Come See the Empire – the “Becoming Brent” project ends this weekend.

Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

 

The event at Willesden Green Library on Saturday 16 August. (From Eventbrite)

 

The eighteen month “Becoming Brent” project, using the centenary of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park in 1924/25 as a starting point for re-examining how we see this part of our history from different perspectives, comes to a conclusion next weekend. 

 

Extra tickets have been made available for “Come See the Empire”, at Willesden Green Library on Saturday 16 August from 2pm to 3.30pm. The session will be led by local historian Lisa Lu, who writes:

 

‘The talk will serve as a continuation of the conversation around this historic event, exploring its origins, goals, and how former colonial nations present themselves today. By comparing the Exhibition's narrative with contemporary perspectives, the talk aims to encourage reflection on Britain's colonial legacy, its impact on Brent, and broader global implications.’

 

You can reserve your free place for this event by “clicking” on the Brent Libraries, Arts and Heritage Eventbrite website.

 

Sunday 17 August will be the final day when you can see “Revisiting the British Empire Exhibition 100 Years On”, in the second-floor gallery at Willesden Green Library. This community-led exhibition looks at a variety of pictures and objects from 1924/25 in the Brent Museum collection, and invites you to share your own experiences and impressions of former British colonies, promoting dialogue and critical thinking around the concepts of decolonisation, migration, and heritage.

 

Back on 1 January 2024, Martin published my guest post on Why we should commemorate the British Empire Exhibition in 2024. I felt it was important that we used the centenary of a major local history event, which has helped to shape Wembley’s progress ever since, as a chance to learn more about Britain’s former Empire, to understand it and its consequences, and to acknowledge its wrongs. The “Becoming Brent” project has helped to do that, and we need to continue to educate ourselves, for the benefit of mutual respect across our wonderfully diverse community.

 

Park Lane School’s Empire Day celebration, May 1920.
(Brent Archives – Wembley History Society Collection)

 

Things have moved on since local schoolchildren were taught what a wonderful thing the British Empire was, and were marched to the recently built Empire Stadium to watch the pageantry of the Exhibition’s opening ceremony on 23 April 1924. Several thousand local people were encouraged to take part in the Pageant of Empire at the Stadium in July and August 1924. They were part of a scene about Queen Elizabeth I, and the celebration of England’s victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588. But the sections of the Pageant dealing with how Britain came to own many other lands either distorted, and sometimes glorified in, the darker side of the Empire’s story. Unfortunately, that was the way in which the British establishment wanted people to see our history then!

 

The British Empire Exhibition logo.

Hopefully, we have learned some lessons from the British Empire Exhibition’s centenary which will help to make Brent a better place in future.

Philip Grant.

Come on Rachel, Brent is right behind you!

 The BBC has succumbed to pressure and will be screening the Women's World Cup match between England and France on BBC2 at 5pm.

Local woman Rachel Yankey, who scored the second goal against Japan in England's 2-0 win, will have lots of Brent kids cheering her on. She is well known to them from her football training sessions at local schools, after school clubs, and summer training schemes.

I worked with her at Park Lane Primary School when she did after-school football training. She was always hard working, committed and totally unassuming.  She is an excellent role model for local children.

Park Lane celebrates 100 years of primary education

 

 

The whole school assembled on Park Lane to mark 9/11

Park Lane Infant and Junior School, Wembley will be marking its 100th anniversary this evening from 6pm. Former staff and pupils are all invited to attend the celebration.  This week staff and pupils have been dressed in Edwardian clothes and lessons have taken place on Edwardian lines.  I popped in yesterday to find pupils seated in  rows facing the front and each class stood in unison as soon as I entered the room. 

I inspected finger nails and unfortunately found one boy who appeared to have been planting potatoes before school and several girls with painted finger nails! There were several cases of tardiness and one of non-return of homework. Fortunately I found a cane in the teacher's cupboard...

Interestingly it was corporal punishment in a Welsh school that set off a series of children's strikes also one hundred years ago in the autumn of 1911. Eventually, in those days before social messaging or even radio,  the strikes spread to more than 60 towns throughout the UK. There is still debate amongst historians about whether the strikes were merely copycats of the industrial unrest then occurring across the country or something more.

Children walked out of school over Iraq in 2003, striking children in 1911

One hundred years later there is again social discontent and children are suffering disproportionately from public spending cuts.

More on 1911 Children's Strikes HERE

School Crossing Patrols Essential for Safety

I was shocked by the lack of a School Crossing Patrol (lollipop man/woman) when I started work at Park Lane Primary in Wembley in 1996.  Park Lane is an extremely busy route and the school is situated on a sharp bend. Several bus routes use Park Lane and it is a short-cut to Wembley Park from the High Road.Before it was re-named Park Lane the road was called Blind Lane in recognition of the fact that it was hard to see oncoming traffic.  A short, vigorous campaign resulted in the employment of a crossing patrol and there were no accidents thereafter.  Last year a special school assembly said farewell to Tracey who had kept children safe for many years and she was showered with cards, gifts and poems. The children knew how important her job was.


I now hear from parents at the school that her successor may be cut. I can't emphasise enough how this will put children in danger. A better example of the need to protect the most vulnerable from cuts couldn't be found.