This week 10, 20, 30 years ago

10 Years Ago

Scores of people were evicted from their homes amid angry, early morning scenes.

Bailiffs, police and Lambeth council officers descended on Rushcroft Road in Brixton to evict people from a long standing squat.

They jostled with evictees and protesters throughout the morning as they cleared three of the six mansion blocks that were set to be sold or renovated by the council. Minor scuffles were reported and a sofa was set on fire in the road.

Eight young people were hailed for their role in bringing solar power to a South London housing estate.

They were working with Brixton Solar Three to install a set of solar panels on the roof of Roupell Park Estate, in Brixton Hill, as part of Repowering London’s latest community-led renewable energy project.

The eight young people, who all lived on the estate, were paid to learn hands-on skills and pick up invaluable work experience along the way.

Thousands of revellers were expected to visit one of South London’s most popular free festivals this weekend.

The 39th annual Lambeth Country Show took place in Brockwell Park, Herne Hill, on Saturday and Sunday.

The bill included a star-studded line-up of music actors on the main stage as well as up and coming acts being given the chance to showcase their work on a smaller stage.

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20 Years Ago

Parents and pupils staged a protest outside a former secondary school demanding that plans to level it to make way for a sixth-form college be scrapped.

The angry protesters said that the Telegraph Hill School in New Cross should be reopened as a secondary school to serve the area.

Families living in the north of Lewisham said they faced a secondary school place crisis after the school was closed by Government inspectors in 1999.

But the council said that there were plans to build a new secondary school elsewhere in the borough to accommodate children leaving primary schools in the Telegraph Hill area.

A collection of human remains stored in a museum was handed back to its Aboriginal descendants.

The bones – mostly human skulls – had been at the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill for decades.

But a group of aboriginal people visited London to reclaim the bones of their ancestors so that they could be given a traditional burial in Australia.

The group, led by Bob Weatherall, a cultural officer working for the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action group, had been trying to secure their return for nearly 20 years.

The remains dated back to the 1920s. No one at the museum was sure how the bones had come to be in the museum’s collection.

Up to £500,000 of Lottery cash was set aside to help 100 heroin addicts kick the habit.

The hand-out from the Lottery Community Fund was set to be given to the National addiction Centre at the London and Maudsley Hospital in Denmark Hill.

The addicts, who were all set to be prescribed heroin and would have to visit the clinic three or four times a day in an effort to rid them of the habit under controlled conditions.

The process, which was expected to cost around £15,000 per addict – £12,000 more than treatment with a course of methadone.

But it was estimated that each addict cost society about £35,000 a year through crime, welfare payments and healthcare.

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30 Years Ago

A new Army regiment for London took to the parade ground. The 569-strong London Regiment showed its muscle at the Duke of York’s headquarters in Chelsea.

The TA battalion, based at St John’s Hill, Battersea was formed as a result of the Ministry of Defence’s Options for Change programme, which slashed the size of the regular armed forces. Many of the regiment’s members hailed from South London.

Jewellery shop staff stood speechless as they were robbed by two women with veils across their faces and a smartly dressed chauffeur.

The gun-toting trio in fancy dress loaded £70,000 worth of gold jewellery into a waiting car before speeding off.

The bandits struck at around 11am at the shop in Tooting.

They burst in holding two shotguns and a pistol and demanded that the shop’s display cases be emptied.

A team of budding young mechanics were given a helping hand by a car dealership.

Students at Ernest Bevin School in Beechcroft Road, Tooting were given a £500 go-kart kit, which they planned to build as a GCSE project.

The kit was supplied by Douglas Graham, the Rover dealership in Balham High Road as part of a nationwide £1million technology initiative by the car company aimed at training future generations of mechanics.

 

Picture: Pixabay/JamesDeMers