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From the Vicar...

We took a Christmas and New Year pause between Ganders, but we are very pleased to share with you our latest edition. This month we include wonderful photographs from some of our Christmas events, news of the fundraising quiz in aid of the Goose Green Centre appeal, and of how we helped to organise a huge quantity of clothing donations for Türkiye and Syria following the devastating earthquake.

Jane Hawkins shares her ideas around creating a more sustainable environment, Dorothy Oxley provides information on aids to independent living, Christine Camplin gives us the final part of the fascinating story of local figure, Charlotte Ahmad, and Clare Brown gives us a glimpse into the St John's archive.

Clare recently showed me some of the archive material relating to the original appeal to build the Goose Green Centre; we hope to share some of those materials with all of you in a mini-exhibition. Those involved in the original GGC project made an impressive team, putting together a huge appeal attracting widespread support. You can honour their efforts today by supporting our current appeal to bring the Centre entrance and toilet facilities up to date. Do look at the display in the foyer, and please consider making a donation towards the improvement project.
 

Revd Gill O’Neill
 

 

Plans to refresh the Goose Green Centre with a new entrance and toilet facilities are progressing well. We have received the support of nearly 300 people, including members of the church and Goose Green Centre users and held a very successful fundraising quiz on 8 February. Thanks to Harvey for presenting a fiendish quiz, to Sally for catering and to everyone who volunteered - and congratulations to the winning team. We raised over £1,000 towards the work! You can still make a contribution online here.
 

 

A big Thank You to everyone who brought clothes, shoes, bags and other items to church for the victims of the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria. We were inundated with donations as you can see.

All the gifts have now been sent to Turkish and other charities and we are no longer collecting for them. If you would like to support the victims of the earthquakes, you can make a donation to various charities, or the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal at https://www.dec.org.uk.

Interview: Clare Brown on the St John's archive

How long have you been the archivist at St John's? What does it involve?
I took over from Maureen Abbott as archivist in 2016. The job means ensuring that the parish keeps the records which it is required to keep by law, as well as material which reflects the life of the parish more generally. This involves liaising with the clergy, Parish Administrator, and PCC Secretary and sometimes with members of the congregation. I am also called upon to do research such as family history enquiries or queries about former clergy, help with exhibitions and, recently, I have provided information on the original project to build the Goose Green Centre.

What sort of things are kept in the archive?
The categories of document which we must keep include parish registers, records of meetings of the Annual Parochial Church Meeting and the PCC, records concerning the church fabric and furnishings, financial records and legal documents. However, we can keep more than that, so we also keep files on social aspects of the life of the parish such as Children’s Week in the 1980s and 1990s, copies of the parish magazine, liturgical material and special services.

We are also lucky in having an excellent photo archive going back to the early 20^th century. All of them together make up a fascinating picture of continuity as well as change. For reasons of space we can’t, and don’t, keep everything, so it undergoes a process of appraisal for which there are set guidelines provided by the Church of England. Archival material is unique and precious, so most of the historic archives from the early years of the parish’s existence are now deposited at the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) for safekeeping.

Since 1978 most local authority record offices have also served as Diocesan Record Offices for the deposit of parish records. That means that records are stored in temperature and humidity controlled strongrooms and can be studied in the public searchroom with assistance from professionally qualified staff.

What are your favourite things in the archive?
I wouldn’t say I have one favourite thing in the archives.  What I love is the way that through letters, photos and ephemeral material we see a whole variety of people who have made St. John’s what it is now and have added to its rich history. I felt that especially when I was researching the life of Fr McKenzie who masterminded the rebuilding of St John’s after the war. His voice spoke so clearly from articles in the parish magazine and as reported in the local press that I felt I knew him. 

If people are interested in the archive, how can they find out more?
If you have any queries about the archives then do ask me and I will try to help. There is also a page on the website giving resources for parish and family history which I wrote to help the staff team deal with enquiries coming in to the parish office.

Are there any current projects for the archive that you are working on?
At the moment I am working on a transcription of the Will of Thomas Baily who in 1826 founded East Dulwich Chapel, the forerunner of St John’s, so that his tenants and others living locally were spared the long walk to Giles’ Camberwell, the ancient parish church of the area. It dates from 1837 and is full of minute detail of how he wanted his fortune to be divided among different members of the family, most of it to his grandson Thomas Farmer Baily who actually turned out to be a bit of a wastrel.

