News from The Barnet Society

After years of uncertainty answers have finally been found to questions about the identity and motives of an early pioneer in the continuing task of defending the footpaths and green spaces that mean so much to members of the Barnet Society.

After what for her personally – and for the rest of the country – has been a momentous political year, the Chipping Barnet MP Theresa Villiers, will be the guest of the Barnet Society at our annual question and answer session at 3pm on Friday 20 January.

Two sculptures by the noted Barnet sculptor John Brown are due to appear in Steven Spielberg’s most recent science fiction adventure, Ready Player One, which is being filmed in Birmingham and at the Warner Studios in Leavesden.

Brilliant sunshine and crystal blue skies put some added sparkle into the annual Barnet Christmas Fayre which filled the High Street with a wide variety of stalls and plenty of seasonal cheer.

In the feline appreciation stakes there is currently no contest in determining High Barnet’s most sociable – and safety conscious – cat. Milly, a 15-year-old tabby, regularly stops the traffic as she walks from her home in Carnarvon Road and over the zebra crossing between Barnet Library and the Spires shopping centre.

A print of Graham Turner’s celebrated painting of a young Richard III looking apprehensively across towards the Lancastrian army at the 1471 Battle of Barnet, is to go on display at Barnet Museum to help promote the current archaeological survey to determine the precise site of the battlefield.

The tenth anniversary of the poisoning with radioactive polonium of the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko brings back memories for an ex-Barnet journalist who reported on the role of Barnet Hospital in the story surrounding one of London’s most alarming assassinations.

A football team for former East Barnet grammar school boys that has expanded over the last sixty years to become a community-based amateur football club, has been celebrating the performance of its top players.

Local residents will get more opportunities to view the work of members of the Barnet Guild of Artists if arrangements can be made to increase the number of public displays of their paintings and other art forms.

Celebrations surrounding the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death gave an added impetus to the monthly gathering of the Barnet Poetry Group when members spent an April Saturday afternoon discussing the playwright’s many soliloquies and speeches. The group, established in 1990, grew out of an earlier poetry class organised by the Workers’ Educational Association.

A campaign is being launched to persuade English Heritage to award one of its renowned blue plaques to the Hadley Green home of the late Dame Cicely Saunders, the Barnet-born founder of the hospice movement.

The sun sets on the Barnet inspired networking site.  Friends Reunited, the social networking website created in the back bedroom of a semi-detached house in Barnet, has finally closed down after being left with only “a handful” of active members.

Maintaining the great musical tradition of Barnet parish church has been the outstanding achievement of Terence Atkins, its organist and choirmaster for the last 40 years.

A seasonal concert that drew on the great range of musical talents at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School, Barnet, rounded off the year, and also the first term of the new headteacher Mrs Violet Walker.

An oak tree in memory of the former Chipping Barnet MP Sir Sydney Chapman has been planted on Hadley Green, beside the road that bears his name.

Dr Gillian Gear, who fought a heroic battle to save and maintain Barnet Museum when Barnet Council withdrew its financial support, has died after undergoing treatment for some weeks at Watford General Hospital.

“Pineapples, two for a pound!” – father and son David and Tyler Bone have both been shouting out prices for fruit and vegetables at Barnet Market since before they were ten, and together they are carrying on a tradition that was started by David’s father Albert in the 1950s.

Rehearsals have begun at the Barnet parish church of St John the Baptist for the first of this year’s concerts by the Da Capo Concert Band which was established in 1997 for amateur adult musicians in north London and Hertfordshire.

Dr Gillian Gear, Barnet Museum’s archivist, was invested with the Order of the British Empire at a ceremony at the Tower of London last November. She was awarded the British Empire medal in the Queen’s 2014 Birthday Honours in recognition of her work safeguarding the museum and her support for local history projects.

For the last 50 years Barnet children have needed to go no further than Wood Street to catch a glimpse of a scene that brings to life that much-loved nursery rhyme “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”.