NatashaD

I have it on good authority that it is politically incorrect to be called 'mixed race'. It is now 'dual heritage'. To the original poster who clearly has a massive chip on her shoulder - GET OVER IT. Sticks and stones and all that. Better to be called pretty than ugly.

The caretaker of the Peckham Rye 1 0 clock Club's temporary site is an odd character. He shuffles about, mouth clenching a ciggie, eyes transfixed to the floor, wearing what looks like an ill-fitting wig on his head. It is most disconcerting. What he gets up to in that dark cupboard is anyone's guess. There's also that guy - a wannabe Rod Stewart methinks - who prances up and down the lower part of Forest Hill Road, often outside the CO-OP.

I was told that Jacqui Smith still lives there.

MadWorld, no there hasn't been any futher developments to the case, although the police apparently knows who stabbed the victim, Dee Willis. I expect we won't hear much of this story now as things like this seem to be happening almost daily in London.

Excuse me going off topic but I am responding to Asset's off topic point. Where do I say that Spangles is my friend? I am afraid your memory serves you incorrectly. Again.

Yes, it is a bit daft MadWorld74. Sean, coincidence, perhaps? It was never revealed why Spangles was banned. Oh well. Better get back on topic. I wouldn't want to get banned afterall.

Why do you think I am this S>:D

agree with much of what you say there MissD.

Tony, please stop doing those mammoth cut and paste jobs. Really annoying as has been said, and your points get lost within them. Glad it's not just me who is happy staying in the Dulwich area, Moos and Keef! I would be so bored living somewhere like Dorking Yawn. I don't buy this 'it's for the kids'. Surely if the parents are bored and miserable, so are the kids. However, on the occasion London living annoys me e.g. getting from A to B, I can happily say I am never 'bored'.

I agree Moos. I really like living in ED too. I believe my children will, and do, benefit a lot from being here. I'd be miserable living in a suburb or provincial town. And what would they do when they are older? Hang out in a bus shelter?

For all the problems that inner London living has, I would rather that than live in the suburbs. I really don't like suburbs at all. Despite what muffintop has insinuated I am happy my child goes to a (Peckham) nursery with a large multi ethnic intake. The parents are really friendly and very nice - and so are their children. I deliberately chose that as opposed to a Dulwich Village/ED nursery, for reasons I won't go into as it is not relevant on this thread. I can see where Tony is coming from, although I do not agree with all of his points. He is entitled to his points, even though they may be different to the ones others hold. I can understand why some people would want to move further afield out of areas like Peckham - and it is not just white people who do it!!!

Er no Muffintop, I do not mean 'turn them white'. What a ridiculous thing to say. If I had wanted to say that I would have said that. How defensive you are. How do you know what colour I am? This is not an issue about race: it is about the presence of fathers. Cohabiting parents do just as well as married ones, provided they stick together. The concern about single-parent families centres on the depressing association between being raised without a father and ending up as a criminal. That association is statistical, like the association between smoking and cancer: while not everyone who smokes will die of cancer, no one in their right mind would advocate smoking on the basis that some smokers don't die of a smoking-related disease.

I am sure you're right about the paedophile thing muffintop. However, you rather tartly asserted I should check my facts regarding absent black fathers in the UK - which I had already done. You don't seem to like the fact that I backed up my point. You should actually retract your erroneous point: " There are just as many errant white fathers as there are black ones, please do your homework before you come onto the forum spouting unsubstantiated twaddle." You are wrong, not me.

One answer is to return real discipline and respect to schools, to police and to communities - and to change the culture these youths live in, to raise them with very different values and ethics, and accept that these things come at a price of harder expectations than is currently fashionable. Immediately after both wars in the last century thousands of widows raised boys alone without them attacking each other with knives in the streets. Why? They wouldn't have dared, and they would have thought it was wrong.

Sean, I alluded to the fact that cultural factors are to blame. They are not the only factor, and nor is poverty a sole reason for why stabbings and murders occur. If it were, there would be stabbings galore in impoverished parts of the UK. There, do, however, seem to be a thing which is happening in London more than in other climes in the UK. muffin top "There are just as many errant white fathers as there are black ones, please do your homework before you come onto the forum spouting unsubstantiated twaddle." I have checked my facts, "57% of black Caribbean children grow up in lone parent households in the UK, compared with 25% of white children." Furthermore, "Community worker Reverend Les Isaacs told the Commons home affairs committee there was a "very high proportion of absent fathers" in the black community. This was having an "enormous impact" on boys and young men, he added. London mayor Ken Livingstone's former equality adviser, Lee Jasper, said the crime rate was "toweringly disproportionate" within the black community.

I am inclined to agree with Asset's point 'As someone else pointed out it is 'per capita' statistics that matter not just the numbers.' However, nobody has addressed my earlier point about why these kinds of crimes, stabbings/murders, are more prevalent in Peckham. Well.....there is a higher number of young black fatherless males there with an alternative 'culture' which came to this country from the West Indies: 'street culture', feckless fathers, violent rap, a nihilistic brutalism which has no past - or future - but festers in the present. We should recall, however, that Damilola Taylor was just as much its victim as Tom ap Rhys Price. Challenging that culture is not racist, and it would possibly make places like Peckham safer for everyone. I believe that last year, Tony Blair said something along the lines of the violence is not going to be stopped by "pretending it is not young black kids doing it".

Fuschia, I might go this arvo as the weather's not great, so will find out for you. :)

I am concerned that a witness said there was a gang of about 20 girls nearby when the woman was stabbed to death. It's awful to think that the victim was with someone, and still this happened. I will wait for more facts to emerge, but this does make me feel more apprehensive about the area. Yes, it COULD have happened elsewhere in the UK, but why, oh why, is Peckham so frequently implicated?

Yes, I thought Moos was a bit sharp with you there MW. Perhaps you upset her on a previous thread. It is always a good idea to be nice to people on here MW, don't you agree?>:D

Fuschia, it is advertised as "Fun activities for children five years. and under and their parents", although some people bring their older children during the hols. The 1 0 clock clubs are not really designed for older kids, so I am pretty sure it should be the under 5's. The bikes, for example, are far too small for bigger kids.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4254044.ece

I believe it was a woman who stabbed Dee Willis; at least that is what the police are suggesting. It happened near the LIDL, so not in the more gentrified part of Bellenden Road.

BJL, Oh, I see. I thought you had believed the OP's initial version of events simply because s/he had mentioned s/he was a journalist.

Yes it is on all during the summer and is for children under 5. It is 1PM-4PM. There are lots of - free - things for under 2s. Where do i start?

BJL "The OP is the "Dulwich reporter" for the Southwark News." And? Does that mean his/her events are spot on? I think not! I speak as a journalist myself.