What is your professional background? What jobs have you had?
I have a degree in Modern History from the University of Durham and completed a postgraduate archive qualification at the University of Liverpool. Since then I have had quite a few jobs starting at the Churchill College Archive Centre in Cambridge which hold the papers of Sir Winston Churchill, the BBC Written Archives Centre, the Bodleian Library and St Antony’s College, Oxford and finally at Lambeth Palace Library, the historic Library of the Archbishops of Canterbury which was founded in 1610.   

How long have you lived in East Dulwich? What do you like about it?
Robert and I have lived in the area since 2005. It’s so wonderfully green and we have amazing views over London.  I never thought I would live somewhere where I could see the London Eye and Post Office Tower from the back bedroom window! I enjoy being close to the Horniman Museum and Gardens and to Dulwich Picture Gallery and have got to know some lovely people at St. John’s.

What are your favourite things to do locally?
We have an allotment on One Tree Hill which keeps us busy and feel lucky to have two cinemas close by. It’s also fun to take visiting friends and family to see the dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park.
 

Aids to independent living
 
By Dorothy Oxley

There are times when any of us may need a helping hand – not from a person, but from a useful gadget or a piece of equipment, even if it’s only something as simple as a jar or bottle opener if you’ve got a weak grip. I wouldn’t be without mine! But sometimes, either due to illness, injury or increasing age, we may need rather more than such little gadgets to help us live independently and confidently. Some of us will need specialised equipment to make things easier for ourselves (and for our carers, if we’ve become more seriously disabled).  

By the end of her life, my elderly neighbour – on the advice always of a domiciliary occupational therapist – lived in her bedroom, which had been turned almost into a miniature hospital ward, with a commode, a riser-recliner chair, a fully adjustable ‘hospital’ type bed, and a ‘ripple’ mattress to reduce the risk of pressure sores. She didn’t have to pay for any of these – all were on loan.
 
If you’ve been discharged from hospital with either a temporary or long term need for equipment to help you manage, the hospital’s occupational therapy/physiotherapy team should arrange this for you. But if you are just finding it harder and harder to cope, where can you obtain advice and, if need be, obtain loaned equipment, as my neighbour did? 
 
I’d like to introduce you to Southwark Council’s Occupational Therapy services, which includes the Community Equipment Loans Service – all local councils are likely to operate something very similar for residents in their boroughs (when Googling, just try typing in the borough’s name and ‘occupational therapy services’). 
 
This is how it works. If you’re a Southwark resident who either has a physical disability, a learning disability or mental health issue which makes some tasks difficult, have a health condition which is getting worse, or are old and frail (or if you’re a carer for someone who has a disability):

 
A therapist will then contact you to find out more about your needs. Obviously, you can’t just ring up and say “I’d really like you to provide me with a riser-recliner chair!” Although the Health & Care Act 2022 places responsibilities on councils with regard to the care, support and equipment they should provide, the occupational therapy team will first have to discuss your needs with you, check that you meet their criteria (though the therapist will offer advice even if this isn’t the case), and suggest how best they could help.  Depending on your level of need, you may or may not have an initial home visit.

Please don’t be put off by the idea of ‘being assessed’ – it’s more of a conversation, and a starting point. Also, don’t worry about bringing what might seem a small need to their attention. Small interventions at an early stage can often prevent a nasty accident in the future. 
 
If the occupational therapist thinks you need one or more particular items of equipment, they will then get in touch with their supplier – for Southwark and Lambeth Councils, this is Medequip. 
 
Of course, you can always buy equipment for yourself, if you can afford it, and either don’t want to go via the Council or don’t actually have a medical need for it - you’d just prefer to relax in the extra comfort of an adjustable bed, for example. However, if you’re looking for equipment which might affect your balance, mobility, posture, pressure care, ability to summon help, and general safety, it would still be worth first getting a therapist to assess your needs.
 
Above all, please remember – accepting the need for aids to make daily living easier isn’t ‘giving in’ to increasing age or disability. It can actually open up opportunities to enjoy life more and stay independent longer!
 

What does it mean to be an Eco Church?

By Jane Hawkins

As part of St John's continuing discussion about what we can do to create a more sustainable environment, Jane Hawkins contributes some thoughts and ideas.

According to the church website St John’s aspires to the Eco-Church award and is a community which ‘cares about our environment’ and ‘encourages sustainable travel, shopping and living’.

But what does this look like in practice? I suspect the main negative impact of the church is due to heating - a difficult area to reduce use. It may be that the greatest impact will come from how individuals in the church community change their behaviour.

There is some debate as to how much difference individual changes make-for example does it matter whether I walk or drive to church if the government has not even prohibited the installation of new gas boilers? However a recent study (1) estimated that six commitments by individuals living in the world's 100  largest cities could account for 25% of the emission reductions needed to keep global warming to 1.5 deg. C.  This is the point after which likely environmental changes will impact very negatively on all our lives.

