Coming up in December

Sparkling Spitalfields, Christmas crafts and a warming cuppa – coming up in December

Our December walk 

Saturday 9th December, 11.00am

Join us for a a bracing walk and exploration of Spitalfields 

Meet at: Aldgate East Tube Station

Following the sparkling talk by Tessa in November, we have an opportunity to check out what we know, and can follow-up, about the local  Huguenots.  Bring along any information, maps, guides or anecdotes you may have and curate a history trail around Spitalfields. Of course, there will be shops and stalls brimming with tempting crafts and gifts, and coffee shops to enjoy.

Our December meeting: Christmas crafts

Thursday 14th December

7 for 7.30pm start 

Our December Monthly meeting will be on the evening of the second Thursday of the month on 14th December - the same day as the Tower Hamlets Community Tea Dance if anyone is going there too. This is our chance to create some seasonal crafts and impress friends, family and neighbours, if you want to! Sally, Bridget and Lydia will host some craft tables, and if you have some ideas/tips, do  share them on the night.

We will be at our usual venue: St Margaret's House, 15 Old Ford Rd, London E2 9PL. If the gate is locked when you arrive at St Margaret’s House, there will be a call bell on the right hand side at the back of the gate.

Our December coffee morning 

Friday 29th December

meet between 10.30am and 11am

Grounded cafe in Bow: 92 Bow Rd, Bow, London E3 3AA Near Bow Church Station

National WI news:

Coming soon (launching in January 2024): the WI Learning Hub

Lifelong learning has always been at the very heart of the WI and it will celebrate the International Day of Education on Wednesday 24 January 2024 by inviting WI members to join for the launch of the WI Learning Hub. The WI Learning Hub will provide WI members with access to a range of online courses, with an array of formats, both live and pre-recorded, and the majority of them will be free. For more information, join the learning hub mailing list via the main WI website.

Our November talk

Huguenots – so much more that we expected

Our President, Heather, writes:

"Tessa Murdoch, the Acting Chair of the Huguenot Museum in Rochester entertained and enlightened us about another part of the rich history of our area. Whilst most of us may be familiar with the Huguenots of Spitalfields, their presence in well-known areas such as Princelet Street, and their reputation as skilled weavers, Tessa illustrated the breadth of their contribution to our society through examples of some of the wonderful gold and silverware, clocks, furniture and artefacts which they created; the community support groups; friendly societies; the educational and training structures they embedded in the community, and alerted us to familiar but remarkable architecture of some grand buildings which we owe to them. Perhaps surprising are the names, such as Courtauld, David Garrick, Lawrence Olivier, Wallace (the Collection), Mountbatten, which all have their connections with these skilled and creative arrivals, and some of our group may be curious to explore their ancestry as a result! We were also reminded that they settled in many different places, including Rochester, so we can be on the lookout for their contributions to society and culture as we travel about.

We now know that Rochester is only a short train ride away so I feel we might well be making a trip for a walk and museum trip in the spring."

Pictures of the evening by Diana; historical pictures from Tessa's presentation.

Our November coffee morning: Friday 24th November

Join us for a playful cuppa at the Young V&A museum, meet between 10.30am and 11am, Cambridge Heath Rd, Bethnal Green, London E2 9PA.

Our November walk

Following the footsteps of Gandhi – our November walk

When staying at Kingsley Hall, Gandhi was said to take regular dawn walks to Plaistow, along what's now the Greenway. So following our October talk on Gandhi, we decided to do the walk in reverse for November, starting at Plaistow station.

Somewhat later than dawn... but accidentally made authentically-solo by trips and transport closures leading to only one of us being able to make it, I walked the route for anyone wanting to follow it another time:

From Plaistow station, I turned along Upper Road to meet the Greenway, a walking and cycling route above the Northern Outfall Sewer, built by Joseph Bazalgette to solve the Great Stink of 1858. Before the magnificent Abbey Mills Pumping Station (known as the Cathedral of Sewage) there's a panorama of urban nature at the Channelsea river. 

I left the Greenway at Abbey Lane Open Space and walked towards Three Mills Green and Three Mills, where there are three artworks on The Line sculpture trail. You might recognise the landscape from Masterchef, which has been based at the film studios there.

