Our Freedom: Then and Now – great Brent Libraries events for October!

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

 

Fanny Blankers-Kohn winning the women’s 100m at Wembley in 1948.

 

As well as “Poetry in Wembley: The Language of Care” on 16 October, Brent Libraries are putting on a range of free events this month as part of the nationwide Our Freedom: Then and Now project. This looks at what freedom means for us now, following on from the 80th anniversaries of VE Day and VJ Day. The local theme for this is ‘a creative community project that invites local people to rediscover and reimagine Brent’s wartime history, offering residents a chance to explore hidden stories from the Second World War and connect them with their own lived experiences of freedom, resilience, and community today.’

 

For those who are free during the day, there will be four “coffee morning” events, each from 11am to 12noon (with free tea and coffee available from around 10.45!). I will put “links” in the title of each to the Eventbrite page where you can get more details, and reserve your place if you would like to attend.

 

On the starting line, at Kingsbury Library on Tuesday 7 October, is my illustrated talk on “Wembley’s 1948 Olympic Games” (above). These “austerity games”, the first summer Olympics for 12 years (since Berlin in 1936), were not just a sporting event, but a chance to help rebuild a peaceful world, where nations could compete in friendly rivalry, not fight each other. As well as the Games themselves, the talk will show how the people of Wembley, and its Council, helped to make them a success.

 

A British ladies’ football team in 1895.

 

Next in the programme, at Willesden Green Library on 14 October, is Phil Vasili’s talk on “The History of Women’s Football in the UK”. Many of us will have celebrated the success of England’s “Lionesses” in two European Championships in the past few years, but I certainly didn’t know there had been a ladies’ football team in this country as far back as 1895! (Did Queen Victoria know? If so, I suspect she would not have been amused!) 

 

An extract from one of the wartime letters from Preston Park.

 

On Wednesday 22 October at Wembley Library, I am involved again with the illustrated presentation of “Wartime letters from Preston Park”. Two ladies from the Brent Libraries team will also be joining me, to read extracts from letters written by local housewives, Nancie and Doris, to a former neighbour during the Second World War. Having heard their first-hand experiences of living through a conflict, while trying to give their children as normal an upbringing as possible, there will be the chance for discussion. Many other wars have taken place since 1945, with some still ongoing, and anyone who wishes to share their more recent experiences, and how these compare with those in the letters, will be very welcome at this event.

 

  

The Second World War is also the subject of October’s final “coffee morning” event, at Willesden Green Library on Tuesday 28 October. “Stepping Back in Time” is a WW2 object handling session hosted by Brent Museum & Archives, where you can also share wartime stories handed down through your family, as well as enjoying your tea/coffee and biscuits. 

 

Brent Libraries, Culture and Heritage is also partnering with the Jason Roberts Foundation to put on several events in the Our Freedom: Then and Now programme. These include two early evening (from 6.30 to 8pm) “In Conversation” discussions with local sporting heroes this month, which are free and open to people of all ages. 

 

These events kick off at Harlesden Library on Wednesday 15 October, with “In Conversation with: Richard Langley & Mark Stein”, when these two former professional footballers will talk candidly about the changes they have seen over the years, both on and off the field. This will be followed by a Q&A session’

 

Athletes including Yamilé Aldama and Connie Henry.

 

Taking up the baton, two former track athletes will be at Wembley Library on Thursday 23 October, when you can get “In Conversation with Yamilé Aldama & Connie Henry, MBE”. These two Olympic and Commonwealth Games medallists will discuss all facets of freedom and what it means to them, including freedom of expression, identity, and whether our freedom could be at risk, as well as taking part in a Q&A session with the audience.

 

I hope these Our Freedom: Then and Now events will include some you can come and enjoy this month. And there are more, including Black History Month events, that you can find on the Brent Libraries, Culture and Heritage Eventbrite page at:

http://tinyurl.com/jjhjrrzs

 

I encourage you all to make the most of these free events, organised for all Brent residents by the frontline team at Brent Libraries!

Philip Grant.

 

 

Some Great Library Events – but where can you find them online?

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

Brent Libraries What’s On leaflet for Spring 2024

 

I know that Brent Libraries have a good programme of free events, and I wanted to let you know about some of them, so I went to my usual online source, the Brent Culture Service Eventbrite site. As you can see, this ‘home of events from Brent Libraries’ has lots of followers, and has previously given access to nearly 500 events for local residents:

 

But when I scrolled down to find out what was on offer for the next few months, this is what I saw:

 

I knew that could not be right, because I am “booked” to give a free library talk myself in March! I contacted the Library Development Officers, who organise these events, to find out why there was nothing on Brent’s Eventbrite website, and was told that they have a new one. Instead of Brent Culture Service, it is now called Brent Libraries, Arts and Heritage, which I think is a much better description. But how many people know about it?

 

I tried “googling” that name, but did not get any “hits” for this new Eventbrite website! I got the address from my Brent Libraries contacts, so before I go any further, let me pass it on to you:

 https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/brent-libraries-arts-and-heritage-73407690863

 

You can now pick up a leaflet in your local Brent Library, setting out all the events on offer this Spring. However, it says it the orange sun at the top of the cover picture: ‘Advanced bookings required for most events.’ Those bookings have to be made on Eventbrite, and the leaflet does not give the website address that I’ve just given you above. It does provide a QR code, but if, like me, you are not yet able to use such things, that is little help.

