Working together to make West Ealing a better place for residents, businesses and visitors.
We set ourselves the challenge of transforming the fag-butt filled empty flowerbed at the top of Melbourne Ave for the SoundBite Festival. Here’s the before:
and here’s the after:
Particular thanks to Dean at the nearby flowerstall for all his hard work and let’s hope we can keep it looking this lovely from now on as it really does cheer up everyone who sees it.
We’ll put up more photos and feedback from SoundBite shortly. On a totally personal note, as I was helping organise the event on Saturday, I didn’t get to see many of the acts but of those few I did see three stand out for very different reasons:
Her father Romeo sang for us last year and this year his daughter Maria sang at the craft market in St James Ave. She stopped everyone in their tracks with her smooth, jazzy singing. Hers is the sort of voice and style of singing that I’d love to listen to late night in a small, intimate venue. A venue like Ronnie Scott’s or perhaps, locally, the Bush Hall in Shepherd’s Bush could work well for her. Catch her here on the video of clips from the music at St James Ave and remember this is where you first saw and heard her. She starts 6 minutes in to the video.
I’d been looking forward to the Bollywood Brass Band all day and was beginning to give up hope that I’d manage to get to Dean Gardens for them but i finally caught their last set at 6pm.
I really enjoy their combination of drumming and brass and their engagement with their audience. You can’t help but feel the energy and joy in their music and that got through to a group of children who got up and danced right in front of the band.
Photo copyright Vivien Boyes
My third highlight was TJ ‘Holyboy’ Johnson who I’d been told about so I made sure I got to Melbourne Ave to catch him closing the music there. I wasn’t disappointed and nor was the crowd who were drawn to his Hendrix-style blues guitar playing and driving voice. I was struck by the cross section of people who, like me, just felt compelled to stand there, soak it up and not miss a minute of his set.
Here’s the latest running order of events for Saturday.
A range of children’s entertainment from 10am -3pm including
-Relish Kids Cookery -showing how to making apple crumble (primary school age)
– Facepainting, table tennis and other games
Craft market from 10am – 3pm with live music from 12noon – 3pm
Crafts include a wide range of hand-made, local goods raning from jewellery to soaps, gifts and much more.
The music line-up (subject to any last minute changes) is:
|
12.00- 12.20 |
Sophie and Anisha |
|
12.20-12.40 |
Sophie D’Souza |
| 12.40-13.00 | Interval |
|
13.00-13.40 |
Oddfellas |
|
13.40-14.00 |
King Ralph |
|
14.00-14.30 |
The Mobile Clones |
|
14.30-14.50 |
Maria |
|
14.50-15.00 |
Andrea Richardson |
Live music and hot food from 11am – 5pm.
Entertainment for the day is:
|
11:00 |
James Perryman |
|
11:30 |
Zumba by Karen Freeman Dance |
|
11:45 |
Vienna Spring |
|
12:15 |
Vanita and the Exit Factor |
|
12:45 |
Madhurang Bollywood Dance |
|
13:00 |
Nev Hawkins |
|
13:30 |
Performers from Westside Youth Centre Connexions |
|
14:30 |
Irish Dancers |
|
15:00 |
June |
|
15:15 |
Sumeet Bellara |
|
15:30 |
Westbound Piccadilly |
|
16:00 |
Lizard |
|
16:30 |
TJ ‘Holyboy’ Johnson and the Preachers |
Farmers market from 9am -1pm as usual
Punch and Judy shows at 10.30am and 12noon
A range of food and comunity information stalls including our own Abundance stall along with vegan food, Gifty’s Chilli, Cheddar Deli, Clare’s Garden Honey, West Ealing Centre Neighbourhood Forum and more.
Donkey rides for children from 12noon
There will also be hot food stalls and a beer tent. Hot food includes:
The running order for the live music is:
|
12:00-14:00 |
Gypsy Dynamite followed by The Onironauts |
|
14:00-15:00 |
The Chairs |
|
15:00-15:20 |
Bollywood Brass Band |
|
15:20-16:30 |
Dorance Lorza & Sexteto Cafe |
|
16:30-16:50 |
Bollywood Brass Band |
|
16:50-18:00 |
Ramon Goose |
|
18:00-18:30 |
Bollywood Brass Band |
|
18:30-20:00 |
Tankus the Henge |
Tours of the church tower from 10am -4.30pm
Cooking a meal for a Fiver from 10am – 3pm including:
11am – Everything you ever wanted to know about preparing chicken and meat preparation
12noon – Chicken Tikka Masala by award winning chef Dipna Anand from Southall’s famous Brilliant restaurant
2pm – Caribbean cooking including jerk chicken and goat curry
There will also be ask the expert sessions with local restaurant owners, local greengrocer George Puddle and more.