Crossing under the main road, my walk continued through the pretty Bob's Park by Bromley-by-Bow Centre and round to Kingsley Hall, now a church and community centre, where Gandhi stayed on visits to London in a simple room on the top floor. 

A diversion round development works took me past the beautiful Drapers' Almshouses. Then, at Bow Road, a view of the church before the open exhibition at the Nunnery Gallery and a visit to the Bow Arts café.

The walk was just under three miles and took roughly an hour – without our usual chat and pauses to look at things, so allow longer for a walk with friends or family. Other café options are Three Mills, open on Sundays and during events, and Root/25 on Bow Road.

Fancy joining us for a walk? Look out for our next 'coming up' blogpost.

Coming up in November

Following Gandhi's footsteps, the rich tapestry of local history and a playful cuppa 

Our November Walk: Join us for a walk following the footsteps of Gandhi on Saturday 11th November at 10.30 am. Meet at Plaistow Station

Following our October speaker, we took our cue from the man himself. Gandhi apparently started at dawn for a regular walk to Plaistow along the Sewerbank, now known as the Greenway. If we go in reverse, meet at Plaistow and make our way back towards Kingsley Hall  via Three Mills it is about 2.5 miles and 57 mins according to the maps. Or just a few minutes more and we can have a coffee at Bow Arts – plenty of art on show as well as the café.

Our November talk: The Huguenots, with Tessa Murdoch. Thursday 16th October, 7pm for 7.30pm start 

The talk will open up another layer of the tapestry of our rich local history – the Huguenots. Bring along any of your own insights to share. Tessa Murdoch, an expert on Huguenot history is coming to talk to us about the Huguenots in London during the 17th and 18th Centuries. Tessa will speak about Britain's first refugees: the Huguenot Communities in London up to 1760.Tessa is also currently Acting Chair of the Huguenot Museum, Rochester and has forty years curatorial experience at the Museum of London (1981-1990) and the V&A (1990-2021). We will be at our usual venue: St Margaret's House, 15 Old Ford Rd, London E2 9PL. If the gate is locked when you arrive at St Margaret’s House, there will be a call bell on the right hand side at the back of the gate.

Our November coffee morning: Friday 24th November, Young V&A museum, meet between 10.30am and 11am

Time to get inside the Young V&A to explore. After the grand re-opening, the recent half term and before Christmas! Join us for a playful cuppa. Cambridge Heath Rd, Bethnal Green, London E2 9PA.

Our October talk

Gandhi and the Sisters – a talk by Peter Popham

We knew a bit about Gandhi. We have Kingsley Hall on our doorstep, where he stayed. But in this talk by Peter Popham, author and former foreign correspondent at The Independent, we heard of connections and complexities that we'd had no idea existed.

Gandhi was, of course, hugely famous – so famous that Charlie Chaplin wanted to meet him to discuss fame. Except that Gandhi didn't watch films so he had no idea who he was...

Born on the coast of Gujarat to the shopkeeping caste and married to Kasturba, he left for London to study law, becoming a suited and booted figure very different from the images we recognise now. His wife had been reluctant to let him go, worried about moral pollution, and made him vow that he would remain celibate, vegetarian and steer clear of alcohol.

Three years here changed him. He was influenced by Emmeline Pankhurst, Annie Besant (who was an active campaigner for Indian home rule), poet Sarojini Naidu, later Governor of Uttar Pradesh, and other female thinkers, their work remarkable here but unthinkable in India at the time. He remained a devout Hindu but fused it with Victorian liberalism.

On graduation, unable to get work in India, he answered the call of a friend in South Africa who needed a Gujarati and English speaking lawyer to settle a dispute. His experiences there made him determined to fight with non-violence the discrimination he experienced. He became Secretary of the British-Indian Association of Transvaal and convinced that empowering women was a way to change society, among his closest associates were women, including a fellow lawyer and a woman who would become his personal doctor and later, Minister of Health. 

Back in India, there followed the Salt March, against a tax on what had been a free resource. Only at the end of the march did the Viceroy have him arrested and jailed. His followers on the march included Sarojini Naidu. 

Gandhi was invited to Lancashire by mill owners keen to show him that a boycott he had organised had created hardship there. In a photograph from that trip was another influential British woman, the daughter of an admiral and one of his closest disciples for 20 years.

