Victoria Park cropped up briefly a few posts ago, as the site of plentiful suffragette protests and the violent police smackdowns that inevitably accompanied them.
The green “lung” of North East London, Victoria Park was opened in the 1840s amid rising concern about the health of the East End working class, with the aim of providing a bit of space and wholesome fresh air.
I’m pleased to see the Wikipedia article includes mention of the park’s legacy of political agitation and protest, which by no means started with Sylvia Pankhurst’s crew. It says “the biggest crowds were usually drawn to ’star’ socialist speakers such as William Morris and Annie Besant.” Just imagine! *Looks wistful* Anyway, more on those crazy kids in another post.
There’s much more to Vicky Park than illustrious history, however. For one thing it’s HUGE, and very lovely, which is partly why it hosts so many events, such as the sold-out-for-years-and-years Radiohead with Bat For Lashes (I love you!) in June.
It also hosted the vaguely disappointing Field Day festival in 2007. Perhaps it will be better this year, but there wasn’t a whole lot going on, and queueing for half an hour to use a stinky loobox is one thing at Glastonbury, but quite another when you live down the road.
However the next time I’ll be there will probably be the Love Music Hate Racism Carnival on Sunday 27 April 2008, which looks pretty storming, particularly for something that is FREE and also WORTHY. Oh yes. I am all excited about: Patrick Wolf, and to a lesser extent Poly Styrene and Jerry Dammers (formerly of X-Ray Spex and The Specials respectively) This is the 30th anniversary of the carnival, which is pretty good going for 70s idealism, don’t you think? If you do, you might want to donate a few bob to keep the carnival free for the future.
So yes. In summary: come to the carnival, rock out against racism and follow in the footsteps of your radical forebears when you’re out and about in Vicky Park.
5 Comments
April 16, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Hello fellow Stratfordian! I found you on Diamond Geezer. Hooray, a Stratford-based blog!
April 16, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Woo! Glad to share sunny Stratford with you. Have you seen this? http://londonbloggers.iamcal.com/ You can search for blogs by tube station!
April 17, 2008 at 9:42 am
30 years since the first one! Where has the time gone? Glad to see Polystyrene and Jerry Dammers are back again (I hear Paul Simenon is too).
I’m another findee via DG from just up the road in E10, nice to see another East London Blog.
April 17, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Yeah, I’m excited about it but also a bit worried that seeing my punk rock heroes solo and several decades later might be a bit disappointing… as long as Poly Styrene is still neon and squeaky I think it’ll be fine!
E10, that’s Leyton isn’t it? There’s a chance I’ll be moving out your way soon - would you recommend it?
April 18, 2008 at 7:21 am
Yes, that’s Leyton.
We’ve been here 10 years now so it can’t be too bad. There are some less good bits but most of it’s OK I think. We’re up near Whipps Cross Hospital and Hollow Ponds which is really the start of what used to be Epping Forest, so nice to have some big bits of green almost on the doorstep.
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