Mugglesworth

The Gallantry Awards list for 1944 (link posted by nxjen above) also includes details of a 13-hour armed siege in Barry Road, for the resolution of which three policemen received awards.

Some bus routes are more akin to urban myths than to scheduled services. For the 484, I suggest consulting a ouija board.

If the shop ends up as a Waitrose or M&S, won't this encourage Lycra-clad louts to cycle there on the pavements in contravention of the law? (Now, that should stimulate the elevation to the big 5-0)

I may be pointing out the obvious but there seems to be two conflicting arguments affecting this and the Morrisons thread. One is: "Chain stores in ED will make it just another bog standard High Street, putting all the lovely independent shops out of business and pushing up rents". The other: "What we really need in ED is a M&S / Waitrose / Nicole Farhi. It would be a great boost to my shopping options and to house prices". My guess is that many proponents of the latter argument would be appalled at a Morrisons or Netto opening next to them. A chain store is a chain store but brand image makes all the difference. Advocates of the former argument may pay lip service to independent shops but make major shopping trips to Westfield, Bluewater or other "nicer" shopping centres. Not sure if one argument is right and the other wrong but they can't both be right.

James, the proposal is that Ivydale should move from 2FE to 4FE so 60 additional reception places. In reality, Ivydale has coped with an additional bulge class in each of the last two years so the leap will not be that great. Being spread over two sites means that children will not feel they are in a massive 720-pupil primary. The knack will be in minimising movement between sites during the school day. As Renata says, everything is at an early stage and Ivydale governors have yet to move this beyond "agreement to engage in consultation with Southwark".

The essence of the cash transaction is in its simplicity - you have cash, you hand it over in return for goods or services, the transaction is complete. There is no requirement to seek out machines or designated retailers. There is no deposit to be paid (as with Oystercards)and no need to provide ID (as with weekly or longer period travelcards). Cash transactions are easily understood by foreign visitors to London. When there is already a ?1 per trip financial penalty for paying in cash on buses, the fact that "less than 1%" of journeys are still paid for in cash shows that there is an element of necessity in those transactions - the passengers are not too lazy to pay by the cheaper option, they simply do not have the means to do so as they do not have a card / their PAYG has run out / etc. I feel that banning people from using buses in those circumstances shows that TfL places more emphasis on administrative convenience than the needs of fare paying passengers.

Yes, the people who run London's public transport want to do away with the concept of paying by cash for a journey on a bus. They claim that less than 1% pay by this method at present but that it needs to be banned completely in order to save money. I suspect that the closure of TfL ticket offices and the removal of advance payment bus ticket machines will have been included in projected savings. TfL currently benefits by charging those who pay by cash a higher fare but has the loss of this surcharge been set against the "savings"? Saving money sounds like a good idea but who will be disadvantaged? Those who have forgotten or lost their Oystercard, those visiting London and those who need to make an unplanned journey will be denied a bus trip despite being able and willing to pay. TfL also claim that it will "remove delays" although, with so few people paying by cash now, it's hard to see that this would be significant. Or you may feel differently. Either way, the consultation questionnaire is available here: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/buses/cashless

The governors at Ivydale have agreed to investigate the options for expanding to a four-form entry primary school, using the old Bredinghurst school site along with the present Ivydale site. The letter from the Head to parents makes this clear. These are very early days and planning has not extended beyond commitment to look into it further. With a target opening date of September 2016, I would not expect too much in the next few weeks.

Yes, the following is from Newsletter #1 dated 7 June: Licensing: we have submitted our Premises Licence application to Southwark Council, and await further discussions with them This doesn't go into fine detail but, as the hours are in line with the old Ivy House licence and the existing Waverley Arms one (neither of which resulted in late night noise complaints), could we not just use a bit of sense here and not seek to micro-manage every aspect of the steering group's work? If you don't feel that you can live with that, here's a suggestion for your next post... "Dance performance at 9am on a Wednesday? Have they gone raving mad???"