag with as much as we do, it somehow feels fuller. In a year that has seen industrial action that has limited the reach of extracurricular, both by schools and transport, we could have been excused for taking our foot off the accelerator, and students losing impetus. Keeping the students in school in our priority and Chiswick school does that particularly well, we are well above average for attendance and this year was recognised with an FFT National school Attendance Award, which puts us in the top 10% in the c

Image above: Chiswick Cheese Market; phootgraph Jennifer Griffiths Guest blog by Lucy Cufflin Red wine and cheese has somewhat slipped out of favour with cheese-pairing Gurus - fresh craft beers and fruity chilled ciders becoming a go-to to pair with Cheddars. I happen to think that my chilled Prosecco is perfect with a little platter of parmesan shards as a summer Apero! So, bring on the summer cheeses pairings and let’s get stuck into some serious cheese eating in the sunshine! @vinagogo will have a fabullus sparkling for you to try which will match just as well with a shard of the very best Parmesan in the world from Ewa @biancamora. Artisan beers are at the market this month with @roundcornerbrewing – sample at the market and take some home to pair up

Rowing is the sport which defines Chiswick more than any other Chiswick’s iconic sporting event is the Boat Race. The annual tussle on the Thames between the elite eights of Oxford and Cambridge ends at Chiswick Bridge and is the only sports event in the area with global appeal.  Each year, the race attracts TV millions from 200 countries and a quarter of a million people flock to the riverbanks to cheer for their favourite shade of blue at an event which can look (to an Oxbridge outsider) like an Open Day at a Pall Mall Gentlemen’s club or a Flash Mob for college scarf fans. Even if you only watch the Boat Race in the hope a boat sinks or to see how far the cocky coxes can test

Images above: Chiswick School steel pan; Performing Arts Choir on Coronation weekend It has been a bumper whirlwind roller coaster ride in the Arts department at Chiswick School By Tommy Robinson As with all schools we have had the pressure of exam expectations and deadlines. Music, Performing Arts and Art all had their year 11 practical exams this term and after five years of study, heartache and triumph it was time for them to show just how good they are. In a term where Ofsted (and their procedures)  have been at the forefront of all teachers' minds, the idea of being individually judged is never an easy one for anyone, let alone artists. This is also the first time since COVID that the exam process has "returned to normal". However the

Image above: Chiswick performing arts 'flashmob' at the opening of the Dukes Meadows walkway underneath Barnes Railway Bridge The arts are good for you - it's official (Well Duh!) By Tommy Robinson Recently there has been a lot of chatter on social media surrounding the importance of the Arts in schools; a new report "Arts in Schools" published by the creative organisation "A New Direction" and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and supported by the Department of Education. The report states that "Arts subjects and experiences have an evidenced role in contributing to improving outcomes for children and young people, providing them with skills for li

SPONSORED CONTENT Guest blog from Ten Health & Fitness There is a large shortfall in women’s health services in the UK; with awareness, education and access to treatment falling far behind Scandinavia and other European countries. The incidence of women’s health issues in the UK is huge. One in three women have urinary incontinence, 1 in 12 have faecal incontinence and 8 out of 10 women experience invasive menopause symptoms, to list just 3 examples. The scale of the issues is only matched by the lack of support available. (For context, of the 16 million women going through menopause or perimenopause, fewer than 1.5% are on HRT, even though it’s safe for most women.) At Ten, we think women have put up with this for too long. We believe that women deser

Chiswick Cheese Market is back on Sunday 19 February, from 9.30am to 3pm in Old Market Place, outside George IV pub. This month the market is introducing a new feature - Cheese of the Month, which in February will be Gorgonzola Dolce. Guest blog by Lucy Cufflin Introducing the Cheese of the Month - Gorgonzola Dolce Cheese facts: From Lombardy and Piedmont regions of Italy, made with pasteurised cow’s milk only from cows that graze within the cheese making region. Minimum 45 days maturing, this is a rustically misshapen yet elegant cheese with a luxuriously unctuous interior. Less mature than its sister cheese Gorgonzola Piccante, it is therefore a wonderfully creamy cheese with a salty blue tang. A great blue cheese for a blue cheese novice