News from The Barnet Society

Gail Laser, founder of Love Barnet, has won national recognition for the decade she has spent working tirelessly to improve trading conditions in Barnet High Street.

St Mark’s Church, Barnet Vale, is launching an appeal to find out more about the families and relatives of the 29 men whose names are commemorated on a First World War plaque about which little is known.

Paula Gabb says her much-celebrated cat Millie – known locally as Barnet’s “library cat” and latterly “Waitrose” cat – has died “peacefully” after being poorly for some time with a thyroid problem. Millie, a 17-year-old tabby, regularly stationed herself outside the Waitrose entrance in the Spires shopping centre and made friends with countless shoppers and passers-by.

A row of square, flat-roofed houses in Raydean Road are among the buildings in and around Barnet that are highlighted on a website that celebrates modernist and art deco architecture in the London suburbs that became known as Metro-land.

Before Selfies is the title of a collection of photographs taken during the lifetime of Fred Jarvis, Barnet’s oldest and most famous trade union leader.

Fred Howett, a long-standing member of the Barnet Guild of Artists, who helped to organise regular and numerous local exhibitions of members’ art work, has died at the age of 74.

A double-brush Hertfordshire hedge – re-laid in a way passed on by a Romany gipsy who lived at Welham Green – is the latest addition to the Barnet Environment Centre in Byng Road. John Sawkins and his son David have spent the winter months relaying hedges around the boundaries of the environment centre.

Keeping the High Street in High Barnet spick and span gives veteran road sweeper Douglas Shrubb so much satisfaction that he has opted to continue working rather than take retirement. Mr Shrubb, who is 66 in March, has been the dedicated road sweeper for the High Street and Wood Street for the last 13 years.

Millie the Waitrose cat, already dubbed High Barnet’s most sociable feline, has been inundated with good will messages after shoppers at the Spires were told she had recently had a pre-Christmas tummy upset after being given too much unwanted food.

A damp Sunday afternoon did little to dampen the excitement for countless children who enjoyed the traditional fun fair that has become such a popular attraction at Barnet’s annual Christmas Fayre.

A sing song going through favourites of yester-year is a highlight at a Barnet hairdressing salon when 102-year-old Greta Nellie Druce pays her weekly visit to have her hair done.

End of an era.  Butcher’s Hook, the last remaining butcher’s shop in High Street, Barnet, has ceased trading and the premises are for sale or to let.

Neil Kinnock led the tributes at a party to celebrate the 93rd birthday party for Fred Jarvis, Barnet’s most celebrated trade unionist – and a New Barnet resident for over 60 years.

Roads running between High Barnet and New Barnet merge together almost seamlessly today, but in the 1930s, when farmland still separated the two towns, the footpath up to the shops in the High Street was through fields filled with cows.

The Barnet Press, once one of the most respected weekly newspapers in North London, has ceased publication after steadily losing circulation and struggling financially. Established in 1859 by the Cowing family, the Barnet Press was originally published and printed at its premises in Barnet High Street.

Generations of Barnet children have enjoyed a trip on the miniature railway that circles the Wood Street garden of Ian Johnson, a well-known retired doctor and skilled model engineer, famed his collection of model steam engines.

A 120ft garden at a traditional Edwardian semi-detached house in Normandy Avenue, Barnet, has secured recognition from the National Garden Scheme – a long-held ambition for the owners. Derek Epstein and Jo Vargas will be welcoming visitors to their garden on Sunday 23 July to raise money for charity.

Providing period cars featured in the hit television series, The Crown – being filmed at Elstree Film Studios, Borehamwood – is just one of the many commissions for a Barnet supplier of vehicles for film and television productions.

Preserving two massive jaw bones from a ninety-foot-long blue whale is just one of the challenges facing the new owners of Barnet’s historic Whalebones House, one of the town’s oldest residences surrounded by woods and fields that are now threatened with redevelopment.

Celebrations for the Queen’s Sapphire Jubilee, marking her 65 years on the throne, brought back fond memories for former Buckingham Palace pastry chef, George O’Connor, who lives in sheltered housing in Barnet.