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Jim Lawes ● 4622d0 Comments

When it became clear that Jazz Festival had outgrown its facilities at the Walpole Park and it was actually damaging the park (as it does each year, cumulatively as the powers-that-be won't fix anything that gets trashed, e.g. the pond fountain pump) it was to be moved to Ealing Common, however, the Council Events Department vetoed it!

Kieren A Wroblewski ● 4621d

I stopped going when they made it all health and safety and commercial. It was so much better before.The music is still good but the set up is not a patch on what it was when it was so much more basic.Just shows that budgets and money do not make it better.It's the people who make it happen and attend that count and not tolerating the scumbags that infiltrate and try to ruin it for all.

Oliver Gregan ● 4621d

You are absolutely correct Keiren...I went to the first 4 or 5 Jazz Festivals way back when but had not been for years until last year when my wife and I took a walk from Brentford. Fenced in, searched at the entrance and charged £5 for the privilege of feeling slightly oppressed in a quite miserable space. If that's the best they can do, they can shove it where the sun don't shine.

Keith Iddon ● 4621d

What an interesting map. The fishpond in Little Ealing is really interesting. Bearing in mind that the stream or brook that fed it still exists (albeit culverted and piped), what are the chances of re-building the fishpond (Lottery Money?).

Kieren A Wroblewski ● 4621d

Bearing in mind that the historical area of Ealing used to include Brentford this brings a nice convergence bringing community together across the arbitrary electoral boundaries. How nice that the festival was an uncommercialised success unhindered by the Ealing Council Events Department that turned the jazz festival from a local event into a fenced-off rave/piss-up that I no longer attend since the bouncers, drug dealers and wall-to-wall security moved in.

Kieren A Wroblewski ● 4621d

I thought a Routemaster had sub frames and no chassis. One of AAM Durrants innovations.  Were they not transported to park Royal as split units?A lot can be learned from Durrant and his team , espescially when it comes to some of the very poor computer reliant designs of today.  Might it have been the RT that you used to see?  (the Routemasters equally excellent predecessor, also built at AEC but had bodies built at Weymanns in Addlestone as well as Park royal and a few other places.  They were built right into the mid 1950's but AEC did still produce a lot of Chassis based buses, coaches and trucks which were bodied elsewhere.

Oliver Gregan ● 4621d

My late mother, God rest her soul, worked for Mr. Durrant at 'Chiswick works' during the design of the Routemaster.She then went to Park Royal Vehicles for a few weeks leaving only to go to Chiswick Maternity Hospital for the birth of 'yours truly'.The Routemaster chassis use to be routinely driven down Boston Road with a chap sitting totally 'in the open' up front and the back weighed down by a couple of concrete blocks.

Nigel Brooks ● 4622d

Nice afternoon out. Nice to see some old mates. Good Location, dare I say better than Boston Manor Park.In true Brentford form, there was no train service to and from Brentford. a shame but saved by the bus and nice to see a Routemaster doing the service.Another icon designed in Brentford and Chiswick ( as it was) and Built in Ealing and Acton and Southall. A genuine local product!

Michael Brandt ● 4622d

Marvellous day. We particularly enjoyed the ride on a Routemaster, what a great local business.  This is the sort of business that we need locally and all those idiot planners and developers keep freezing out.Local people local businesses and they need local space and facilities.Great to see.  Nice day out.

Oliver Gregan ● 4622d

Jim Lawes ● 4622d