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Camden News - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 12 March 2009

One O’Clock Club parents maker their feelings clear

Given more time: One O’Clock Club reprieve

THE ONE O’Clock Club has received a three-month stay of execution following an emergency meeting on Tuesday afternoon.
The children’s centre on Parliament Hill Fields has seen the Pre-School Alliance charity slash its £14,000 annual grant, meaning popular morning sessions were set to end. Staff and regulars had originally been told the centre would shut in the first week of April but, following a massive protest, the Pre-School Alliance this week met parents and have changed their mind.
And it has given parents who use the centre time to find new funding. The Town Hall have been approached for help – Camden Council paid for the club between 1989 and 2004.
The club is in a building known as the Peggy Jay Centre, named after the late Hampstead campaigner.
Peggy, who died last year, set the club up in 1965 when she served on the London County Council. Her daughter Catherine Boyd regularly takes Peggy’s great-grandson Thomas to the centre.
“Mothers can become very lonely and cut off, and this makes this service invaluable for the parents as well as the children,” she said. “You can just show up and you know your children will be in this wonderful, safe environment.”
Her views were echoed by mother-of-three Amber Wood. She takes her twin sons to the centre around three times a week.
“It is vital,” Ms Wood said. “When I had my first child, this place helped my sanity.”
A Camden Council spokesperson said: “Camden Council is not a position to agree any funding at this stage as it would involve diverting resources from other childcare provision.”

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