July 27th, 2010 by 
When you live in a south London enclave that’s synonymous with Del Boy, Damilola Taylor’s demise and destitution (thanks to most media coverage), you’d hardly imagine you’d spend your Sunday afternoon visiting a number of sunny street parties but that’s what we did today, thanks to The Big Lunch
Now in its second year, the idea of The Big Lunch began at The Eden Project in Cornwall. They thought street parties were a great way of getting communities together and when you look at some of the statistics, you can see why The Eden Project felt the need to take action:
- There will be two million more single person households by 2019.
- The social divide shows there are more rich areas, and more poor and ethnic ghettos than ever before.
- There was a 7% annual drop in trust between neighbours from 2003-05.
So, in keeping with The Big Lunch’s aims to ‘Make Isolation History’ and get to know my neighbours better I joined the fun, which was taking place between midday and 5pm in Denman Road, on July 18th 2010.
The street was blocked off to cars and the festivities got underway: bagpipes and impromptu busking, a veritable feast contributed by all of the residents, and fantastic decorations. The bunting alone was inspirational: every piece had a picture of the street’s varied Victorian houses printed on it; like a scene from a wartime victory movie it seemingly flapped in time to the band, in the gentle breeze.
In either a nod to street parties of bygone times, or simply to get the party started someone had taken a piano into the street and the kids were making the most of the traffic-free tarmac to scoot, cycle and play ‘just like the good old days’.
What made the good old days good?
Although we’re coming out of a recession back in ‘the good old days’ they appeared to have more to celebrate than we do at present: Peace Time.
You couldn’t ask for more in 1945 – even though every one of the flag-waving folk, chomping on their street feasts, probably knew at least one person who had met an untimely end on some war-torn battlefield. Still, they celebrated. They were the mothers of Make Do and Mend and they did just that with what they were tucking into.
At the end of the war the faces smiled as broadly as those in SE15 but their fare was more likely to have featured Spam sandwiches! One lady from Amber Valley is recorded in the BBC’s People’s War archives for making a “sponge sandwich using liquid paraffin from my medicine cupboard,” for their VE day street party.
My neighbour Charlie showed me, which took place outside our house to celebrate VE Day in 1945. He recalled the street party his mum Mary Ann Johnson arranged in our road, outside my house! There were a number of trestle tables and the whole street was there, although the food was only supplied for the kids and there was plenty of it; everyone pooled their rations.
One of his favourites was powdered egg sandwiches with OK Fruity Sauce, which you can still get today!
Charlie also remembers the games that were put on, including the Egg and Spoon Race, which made him laugh when he thought of the old folk doddering up and down with their eggs wobbling on spoons!
The future: Dancing in the street?
The first street parties, as we know them, started after the First World War in 1919. Like The Big Lunch they were also held in July to celebrate the June signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
They were coined ‘Peace Teas’ and were a sort of precursor to Children in Need and were far more formal than the wonderfully rambunctious event down the road from me.
The Big Lunch may be more of a national bun-fun way of getting to know your neighbours, but it doesn’t stop there. The organisation Streets Alive is taking the idea to another level. As well as food, their street events include sports and games initiatives in traffic-free environments, to get the community working together.
I love where I live and I love the fact that my community pulls together like this. In a couple of months there’ll be a music festival in the local park. Despite the amount of crime in the area, recorded with regularity on the news, it’s events like this that encourage a sort of subliminal Neighbourhood Watch. When faces become familiar you start watching out for each other.
I may be trying to turn Peckham into some sort of urban Xanadu but it’s been a sunny weekend and I’m going to let it stay that way for now; my local street party provided food for my soul and it tastes good.