St John's history: Charlotte's story, part 4

By Christine Camplin

This is the fourth and final part of the story of Charlotte and Mohamad (read the previous parts in earlier issues of The Gander).

Charlotte and Mohamad Ahmad travelled across India to Bangalore by train and settled down to their new life together and Mohamad’s new job as a barrister. They probably visited Mohamad’s father, Viqar-ul-Mulk, in Hyderabad on the way. They kept in touch with the family back home in England, and when Charlotte’s brother, Howard Fitch ‘of East Dulwich’ married Miss Maria Jemima Sadler at Maldon Congregational Chapel in April 1892, Mr and Mrs Mohamad, Ahmad sent an Indian carpet as a gift.
 
Tragedy strikes
In 1895 Charlotte and Mohamad were blessed with a daughter, Hameeda. Sadly tragedy struck the little family the following year when Mohamed died on 28 August 1896, aged 28, after a brief illness, at their home at 11 Cubbon Road in Bangalore. His young widow and her one year old daughter joined Viqar-ul-Mulk in Amroha, Uttar Pradesh, north India, a journey of about 1400 miles from Bangalore, and Mohamad’s father began to give his daughter-in-law regular remittances for her upkeep.
 
In 1901 tragedy struck again when little Hameeda died of cholera at the age of five. There was now nothing to keep Charlotte in India and she returned to England to find that her family had dispersed from East Dulwich. In 1895 her mother, Rebecca, and brother Francis had moved from 20 Kelmore Grove to 40 Dalmore Road, just off Thurlow Park Road, shortly before Rebecca died on 14 June. Brother Howard and wife Jemima had moved to Yorkshire and sister Ellen to Lambeth. It is most likely that Charlotte initially joined her older sister Rebecca who was staying with their aunt Ellen Fitch (father’s sister) at Highlands, Oakleigh Park, Friern Barnet.
 
In November 1904 Aunt Ellen died at Highlands. She was unmarried and comfortably off. She appointed three of her nieces, including Charlotte, executors of her estate. It was worth nearly £29,000 (almost £2,500,000 in today’s values).
 
In summer 1906 Charlotte took the opportunity to visit her brothers in America. (Ernest, Aubrey and Walter had emigrated there in the 1870s.) She sailed from Liverpool to New York on the Cunard steamship “Etruria”.
 
Remarriage?
Earlier that year Charlotte had received a touching letter from her father-in-law, Viqar-ul-Mulk, showing the deep affection in which she was held. She had written to him on 6 January 1906 informing him that she had received an inheritance of more than £10,000 and asking him to stop his financial assistance. She added: “Let me in the fullness of my heart again express my loving gratitude to you for the fatherly care you have taken of me ever since you knew of me and during my widow-hood.”
 
The Nawab felt Charlotte (or “Shelley”) should give serious thought to remarrying. His affection for any child of that union would be the same as for the child of his own daughter. “My hand of friendship will extend towards any family with whom you may choose to establish such relations. All this is on account of the affection which I have naturally for you and which shall always remain thus.”
 
Charlotte in her turn replied: “It is an extremely kind one and shows great delicacy in that you never mentioned the subject of my remarriage whilst I depended on you for support. My dear Mian, to be perfectly candid with you, I have no wish to marry again — there is no man who can take my dear husband’s place. Probably, there are plenty of men who would not object to having me now that I have some money, and those I would scarcely marry. But under any circumstances I would prefer to die the widow of Mohamad Ahmed”.
 
“I shall always think with loving gratitude of your care of me during all these long years of my widowhood. No English woman ever had a better father-in-law than I, although some are very good indeed”.
 
Charlotte never remarried despite her father-in-law’s hopes, and little is known of her remaining years beyond a shadowy presence in censuses and a series of job adverts. Between 1909-1915 Charlotte lived at 5A Station Road, Winchmore Hill, Middlesex with a live-in servant, Florence Pauline Hall. After the First World War she moved (with Florence) to The Cottage, 12 Langton Road, Worthing, where she spent the rest of her life. This was a fairly large house with “7 rooms”.

Charlotte advertised for a cook/general servant in July 1923 and in 1938 for a “Good Working Housekeeper for old lady ; clean, honest and good cook; must be kind.” She re-advertised in September 1939 for a “Good Cook-General for invalid lady and companion; Good wages and outings.”
 
Charlotte Ahmad died on 21 December 1941, aged 85, at Normanton Nursing Home, Shelley Road, Worthing, Sussex.
 
She had remained faithful to her Mohamad to the end.