Exploring New Cross (+ bonus song)

London by Lockdown

In this episode we learn about the place we now call home.

“In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry.”

So eloquent is the opening to Ben Okri’s The Famished Road (one of my all-time favourite novels), that those three sentences, drifting as they do between histories and worlds, truths and fictions, contain all the confusion, lyricism and complexity of a full-blown biblia sacra. The simple enormity of it: how one thing is in fact many. My sister gave me a copy for my 21st and it’s travelled with me across the globe, a beautiful old dog-eared and fox-blotched thing. In it Okri asks whose stories should we believe: those told by people with self-proclaimed authority, or those we tell each other? Our local histories birth and sustain our homes, the places we live: material, self evident and layered; our daily battles prove we’re not as fragile as maybe we imagine — despite logical misgivings and insecurities about the world outside; and our shared stories branch out to the whole world, continuing further than one individual, beyond each of us, not limited to one time or place.

Join us as we walk the streets of our Borough, learning about its fearless history (the ‘Battle of Lewisham’, the tragic New Cross Road Fire and how the New Cross Library was saved) and discover the day-to-day actions of the people keeping us safe, connected and sane during lockdown (mutual aid groups, Telegraph Hill Radio, the Doorstep Disco). We acknowledge everyone who keeps the stories of SE14 alive.

Thanks to Jay, Vedina & Unregistered Master Builder for letting us use their audio
Jay Bernard: www.jaybernard.co.uk
Jay’s work can also be found at Speaking Volumes.
Vedina Rose: www.vedinarosemusic.com
Opening & Closing Credits by Unregistered Master Builder
Background music, ‘Touching Moments’ by Ketsa (Free Music Archive)
Background music, Markus J Buehler Viral Counterpoint of the Coronavirus Spike Protein (2019-nCoV)

Not in the mood for anything too heavy? Here are some cool London links we’ve come across
Bookcase Credibility: Twitter @BCredibility and Instagram #bookcase
Telegraph Hill Radio (enjoy the ‘doorstep disco’)
Waltham Stories Podcast
Black History Month
London Community Video Archive
Great women you should know about

Contact
Facebook: @CraigsAudioWorks
Twitter & Instagram: @LDNbylockdown
Available linktr.ee/LondonbyLockdown