Emergency services training to rescue a crane driver from the top of the tall cranes on this site from 11.30am -3.30pm
There is a safe viewing area for the public to watch this drama unfold.
Not these donkeys as they look happy on the beach! However, we have a friendly donkey coming to Dean Gardens to take children for a ride on Saturday for the SoundBite Festival. Actually, Dean Gardens used to be known as Jackass Common in the 1800s due to it being used for donkey races. No racing on Saturday but nice to be reuniting a donkey with Dean Gardens after more than 100 years.
More information on eveything at SoundBite here.
Bring the family to watch this special SoundBite event at The Apex site at 32-38 Uxbridge Road W5 (corner with Craven Road). The emergency services are opening up their crane driver rescue training event for the public to come and watch as the rescuers climb the tall cranes to lower the stricken crane drivers to safety many feet below. The event runs from 11.30am – 3.30pm and there will be a special secure viewing area set up by Galliard Homes.
More details about all the children’s activities, craft market, food stalls, cooking demos and live music on the SoundBite Facebook page.
It’s well worth your while taking a detour next time you’re near the Green Man Lane Estate. Look carefully at the hoardings surrounding part of the site and you’ll see a series of apples ‘hanging’ on the painted trees. Each one has a montage of fascinating photos of the estate and surrounding area over the past 100 years. Photos include the opening of the estate in the 1970s and the Autotype factory . Built in what at the time was descibed by Autotype as quite a rural area the factory was ‘neatly fenced along Brownlow Road and the boiler house became a local landmark’. The factory occupied what is now the western part of the Green Man Lane Estate (the old multi-storey car park and the land to its north). You can read more about the history of this area, known in Victorian times at Stevens Town, here.
There’s plenty of children’s entertainment at the SoundBite Festival on Saturday 21st September. Hugely popular at last year’s Family Day, Punch and Judy are back again for the SoundBite Festival. Catch them at 10.30am and midday at the farmers’ market in Leeland Road.
In the garden at St James Church (or inside if it’s wet) will be Relish Kids Cookery running cookery activities for primary school age children, alongside facepainting, table tennis and more. There’s also going to be a special community dance event for children to take part in. More news of that to follow.
To keep up to date with everything that will be happening at SoundBite on our Facebook page
More food news. This is a new event and it’s on Saturday 14th September at The Foresters ‘and is showcasing restaurants and specialist food sellers in and around Northfields and West Ealing
It will be in the garden at the Forester Pub in Northfields from 3.30-9.30pm. A variety of local restaurants and food specialists will be offering samples of their delicious food.
Taster Tokens will be available on the day for £5 for five tokens. We would love to see you there!’
I hope it goes well and anything that helps establish West Ealing and Northfields as good places to shop for food and eat can only help the local economy.
We’ve had a bumper crop of Marjorie Seedling plums this year. Other plum varieties seem to have suffered from last frosts but our tree is fairly well protected so must have avoided the late frosts which hit the blossom and stop any fruit developing. So, it’s been a busy weekend cutting up plums and making jam. The jam has an added ingredient to give it a little bit of a special taste -star anise. I’ve tried it and its delicious – a slightly sharp edge to the plums with a hint of aniseed.
It will be on sale at the SoundBite Festival on 21st September along with blackberry jam, elderflower cordial, lemon and elderflower marmalade and more.
For all the latest on SoundBite – stalls, bands, children’s entertainment, food follow the SoundBite Facebook page
This year we’ve managed to raise additional sponsorship to add Dean Gardens as a venue to our previous Famliy Day events. As a result, we’ve been able to expand the whole eent in to the West Ealing SoundBite Festival. The centrepiece will be a range of hot and cold food and community stalls and live music in Dean Gardens. There’s mush more to it than this but just as a taster two of the bans playing in Dean Gardens are the
and
Follow SoundBite on its Facebook page to keep up to date with all the activities and events being planned for September 21st