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.

CIPFA shows how important Brent libraries are to residents

The CIPFA report into public libraries compares the London boroughs with each other. In these tables Brent is 'h' with a black graph block. Brent controversially closed half its libraries creating two major hub libraries at Wembley and Willesden Green and four smaller libraries. Kensal Green, Barham and Preston are run by volunteers while Cricklewood is getting increasingly impatient with developer Octavia Housing as volunteers wait to start running a volunteer library there. (Note: CIPFA do not make judgements so all comments are my own.)

As can be seen from the diagram above Brent has far fewer libraries than the average borough but a slightly higher than average population.

I have long argued that Wembley Library has vastly inflated visitor figures because the electronic counters count Civic Centre staff who use the library entrance off Olympic Way as a short cut to their offices. Apart from entering and leaving at the start and end of the day, some also enter and leave for their lunch break.

As a result although Wembley has the highest number of visitors Willesden green has the highest number of borrowers. Watch our for media claims that Wembley Library has a record number of visitors:

Due to the closures Brent has a low number of what CIPFA call service points:

Overall Brent children borrow more books than average with 5 times more fiction than non-fiction borrowed. Primary class visits to the libraries will account for some of this. Adult fiction book issues is below the average but non-fiction higher which may reflect the large number of students who use the libraries.

 One area of concern is the low number of housebound readers. Some boroughs provide a delivery service, often run by volunteers, and this is something the Scrutiny Committee could investigate.

Book stocks are another measure of the quality of the service and here Brent lags. Children do better than adults which may explain the discrepancy in figures. Residents borrow more books than average even though book stocks are lower than 13 other London boroughs:

When the  'Libraries Transformation Project' was launched much was made of access to computers and other digital resources such as e-books. The figures show Brent is below the average for the number of devices available but that they are well used.

The Brent  libraries website is particularly successful and ease of on-line renewal may account for the low level of overdue fines in Brent:

A proposal to reduce the opening hours for Brent libraries, and the possible complete closure of one, was ruled out after the budget consultation.  CIPFA reports a very positive picture on opening hours with Brent out-performing the average for London boroughs.

The figures indicate that Brent is already spending lower than average on its libraries but it is also collecting less revenue, in terms of borrowing charges, fines and reservation fees. Given the low median income of Brent residents I would oppose an increase in charges but it may be an area that will be vulnerable in the future:

To access the full report follow this LINK

Assisted Dying Campaign Group launches in Brent on Tuesday September 25th - Willesden Green Library

A new group campaigning to change the law on assisted dying is due to launch in Brent on Tuesday 25th September 2018.

The group is encouraging local people to come along and get behind their campaign to allow terminally ill people the right to die on their own terms. They meet for the first time on Tuesday at Willesden Green Library at 7pm and anyone is welcome to attend.

Brent is the latest group to join a network of 40 across the country which supports Dignity in Dying in campaigning for a change in the law to allow terminally ill, mentally competent adults the option of an assisted death.

Dignity in Dying has been supporting Noel Conway, a 68-year-old man from Shropshire who is living with terminal motor neurone disease, to challenge the current law on assisted dying. He fears that without a change in the law he may be forced to suffer against his wishes, and hopes his case will be heard at the Supreme Court in the coming months.

Francesca Hall, Campaigns and Outreach Officer at Dignity in Dying, said:

We believe that terminally ill people in Brent and beyond should be able to die on their own terms, peacefully, at a time and place of their choosing – but right now, they can’t. People are taking drastic measures at home and abroad because the law denies them true choice and control over their death.

If you agree that this is unacceptable, please join us and come along to our first local meeting on the 25th of September at Willesden Library to find out more about Noel’s case, the campaign, and how you and your community can be part of it.

When: Tuesday 25th September at 7pm
Where: Willesden Green Library, 95 High Road, Willesden NW10 2SF

The key findings in CIPFA comparative study of Brent Library service

The Kilburn Times LINK is reporting  the CIPFA Report on a comparative study of Brent Library Service and that of 15 neighbouring services.

CIPFA state:

The analysis is simple and non-judgemental. You will not find any quartiles, traffic lights or subjective commentary. Instead the report seeks to visualise the data and to enable readers to draw their own conclusions.

 In that spirit I too will resist a 'subjective commentary' and leave readers to make up their minds from the graphs reproduced below. The boroughs are (s) Brent, (e) Haringey, (a) Lewisham, (d) Lambeth, (x) Southwark, (t) Hounslow, (w) Merton, (f) Croydon, (h) Greenwich, (k) Wandsworth (z) Enfield, (g) Waltham Forest, (m) Hackney, (u) Redbridge, (n) Newham. (BRENT IS BLOCKED IN BLACK)

The full report is available via the link at the foot of this posting.

Above - survey of Under 16s