The Chiswick Calendar celebrates ten years

Image: Chiswick Calendar editor Bridget Osborne at the tenth anniversary bash in the Boston Room of George IV

Chiswick locals get together to celebrate all that’s good about Chiswick

MPs Ruth Cadbury and Andy Slaughter, Leader of Hounslow Council Cllr Shantanu Rajawat and councillors Amy Croft, Jack Emsley and Gerald MacGregor (LB Hounslow) and Gary Malcolm (LB Ealing) were among partygoers who came to celebrate ten years of The Chiswick Calendar on Wednesday night (22 January) in the Boston Room at George IV.

Broadcaster Jeremy Vine was also there, with many of our readers and supporters, people who organise events and run community enterprises in Chiswick – Abundance London, Artists At Home, the Chiswick Flower Market, the Cheese Market, the Arts Society Chiswick, along with those who run businesses here, including our local film and theatre venues, Chiswick Cinema and Theatre at the Tabard.

Image: Madeleine & John dancing to the Fallen Heroes

We held our annual CRAP awards (Chiswick Residents Active Participation) to salute those who do good things that make our community in Chiswick a better place to live, sponsored by Snappy Snaps Chiswick and Sirocco Luxury Travel.

READ ALSO: 2025 CRAP awards

The party is ten percent AGM, 30% networking and 60% partying. Huge thanks to Harriet Benson and Alan Weavis for supplying canapes, local brewery Fuller’s for donating the beer, and local distiller Sipsmith for providing gins and tonics.

Many of the people we have worked with over the years took part in a video made by Nick Raikes and said lovely things about us.

Jeremy Vine narrated the tale of how a ‘retirement project that got out of hand’ has grown to encompass a news website and weekly newsletter, a Club Card scheme to support local businesses, art exhibitions, political debates, a Media club, a weekly jazz club and an annual film festival.

“A retirement project that got out of hand”

“I remember when Bridget came to see me 10 years ago and said she was thinking of doing a media project in Chiswick and I said, “Well are you prepared for it to take over your life?” said Torin Douglas, director of Chiswick Book Festival.

It has indeed taken over my life, completely. Torin makes a very important point in the film, I think:

“Chiswick has really grown in terms of its community output this last ten years and she has very much been a part of that. It’s a livelier place; it’s more community minded.”

There are key people who have worked hard over the years to build that sense of community – Torin and the team from St Michael & All Angels Church with the Book Festival and the Bedford Park Festival; Karen Liebreich and Abundance London; Jan Preece and the Chiswick House Dog Show.

The W4 website was one of the first hyperlocal news websites. That also created a sense of community long before we came along with The Chiswick Calendar. And they all paved the way for the Sunday markets, the Repair Café and other initiatives that have started up in the past few years.

I would like to think we have played a part in that, but also helped keep the flame of independent local journalism alive.

Cllr Jack Emsley said:

“Right across London, right across the country. There’s a real rescinding of good quality local journalism, good quality local media. And Chiswick is this oasis of great media, great journalists who care about their community. And that’s so important for promoting local businesses, promoting what’s going on in the community.

“But also, I think, informing local residents of what’s happening because as we’ve seen across the world, you know, democracy is in a fragile state. And I

think actually all politics is local. So having that great quality local journalism means a more informed community, a more together community.”

At the party people involved in the community of Chiswick met and chatted, listened to the music of guitarist Giulio Romano, and the diehards finished the evening dancing to the music of the Fallen Heroes – regulars at Jazz at George IV.

Frank Noon was there with his camera.