 

It is a “What’s On” booklet, with the brent.gov.uk/whatson website address printed on the front cover, so surely you can get details of all the Brent Libraries events from that online source, can’t you? That site currently lists 212 events, but:

 

 

The events in the Brent Libraries, Arts and Heritage booklet are not on the Council’s main What’s On listings, but they must be in the Events section of the “Libraries” pages on the website, mustn’t they? After all, this is headed: 

 

‘Library Events - We have lots happening across all our libraries, from regular kids events to family learning. Find out what is happening near you.’ 

 

I’m afraid you would be disappointed, because all that appear there are the current (“Exploring grief and loss through art”) and next two exhibitions at The Gallery at Willesden Green.

 

Brent Libraries, Arts and Heritage management and Brent Communications really must sort out this lack of effective online publicity for the programme of free events at Brent Libraries! I know that a lot of effort, by Library Development Officers and others, has gone into providing this programme. It is unfair on the local community, as well as on those Libraries, Arts and Heritage staff members, if hundreds of people who could benefit from these events miss out on them because of the current lack of online information.

 

As well as giving the Eventbrite website address (see link above) I will mention a few events coming up soon which may be of interest to “Wembley Matters” readers.

 

Five Little Ducks story and craft workshop at Wembley Library

 

There are regular weekly Booktrust Story and Rhyme Time sessions for under 5s at all six Brent Libraries, but this coming Saturday and Sunday there is also a number of special events for National Storytelling Week at Wembley and Willesden Green Libraries.

 

Veganuary event at Kingsbury Library on 30 January

 

Next week’s coffee morning event at Kingsbury Library (Tuesday 30 January, 11.15am) is “Veganuary: Trust your gut!”, making healthy snacks with chef Nishma, of the award-winning vegan food business, Shambhu's.

 

Ealing Road Library hosts a regular STEM CLUB, providing science, technology, engineering and mathematics workshops for children aged 8-11. The same venue also provides Family Film Club events during half-term and school holidays – the next one is on 15 February, when “The Little Mermaid” is featured.

 

An author talk at Ealing Road Library on 12 March

 

Ealing Road Library also has a coffee morning event on Tuesday 12 March at 11am, where you can meet Brent-based author, Manoj Kerai, and find out what inspired him to write his novel, “The Burning Bride”. Kilburn Library has regular coffee morning events as well, the next one is on Wednesday 7 February, as does Harlesden Library, with its next coffee morning on Tuesday 20 February.

 

I hope this has inspired you to find out, from the Brent Libraries, Arts and Heritage Eventbrite site, what free events YOU can enjoy at Brent Libraries over the next few months. 

 

Philip Grant

 

P.S. I did mention my next free local history talk, at a Kingsbury Library coffee morning on Tuesday 26 March at 11am, didn’t I?

Autumn events from Brent Libraries – including some important history!

 A guest post from Philip Grant

I’ve heard from my friends at Brent Culture Service (that’s Libraries, Arts & Heritage) about their autumn programme. There is a whole range of events, both online and “live”, that will appeal to people of all ages, from activities to talks, theatre, music and film, and most of them are free! You can check out the details here, but there are a couple which are particularly interesting to me.

 

A black British sailor at the Battle of Trafalgar, 1805.

 

You may think that Black History Month is nothing to do with you, or that it’s just for “black” people to learn about “their own” history. If so, I hope you will change your mind. In history at secondary school in the 1960s, it was never mentioned that the sailors involved in famous battles won by the British navy were not all white. Over the past decade, since retiring, I’ve discovered some amazing stories of the part played by people of colour in “British” history, and there is still more that I can learn. That’s why I’ve signed up for these two online talks.

 

Arthur and Frederick in their navy uniforms, 1918.

 

I have an interest in naval history, partly because my grandad and his brother Fred were both in the Royal Navy during the First World War. The free online talk, “Uncovering the History of Black British Mariners”, on Tuesday 19 October at 6.30pm, is one I’m looking forward to. I never realised that some of their shipmates may have been “Black British Mariners”, but the faces below make that a possibility.

 

 

Some faces from the “Black Poppies” talk.

 

The First World War is still producing some stories we didn’t learn at school, even over 100 years since it ended. I’m sure that “Black Poppies – Britain’s Black Community and the Great War”, another free online talk, on Armistice Day, Thursday 11 November at 6.30pm, will add some fascinating details to that list.

 

Although I don’t know who most of the people shown in the image above are, I do recognise the face of Sergeant William Robinson Clarke (bottom right). He got his pilot’s licence and “wings” in the Royal Flying Corps (soon to become the RAF) in 1917, and I found out about him some years ago at a Wembley History Society talk, “Pilots of the Caribbean”, and an RAF Museum exhibition of the same name.

 

William Robinson Clarke’s Royal Flying Corps pilot’s licence record card, April 1917.

