Maria Gomez and her students

Unexpected happens... Today I met Maria Gomez who is exhibiting her and her students' works at the moment. Her paintings are to make us think about the children suffering because of conflicts around the world and throughout history.

West Ealing visited in a jolly company

Hello Dear Reader!
Are you curious what's happening here? A lot, actually. So much there is no time to keep you posted! However, I will provide you with a few pictures of West Ealing where I took a few people last Saturday. It was nice to be able to show them the area, to talk and to get to know each other. A few times we stopped to passers-by and some local business owners. I was very sad to learn that the lady who I had seen so many times had passed away recently. Now her sons run the fruit and veggie stall like her parents and grandparents did. The stall in Leeland Rd has been there for over eighty years but it isn't going to go on for much longer. There is nobody to take over as none of the six sons' children is going to continue the family tradition.

 

 
The walk took place on October 15th which was the third anniversary of Jessica Huntley's death. She was one of really special people to have lived in West Ealing for many decades. You can read about her and her husband, Eric Huntley's, achievements in my older posts. Btw, I noticed Eric today while cycling through West Ealing and stopped my bike to have a quick chat.
And how was your day, Dear Reader?:-)

A polypore neighbour

 The first time I saw this big polypore was when I was cycling from home. It grows on the first tree as I turn left heading for the High Street. It was cloudy that day so the pictures were a bit gloomy. I keep looking at it every time I go by, but I only stopped again on the way home when it was sunny. I think it's grown bigger. Funnily enough, when my neighbour's young daughter saw it on my Facebook that first evening when I spotted it, she and her mother ventured there after 8pm, when it was dark. So curious was the girl to see it. They didn't though. Too dark it was. They never noticed it despite the fact that the tree is only five minutes' walk from our place. Oh, of course, I can go on about the time I 'discovered' the shroom, stopped the bike, kept taking pictures, drew the interest of a passing by mother with two young kids and chatted with them and nearly got knocked over by another woman and a young boy, both on bikes...

Help the Green Man find the Green Woman!

                A WALKING TALKING TOUR OF WEST EALING

Green Man in search of Green Woman, West Ealing

And why not? There is more to this area than you might realise.  

Help the Green Man find the Green Woman! Find out about the old department stores, the cinemas and the orchards that were here; see the changes taking place now. Join a group of people who will be walking around practising their English at the same time (English first language speakers welcome as well). 

Dear Reader, as an experienced English teacher, UK tour guide and local enthusiast, please let me be you guide.:-)

Cost £10 per adult (children free but your responsibility!)

We meet outside Farah Hair & Beauty, Uxbridge Road, on Saturday October 15^th at 11am.              

Tour lasts about 2 hours.

We are all here in West Ealing

Heathrow in Ealing?!

This is interesting! According to the Ealing Today, the University of West London is to become a major centre for the Heathrow Airport archives and an exhibition which is to open by 2019!
I well remember lookeing at the airport exhibitions in Hong Kong when I was changing planes there and had a 5-hour wait. I saw exerything in great detail and learnt a lot about the history and present of both the airport and the place itself. My suggestion would be to continue with exhibiting bits and pieces at the airports so people who are not interested in airport shopping had an alternative. Just a thought. Do you agree with that?

Chopin, an Armenian philantropist and exiled French royals, all in one Kingston church!

I haven't been to Kingston upon Thames for a good while, but it is going to feature in my today's musings because of its reputed connections with the greatest Polish pianist of all times: Frederic Chopin. It was several years ago, before my lower limb joints became non-cooperative and this blog was born, when I took a walk along the Thames in Kingston and discovered for myself an early Victorian- Italianate church almost right by the river bank. I stopped by, looked at it closely and read what there was to read as you would expect of me, Dear Reader. The information that stuck in my memory was that my world famous compatriot, Frederic Chopin, may have played the very organs at this church during his visit to Britain in 1848. And you, Dear Reader, can read about it as well, as I am going to provide you with a link - just click here and enjoy!
However, knowing how busy you are, Oh Dear Reader, I won't force you to click above, but will let you read on having pasted in the relevant excerpt:

'St Raphael's was evidently rather a special church, since the organ was made by Bishop & Starr, organ-builder to Queen Victoria: Chopin is reputed to have played on it ("Structure and Architecture"). This may be because of its connection with the exiled French royal family, living at nearby Claremont, several members of which were married here in the presence of the future Edward VII and his wife Alexandra. (..) The building was funded by politician and philanthropist Alexander Raphael (c.1775-1850), a Catholic Armenian whose family came from India. After Catholic Emancipation, he had been the first Catholic Sheriff of London; he also served as the first British-Armenian MP. According to the church's own website, he had built the church as a family chapel, leaving instructions for it to be opened for public worship after his death. In this way it became the first post-Reformation Catholic Church in this busy market town. The architect Raphael chose was also something of a pioneer: Charles Parker, who had a successful London practice and professional career, was one of the original fellows of the Institute of British Architects (afterwards the RIBA) and was later appointed steward and surveyor to the Duke of Bedford's important London estates.'