More ambiguous was his relationship after the death of his wife with young Manuben Gandhi, who he and his wife had brought up as a granddaughter. She travelled with him as his organiser, attendant and letter-writer and she kept a diary chronicling her life and Gandhi's last years. They also shared a bed, about which Gandhi was open. The nature of this was unclear but there was widespread disapproval at the time.

Gandhi's route to non-violent independence for India was far from straightforward and partition broke his heart. He was shot dead on his way to his daily prayer meeting. There was a huge funeral procession.

It was a thought-provoking talk and there was a lively Q&A. Peter also told us about his book, India be Damned, a thriller based on these events.

A big thank you to Peter for a fascinating talk. 

Our October Coffee Morning: Friday 27th October at 10.30 am

Continuing the book theme, this month we're meeting at Root/25, a coffee house with books, arts and community space where all profits go to Restless Beings' charity projects. 

Root/25, 116B Bow Rd, Bow, London E3 3AA.

News of Middlesex Federation's craft workshops

Also at our meeting, member Christine showed some silk painting she'd been doing at a Middlesex Federation workshop. To find out more about their upcoming workshops, head here.

Interested to join us? Look out for our next Coming up post for news of November's walk, meeting and coffee morning.

Our October walk

 A leafy loop in Enfield – our October walk

Inviting us outside our normal urban stamping ground, our member Christine showed us Enfield's historic heart – lanes like steps back in time, buildings with stories, lush, peaceful river walks and pretty parks. 

Looking at an artwork by Wendy Taylor, we learned that sundials' time differs from Greenwich Mean Time by several minutes, and at Enfield Town station, a plaque tells of the school on its site where Keats was educated.

A soup lunch at the library café was so delicious that I forgot to photograph it. And that this late-running straggler was not just shepherded digitally to the group but the walk's prettiest bits were retraced speaks of the friendliness of our walks.

Fancy joining us for the next one? Look out for our 'Coming up' blogposts.

Coming up in October

Coming up in October: Enfield footpaths, the Gandhi and the sisters and coffee and books in Bow

Our October walk: Saturday 14th October at 11.00 am. Meet at Enfield Town Overground station

Now part of Greater London, Enfield is an old market town, characterised by a charming network of footpaths lined by historic buildings and following the historic New River loop.

The walk will include highlights from The Enfield Society’s heritage walk and a loop through the town park. It's an easy walk of about an hour, with toilet stops en route. 

Be prepared for whatever the weather will bring. Always lots of time for chat and catching up, and there will, no doubt, be a coffee stop.

The Overground takes about 30 mins; two trains per hour. The 10.26am train from Liverpool Street arrives at Enfield Town at 11.05am.

Our October talk: Thursday 19 October  7.00pm for 7.30pm start – Gandhi and the Sisters, by Peter Popham 

To recognise Black History Month, we have a talk from Peter Popham, who has worked as a foreign correspondent, including in Albania and Mongolia, and spent time undercover in Burma. He is also an author and playwright. Peter writes:

"Mahatma Gandhi had a succession of deep friendships with women: the beautiful suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst;  Annie Besant, the social reformer who became the first president of the Indian National Congress. the poet and politician Sarojini Naidu, whom Gandhi called 'the nightingale of India.' Later, Madeleine Slade, daughter of a British admiral, became his most devoted disciple. And in his last years his 19-year-old grand-niece Manu, became his constant companion, both awake and asleep.

In my talk, illustrated with a PowerPoint slide show, I will discuss how Gandhi's ideas of non-violent revolution evolved through these stimulating and varied relationships, which culminated with India attaining independence without a shot fired."

We will be at our usual venue: St Margaret's House,15 Old Ford Rd., London E2 9PL. If the gate is locked when you arrive at St Margaret’s House, there will be a call bell on the right hand side at the back of the gate.

Our October Coffee Morning: Friday 27th October at 10.30 am

Join us for an informal cuppa – we're exploring as many different, interesting cafes as we can find in a year! As it is half term, we have chosen an off the beaten track venue, Root/25, a coffee house, arts and community space where all profits go to Restless Beings' charity projects. 

Root/25, 116B Bow Rd, Bow, London E3 3AA.