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Improving the community
You’ve go to take a peep inside St Luke’s Community Centre. It’s fantastic for the over 55s, like Dame Vera Lynn fan Gordon Warrell. But it’s also got the achingly cool Central Street Cafe attached, rooms to hire and even a cookery school. Here’s an interview with St Luke’s Community Centre’s Communications Manager, Lisa Burrell. You might also enjoy the interview with Central Street Cookery School manager Sofia Larrinua.
Interview with Lisa Burrell: St Luke’s Communications Manager December 2016
Lisa Burrell, communications manager at St Luke’s Community Centre in its vibrant foyer. (c) islington faces
St Luke’s Community Centre, tucked off City Road, is a place people want to go. Here Lisa Burrell, St Luke’s Communications Manager, explains how the centre attracts that magic mix of Silicon Roundabout hipsters, families, the over 55s and private clients. Interview by Nicola Baird
“We want the local community to know we’re here and that we can offer support for all ages,” says Lisa Burrell, the cheerful Communications Manager at St Luke’s Community Centre. She may work part time, but St Luke’s is nearly always open – for the community it’s six days a week, including Christmas Day 2016 when a lunch will be served to the over 55s. On Saturdays it is used for private functions including work meetings and even wedding receptions. More here from the interview
Interview with Sofia Larrinua: St Luke’s Cookery School manager March 2017
Sofia Larrinua, Central Street Cookery School manger: “At the end of the cookery class we have so many nice times eating together. You feel like such a generous host.” (c) islington faces
Everyone has a story. Central Street Cookery School celebrates its 5th birthday this April. Manager Sofia Larrinua gives us a taste of the highlights at this innovative teaching and rentable kitchen at St Luke’s Community Centre, just off Old Street. Interview by Nicola Baird.
“When I started at Central Street Cookery School in April 2012 it was a building site,” says Sofia Larrinua surveying the exuberantly coloured (spring green and radish purple) units, cookers, fridges and sinks arranged around this unique kitchen in St Luke’s Community Centre, not far from Old Street. It’s a big space – there’s enough room for 24 people to cook together.
“We’ve made a community cookery school happen and it’s good to be self-funded,” continues Sofia who manages the cookery team of seven chefs and a team of assistants. For the past five years they’ve helped around 3,000 people learn extra cooking skills each year. Now there are plans to celebrate their five year milestone with a Big Lunch on Sunday 18 June – which in 2017 will be remembering Jo Cox MP at the same time as it gets neighbourhoods to have a community meal together. More here from the interview
Interview with Gordon Warrell: Musical Mechanic October 2016
Gordon Warrell at the Duke of Cambridge pub: “I’ve got three or four letters from Vera Lynn.” (c) islington faces
Everyone has a story. Gordon Warrell from Old Street talks about Islington’s council housing, Formula 1 racing and the shows Dame Vera Lynn (who will be 100 in March 2017) gave in Islington. Interview by Nicola Baird.
Gordon was born in St Barts Hospital in 1934. He spent the war years evacuated in a very rural part of the Cotswolds, Wootton-under-Edge, although he was back on 8 May 1945 to see the VE day parade going down City Road. “Growing up in the Gloucestershire countryside was idyllic. There were eggs and meat and no food rationing,” he says. Indeed his family didn’t come back to London permanently until the 1950s.
Gordon’s parents were one of the first in Islington to get a council home – first a flat in Middleton Street and then 50 years spent at Telfer House, Lever Street. “I was one of the first into that estate, around April 1964,” says Gordon. “Then two years ago, Islington Council wrote and said they were going to demolish it and rebuild it higher (it’s just two storeys), so I was moved out at Christmas 2014. The work has still not started! But I’m now in Radnor Street, also close to Old Street. When I was born there were no flats at all. It was all little Victorian houses. But I do remember the prefab houses in Central Street. Now Old Street is all towers. London is a concrete city – there’s building everywhere, and so few trees. Sometimes I walk along Highbury Corner, or Marylebone or Old Street and I can feel my chest tightening from the pollution.” More here from the interview.