If you are on The Magic Bus 65 Route, you can enjoy a pleasant trip to Kingston at the cost of a bus ticket! :-)

Fancy a Saturday tour around West Ealing?

A Saturday tour around West Ealing

Saturday, 15 October2016       Start: 11am    End:  1pm

You are welcome to join a leisurely circular walk around the West Ealing Broadway area to learn about it from a sightseer perspective, and to have the opportunity to talk in English and to make friends. Please come to our Saturday tour to see what this part of Greater London is like and to enjoy the oldest Saturday Farmers' Market in London. 

Before or after the tour you could relax in Dean Gardens thinking about the bygone days of pony and donkey rides that were held there, about the orchards preserved in the names of nearby streets and the three-screen cinema across the street replaced with a bingo hall, snooker room and then a Bollywood cinema still remembered by our Labour MP, Dr Rupa Huq, who joined us on a previous occasion. You will hear about various places and people connected with the area, for example the late Jessica Huntley and her husband Eric Huntley who have played an important role in Black publishing in Britain, but were targeted by multiple racist attacks. One of their first publications was Walter Rodney's 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa'. I had the honour of meeting Mr Huntley. Who knows, maybe we will see him during our walk?

We will see a regenerating West Ealing, for example the infamous 1970s Green Man Estate being replaced with a new one.

During the walk we will see some of the places of worship, like a church, a mosque and maybe a Hindu temple, and many charity shops lining up the Broadway as well as some local art at a new cafe. The tour costs £10 per person payable on the day. It would be great to learn something new from one another as well, and to meet in the flesh! For the non-native speakers of English, the walk will be an excellent opportunity for practising your English. We meet outside FARAH Hair & Beauty, St James’s House, 105-113 Broadway, West Ealing, London W13 9DH. It is opposite Flynn's and next to KFC.

The last 'Cursed Soldier's' son in London tonight

Popped in to Windsor Hall just after 6pm and had a brief chat with Mr Kajetan Rajski, Mr Marek Franczak and the other organisers. 

Mr Marek Franczak, son of the last of  'The Cursed Soldiers' in conversation with a man from Luton, one of the organisers

What was about to take place next to the Polish Church in Ealing Broadway? 
A meeting with these two men to talk about some controversial and tragic events in the Polish 20th century history. Kajetan Rajski is a young law student and already accomplished publicist with a number of published books and materials. Born in 1994, he is famous for a book which contains his interviews with the children of the so-called 'Silent-Unseen'. Maybe we should think of an event like this with an English translation so not only Polish people could learn about this important aspect of our  past.

Thanks to Karolina,  a friend met at the Polish Hearth Club in Exhibition Rd, South Ken, I learnt at the last minute about this event in Ealing . Unfortunately, I couldn't attend the meeting.

Marek Franczak's father was the last of the so-called 'Cursed Soldiers' who fought against the Soviet imposed regime in Poland behind the Iron Curtain. Kajetan Rajski, b.1994, is one of many young Polish people who is fascinated by his country's recent history.

Setting up a room: Mr Kajetan Rajski with the organisers

 This law student has already written a few books and many articlesand attends many meetings like this one in Poland and abroad. I also met a few young men who were helping to set up the room.

Here is what Dear Wiki has to say about people like Mr Rajski's father, Jozef Rajczak:

'The "cursed soldiers" (also known as "disavowed soldiers", "accursed soldiers" or "damned soldiers"; Polish: Żołnierze wyklęci) is a term applied to a variety of anti-communist Polish resistance movements formed in the later stages of World War II and its aftermath by some members of the Polish Underground State. These clandestine organisations continued their armed struggle against the Stalinist government of Poland well into the 1950s. The guerrilla warfare included an array of military attacks launched against the communist regime's prisons and state security offices, detention facilities for political prisoners and concentration camps that were set up across the country. Most of the Polish anti-communist groups ceased to exist in the late 1940s or 1950s, hunted down by agents of the Ministry of Public Security and Soviet NKVD assassination squads. However, the last known 'cursed soldier', Józef Franczak, was killed in an ambush as late as 1963, almost 20 years after the Soviet take-over of Poland.'