 

Our WHS talk was by Mark Johnson, and I’m surprised that Brent Libraries don’t seem to have a copy of his book, “Caribbean Volunteers at War” – I hope they get one soon! As well as this WW1 pilot, there were around 500 “Pilots of the Caribbean” who flew in the RAF during the Second World War. One of them has a Wembley connection, because it was here, in 1948, that he won Jamaica’s first Olympic Games gold medal! You can read his story here.

 

Another First World War hero, with a Wembley connection, who I first came across while researching for the British Empire Exhibition’s 90^th anniversary, was a Nigerian. You can read about Sergeant-Major Belo Akure’s bravery here.

 

I hope I’ve whetted your appetite for some of the events that Brent Culture Service have organised for all of us to enjoy this autumn. Please take a look at the programme, to see which ones you and your family fancy, and sign up for the ones that interest you!

Philip Grant

Baghdad’s House of Wisdom - another online event from Brent Libraries

 

 Guest post by Philip Grant

Although I know quite a lot about local and English history, I have to admit that I had never heard of the “House of Wisdom” in Baghdad. So, when I saw that this was the subject of the next online “coffee morning” talk from Brent Libraries (on Wednesday 2 June at 11am), I had to “google” it to find out what the talk might be about.

 

At around the time that the Anglo-Saxon farmer, Wemba, was making his clearing in the woods, which would later give its name to Wembley, around the 8^th century, a Caliph of the Muslim  Abbasid dynasty was setting up a library in Baghdad. He and his successors added to their collection by having scholars translate books and manuscripts from Greek, Syraic, Persian, Chinese and Sanskrit into Arabic. Their library became known as Khizanat al-Hikma, the Storehouse of Wisdom.

 

One of the few Arab scholars from “the Middle Ages” who I had heard of, through my love of maps, was the 12^th century geographer, Al-Idrisi. Translations into Arabic of ancient Greek works, such Ptolemy of Alexandria’s “Geography”, coupled with information from travellers of his own time, enabled him to produce maps of the world (as then known) like this:

 

 

The Caliphs also invited scholars from across the Middle East, Europe and India to come and share their knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, medicine and a range of other sciences, as well as poetry and art. The House of Wisdom became a centre of learning, and this painting, by the artist Yahya al-Wasiti, from 1237, shows it in action, just a couple of decades before it was destroyed when a Mongol army laid waste to Baghdad:

 

 

The free online talk about the House of Wisdom will explore the discoveries of scientists like Ibn Haythm, Banu Musa brothers, Mariam Al-Ijliya and Al-Jahiz. It will be given from the perspective of an Iraqi woman growing up in the UK, who researched its story to help understand her past, in order to make sense of the present state of Iraq.

 

From my brief reading of the subject, the House of Wisdom in Baghdad has a story which deserves to be more widely known, in order to give us a better understanding of the world. I have signed-up online to participate in this Brent Libraries event on Wednesday 2 June at 11am. If you would like to get tickets as well, or to find out more, you can “click” here.

 

Philip Grant

“Memoir from Mugsborough” – free online events from Brent Libraries.

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

With the current lockdown restrictions because of the Covid-19 pandemic, many of us are having to stay at home, with the internet our main contact with the outside world. Our Brent Libraries are currently closed, but a small team from the Service is working hard to provide free online events for residents of all ages. You can find the details by “clicking” here.

 

  

Events in the programme include “Storytime & Rhyme” sessions every Tuesday morning for under 5s and their parents, "half-term" events for older children, "Coffee Morning" talks for adults on the first Wednesday of each month, and a number of evening talks. Before the onset of Covid-19, there were plans in place for me to give three more local history talks during 2020 at Kingsbury, Wembley and Willesden Green Libraries. 

 

I hope that these will all happen at some future date, but in the mean time I have plucked up the courage to give my first “live” talk online! This free event will be on Thursday 18 February, from 6.30 to 7.45pm, and anyone from Brent, or elsewhere, who is interested will be welcome to attend. You can get a few more details and register to attend the talk by “clicking” on the “link”.

You will see that this is not a Wembley local history story. It is about a book that is very special to me, written in, and about, my home town of Mugsborough (not its real name!). It is about the lives of working men and their families, in a south coast town, in the first decade of the Twentieth Century. The author, in the preface to his only book, which he never saw published, describes it here:-

 

 

You may wonder why an “old book”, written by a painter and signwriter more than 110 years ago, should be of any interest now. I would suggest that it has stories which still resonate today.

 

·       Building firms who cut their price to get a contract, then force their workers to rush and cut corners on the job, in order to make a profit, without a care for the consequences for those who will use or live in the building.

·       Working people who are not paid enough to allow them to enjoy a decent life.

·       Children who could go hungry for lack of a relatively small amount of expenditure, and a lack of care from those in power.

·       Working people who are “conned” into voting for candidates whose main concern is in looking after their own interests, and those of their rich friends.

 

 

Like all of my library talks, and articles, this one has plenty of illustrations. If you think it may be of interest to you, please check out the details, and sign up for this Brent Libraries online event. I look forward to sharing my talk with you on Thursday 18 February!

 

Philip Grant.