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Camden New Journal - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 19 April 2007

Jeff Morris

Put up your own plaque to your hero

IF English Heritage refuse to put up a Blue Plaque to a local hero then do it yourself, says a residents group who have set up their own plaque scheme.
The New Journal revealed last week how a request to put a plaque on the Primrose Hill home of anti-apartheid activist the Reverend Michael Scott had been turned down by English Heritage.
This decision was criticised by Northern Ireland minister and anti-apartheid activist Peter Hain.
Now members of the Lissenden Gardens Tenants Association, who have been marking the homes of well-known local people for five years by applying for grants from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to pay for them, want other community groups to follow their lead and judge for themselves who is worthy.
Jeff Morris, a TV producer who lives in Lissenden Gardens, has been part of a project to mark well-known people who lived in the early Edwardian estate in Parliament Hill Fields. The association applied three times to have plaques on the walls of homes of interesting local people, and when they were turned down, they took the matter into their own hands.
The association applied for a small grant from the Lottery’s Awards For All scheme, and has spent between £1,500 and £2,000 to have the plaques cast and installed.
Mr Morris said: “English Heritage should not have a monopoly on this. People should take this into their own hands. A stuffy quango of academics cannot be the sole arbiters of who is worthy or not.”
The three Lissenden residents already honoured are artist Anthony Green, who was a member of the Royal Academy, historian and Welfare State campaigner RH Tawney, and composer Martin Shaw, who wrote the lyrics to the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful.
Next month the association is erecting three more plaques in honour of suffragette Alice Zimmern, sea-story writer James Hanley and light music composer Haydyn Wood.
The silver plaques have been cast by the husband and wife team of Sue and Frank Ashworth, who make the blue plaques for English Heritage.
An English Heritage spokesperson said: “We have a strict criteria for awarding blue plaques. We have a board of experts who make the decision and we make sure the people given plaques are truly worthy.”

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