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Would you believe our pergola is for the chop?
FOR three years anyone who passed the O’Sullivans’ ornate wooden pergola in their front garden at Kentish Town gazed at it with wonder and admiration.
With its gently slanted roof, wood chimes and leafy trellises, you could close your eyes and imagine being transported to some wooded sanctuary, rather than overlooking busy Brecknock Road.
Sadly all that could change after some bright spark in Islington’s planning department finally decided that the couple have broken their tenancy agreement.
Catherine and Stephen, from Quelch House, have until today (Thursday) to remove the pergola or face legal proceedings.
With support of many local residents they have decided that the structure stays put.
Catherine, who has launched a petition to save the pergola, said she couldn’t understand why the council were suddenly taking this high-handed action.
“It’s possible someone has complained about the pergola,” she said. “But I can’t think why. We built it in our own front garden and it doesn’t harm anyone or block their view.
“We hope we’ve created a little green oasis with our garden among what is a mainly concrete setting.
“But most of all we’ve had nothing but praise for it from residents and visitors ever since it went up in 2005.”
Indeed, local residents say the pergola, built almost entirely with recycled timber by lorry driver Stephen, in his spare time over nearly a year, has become an important landmark.
The pergola is in the centre of a front garden that also contains a small fountain, a fish tank, and various colourful plants and herbs.
Stephen said he hopes that the council will see reason and allow the pergola to stay.
“I don’t think it would have been a problem if this was a private house,” he added. “I think the council must consider whether or not our structure is adding a little colour to the community. If the answer is yes then it shouldn’t be pulled down.”
The structure replaced a bare, unremarkable front garden on this concrete council estate.
It is a tribute to the craftsmanship and ingenuity of the O’Sullivans who designed and built it from scratch. Shouldn’t it be allowed to stay?
Lilly set to become school’s first Oxbridge student
A MAGNIFICENT effort by a sixth-former at South Camden Community School has allowed her to become its first A-level student to join the Oxbridge ranks.
Lilly Sommer, 18, of Wyndham Crescent in Tufnell Park, has been awarded four As for her efforts in maths, further maths, economics and geography, thus securing her place – by sheer coincidence – at the same Cambridge college where her proud headteacher, Rosemary Leeke, studied.
“It’s an extraordinary coincidence,” Ms Leekes told me.
“It’s been a number of years since I went there.”
Other students from the year group, which Ms Leeke believes is among her best yet, have secured places at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and King’s College London.
Lilly, who will study maths and economics at Cambridge, wants to work in policy research for developing countries.
“Oxbridge gives you the best prospects and the best degree, with smaller classes and intensive tutorials,” she said.
Times have changed at South Camden school since the 1950s, when it was known as a tough, sink school with the more prosaic name, Sir William Collins.
In those days it tended to provide “factory fodder” for local establishments.
In the 1980s Holborn MP Frank Dobson sent his children there. From then on things improved. Coincidence? Possibly.
Today, it’s a school where hopes are high.
I don’t mean to bug you, Mr Palin
I’M sure the University College London Hospital’s new communications supremo Mark Palin will tell you that waiting times are down.
That’s as long as you can get hold of him. His phone was either busy or left unanswered yesterday (Wednesday) when I rang up to check on the progress of the hospital’s snail-like efforts to release pest-control figures.
You might recall hospitals up and down the country have already fessed-up to the number of times exterminators have been on site to get rid of cockroaches and mice.
For instance, the Royal Free dutifully supplied the figures when asked to come clean under the Freedom of Information, turning around my query within the legal 20-day deadline.
Out of interest, the police in Camden have done the same with minimal fuss and so have the council when asked similar questions.
Mr Palin insisted the info was on its way when our paths last crossed two weeks ago but he just couldn’t say exactly when and he hasn’t been in touch since.
The request was made way back on May 15.
Three months on and yonks after the deadline has passed, I do hope Mr Palin doesn’t regard me as the pest.
I’m sure the delay is just likely to be a bug in the system somewhere.
Hugh’s bench mark
ALTHOUGH he passed away last year at the age of 82, the inspirational Hugh Webster, I have learned, will have the seat of honour when the new Coram’s Fields Youth Centre officially opens in September.
Mr Webster, a former armoured-tank operator turned youth worker, commuted from the Essex countryside every week for four decades to help children at the old Bloomsbury Mary Ward Youth Club.
The building has been refurbished at a cost of £1million. Coram’s Fields administrator Sandy Wynn said Mr Webster’s spirit would live on at the centre in the form of a new memorial bench.
Ms Wynn, whom I remember from her days as former deputy Labour leader in the 1980s, told me: “Hugh had such fantastic skills with young people and supported them for so many years. This will be a reminder of him.”
Who’ll toast Neil?
WHEN one of the heavyweights at the Town Hall moves on, there is one man who is always called for: Neil Litherland.
Known for his effortlessly hilarious toasts, the chief leaving-do witsmith is the man expected to lead the glass-raising in the boisterous canteen get-togethers. So, who will lead the toast for Neil, the deputy chief executive who has been around for as long as anybody can remember but has announced he is off? I hope chief executive Moira Gibb has stocked up on jokes to ensure his final day is as merry as past farewells.
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