This week 10, 20, 30 years ago
10 Years Ago
Four new free schools proposed for South London were approved by the Government.
Set to open a year later, they included a school in Lambeth which catered especially for 78 children with autism.
A Catholic secondary school in Clapham, a primary school in Dulwich and a community school in Merton were also approved by the then education secretary Michael Gove as part of the 102 free schools there were set to open in 2014.
Thousands marched against NHS cuts as opposition to various hospital ward closures in South London grew.
NHS staff, patients, union members and concerned residents participated in the march against London-wide cuts on Saturday after gathering at Jubilee Gardens in Waterloo. Organisers estimated 6,000 people attended the demonstration which finished in Westminster.
In addition to the closure of Lewisham Hospital’s A&E, it was announced that St Helier in Carshalton would lose its A&E and maternity wards and be downgraded to a local hospital.
Thousands of people turned out for the 20th anniversary of the Dulwich Festival with organisers dubbing it the most successful ever.
The nine-day feast of art, music, poetry and culture was a resounding success with a bevy of sold out events, concerts and installations across Dulwich. Highlights of the festival included the Baroque the Streets event, at 265 Lordship Lane that saw a derelict house taken over by street artists and their weird and wonderful creations.
20 Years Ago
A police tactic aimed at ruffling the feathers of crooks using a police helicopter dubbed the Ghetto Bird came under fire from angry residents.
A police chopper was used for weeks at a time over South Lambeth as part of a drive to target crooks around the Tube and train stations.
Officers were using the helicopter to circle around known crime hot spots to deter would-be criminals rather than to hunt for them after their crimes had been committed.
But residents said they thought they were being victimised and kept awake at night by the noise from the helicopter.
Killjoy transport bosses ordered a bus driver to remove the cuddly toys he kept in his cab.
Andy Pattinson, who was known affectionately to his passengers as the “Teddy Bear Driver” was forced to evict his fury friends following an anonymous complaint by a Transport for London (TfL) official.
The cheery driver had been putting the stuffed toys in the cab of his number 163 bus, which ferried passengers from Morden to Wimbledon, for years.
But transport bosses said the toys might cause him to crash and ordered him to remove them.
Researchers discovered a deadly virus had a weakness that could be used to kill it off.
The medics at St George’s Hospital, Tooting discovered that the chink in the armour of the malaria virus was its sweet tooth.
The researchers found that it could be stopped dead in its tracks by cutting off its sugar supply.
They hoped that the discovery would go a long way towards efforts to eradicate the disease which killed around 3,000 children around the world every day.
They also said the breakthrough could help South Londoners struck down by the disease during overseas visits.
30 Years Ago
A Lewisham-based racing car driver was poised to take home a European championship.
Paul Stockley, 27, of St Norbert Road, Brockley, was among the British drivers nominated to take part in the Saloon Stock Car European Championship, which was being held in Ruisbroek near Antwerp in Belgium.
Paul had been racing for six years, financing his passion through his work as a builder. He had already won the English Championship, which was held in Wimbledon a few weeks earlier.
He was pinning his hopes on a car he had built himself a year earlier.
A hospital bought a historic library building to expand its training department.
Lewisham Library, in Lewisham High Street, was due to close in 1993 with the hospital set to take over the premises.
Plans were tabled to move the library to a new site in a former British Telecom building.
Lewisham council planned to pump £1million into the project while the turn-of-the-century building would be used to help train medical staff at the hospital.
An arsonist with an apparent grudge against market traders struck for a second time.
Police were investigating a second blaze that they said was started deliberately in a lock-up garage used by traders before the market opened.
The garage, which was behind the C&A department store in Lewisham High Street, was totally destroyed in the fire.
The attack came just five days after eight traders, who ran the market in Catford Precinct, off Catford Mews, lost their stalls.
The traders vowed to continue trading and not be scared off by the arson attacks.
Picture: Pixabay Image by WikiImages
