A Guest Post from Anne Clarke - THANK YOU TO CRICKLEWOOD

Having thought about writing a guest blog a fortnight ago, I've been rolling around in my head who I'd like to thank. 

There  are simply so many it's difficult to know where to begin. I could thank my very patient family for forever putting up with my busy life, 

I could thank the shopkeepers who go the extra mile and sweep their bit of Cricklewood Lane  

Cricklewood Lane

or my friends and neighbours who take the time to listen and look after each other. 

But, it occurs to me, these people are my community. These people build each other up while maintaining the things we all share from green spaces to schools.  So a big thank you and thumbs up to them all.

The name of this blog is EverdayFolk. I've had the song Everyday People by Arrested Development in my head for over a week, (YouTube - Arrested Development). Everyday people make the community what it is. 

Living in Cricklewood, our community comes from all over the world and bring a wealth of lived experiences and talents. Our communities are forever changing; some people live their whole lives in Cricklewood, some people's parents met at The Galtymore,

(photo courtesy of BRING-BACK-THE-GALTYMORE-NITECLUB Facebook Group) 
others stay for a long while and some quickly come and go without getting to know the area at all well. Given that so many of us have families who live oceans away, it makes all the more sense for us to get to know each other and take an active interest in the wellbeing of our neighbours. 

The Clitterhouse Farm building dons a sign “watch this space”. I certainly am watching.

Who are these community builders? It's the people who give their time to plant and nurture our station garden, Swan Hill, the Clitterhouse Farm (The Clitterhouse Farm Project) and the Millennium Green

The orchard at Clitterhouse Farm

    Cricklewood station, now with community garden and the wonderful
@nw2_coffee serving delicious, locally roasted, fair trade coffee. 

Swan Hill, a tiny parcel of land between the railway bridge & the B&Q carpark.
This land has been overgrown for decades & a real eyesore.
The Cricklewood Town Team & NorthwestTwo Residents’ Association
cleared it,put some lovely wooden sleepers at the
bottom and planted it together with local volunteers. 

The Millennium Green is maintained fully by volunteers and there is a
community clean-up 14 July 2018. - millennium-green-cleanup-saturday-july-14

I want to say thank you and thumbs up to say many, too many to list but you know who you are.

The Cricklewood Town Team at the end of the annual Cricklewood Festival, summer 2018. We had another wonderful festival and installed a sheep on the green space. This green had been marked for development in the Brent Cross/Cricklewood Regeneration. A 5-year community battle against Barnet Council finally saw it listed as an Asset of Community Value. More here: https://www.northwesttwo.org.uk/green-space-asset-community-value/

It's also the Cricklewood Town Team who lovingly arrange community festivals and ensure that everyone is included. Governors of local schools give up countless hours of time pursuing the best possible outcomes for children.

So to our community gardeners, the Cricklewood Town Team and all our schools’ governers, a big thank you and thumbs up .

Loch Ness Monster, laid out by residents for the enjoyment
of children on the estate.

Further up Cricklewood Lane, is the Granville Road Estate  

Granville Road Estate flowers planted by residents,
set against the barrier which protects the new private development.

who pulled together while their green spaces were threatened with development. (twitter @GERANW2  They have lost many well fought battles but what can't be taken from them is community. They look after each other, care for the most vulnerable on the estate and celebrate their friendships with the Great Get-Together that took place on 23rd June, #TheBigLunch - there are some super photos on both @GERANW2's twitter page and their facebook page facebook.com/gera.  It's more than an estate, it's a community which can't be built nor destroyed by development.  A special thanks and thumbs up  to Anthony, Tracey and Deepa.  

In times of austerity with cuts everywhere we look, it's easy to want to give up and look for the negative. Communities don't give up, there's far too much to be lost that way.  

So to all communities sticking together and promoting the positive, thank you and thumbs up     

                                    Anne Clarke was born and raised in Illinois, she came to London in 1998.

She is a member of the Cricklewood Town Team

 and NorthwestTwo and she is involved with local schools. 

In 2018, Anne was elected as a ward councillor for Childs Hill.
Anne lives in her very favourite place in the world, Cricklewood.

She can be found on twitter at @anne_clarke

no power or heat but the team were on hand to help

You know what they say, it never rains but.....

Sometime during the night, (it turns out at 2:00 am), our power went out so we woke Sunday morning to no heat or power.  Not the best timing for personal reasons since we are a bit bed/house bound at the moment but we called a company called UK Power Networks (think they used to be known as Eastern Power) about getting back on line.

Tina

We'd done all the fuse checks and things like that so Tina, who took our first call was really helpful and nice on the 'phone and said she would check the local status and call us back in ten minutes.  She did just that and said that they hadn't got any sign of outages in the area so does look like just us and would get someone out to us straight away.  So a big thank you and thumbs up to Tina  .

Lee - DST

Within about forty minutes of her call, Lee, the first DST (engineer to you and me) turned up and did some tests. 

He confirmed there was no power at our house so went away to check at the local sub-station.  No, he came back the problem wasn't there so they were going to have to get a team with a digger to dig the street up.

This was only moment where communication went a tiny bit awry.  We were told half an hour but two hours later we called Mark {picture of Mark maybe to follow - fingers crossed} who said he would look into it.  We got cut off and while we were waiting for him to call back I then got in touch with UK Power Networks via twitter.

Well everything took off at the same moment!

The team started turning up in the street; first to arrive were Lewis (on the right - who was in bed with the flu the night before) and Clayton (on the left) from Morrison Utility Services with a digger.  I was a bit worried when they arrived when they started marking up the garden on where to dig but they couldn't have been more considerate of my plants and worked around the "death trap" of a plum tree.   So a big thumbs up and thank you to both and, Clayton, hope your back gets better and Lewis, look after that cold and, don't forget, any time you want to help out at the allotment you're more than welcome!

Lee - twitter

Meanwhile, Mark called back with a very helpful update on what we could expect and when.  Simultaneously to this, Lee on twitter started sending me DMs with really helpful, up to the moment updates.  Thank you both Mark and Lee and

Jack and Mick

At one point there were seven vehicles outside (including the digger).  From UK Power Networks were Mick, (the guv'n - standing), Jack (Sitting down on the job - that's for his kids!) - who has two cats with some problems I recommended Liquid Garlic for - 





and Dave - who I've promised this isn't a dating site.   We also had a very nice man, (who I failed to get his name or picture - shame on me), who must have been a civil engineer or something as he had the local up to date plans showing the other utilities in case they needed to dig outside our property.  Thanks and thumbs up to you all

Dave

Luckily around three o'clock in the afternoon, just as the temperature was really dropping and it was getting too dark for anything, Lee (DST) came back with some gear and they managed to give us temporary power via a "loop" off our lovely neighbour's outside supply.  So a thank you and thumbs up to Lee .

Clayton

Lewis

They all worked on until just after six p.m. when we got back our power.  Great job.  (Big holes left in the path etc but promises for a follow up team to come the next day to fill them all in.).

Have to say, first dealings with UK Power Networks but am very impressed with the level of service and smiles from all. 

Thank you. 

******

   

ps - unfortunately the follow up team to fill the holes who came two days later, (from W**** - you know who you were) weren't in the same class and indeed scarpered without even knocking on the door to check all was okay or doing what they said they would do.