The Lewisham Interview #1 - Max

Max has been kind enough to step up and be the first person featured for the Lewisham Interview. You can find Max here - a talented artist and fearless campaigner.

1.What is your connection to Lewisham and how long has it been?

I've lived here since 1999. Because of my wife that was born here.

2.What is your favourite part of the borough and why is it?

Ladywell Station and the overlooking park. I like to walk to the end of the platform, it's very relaxing. The two cafes outside the station are also very civilized, one even has books, quite a leap from the usual greasy copy of the Sun that seems to be mandatory in cafes across London.


3.What building or landmark would you like to see demolished?

It's one building along Molesworth Street in front of the Shopping Centre, next door to the small building of Citybank. I don't know what it is, it's a very big cube, very dark, no features, not much movement apart from a security guard. Does anybody know what it is an why it should keep on blighting our lives?

4.What building or landmark do you think is the best?

Milford Tower, it's so horrid that it fascinates me. Brutalism at its peak. Prince Charles could transform it into a rehab centre for Architects. Looking at it from the back it could be a starship about to take off and maybe one day it will.

5.Whats the one thing you would change about the borough?

I would stop children from stampeding at People's Day. Also some initiative to deter people from rearing those aggressive dogs that have become so fashionable. Maybe a permanent compulsory dog fighting tournament to the death would do (with owners thrown into the fight too of course).

6.What do you think is missing from the borough?

That's a difficult question. There are a few things that we don't have, that's not the same as we miss all of them, only a few.

The Borough is very diverse, so what one part is lacking you can find in another and if you crawl across the Borough you can find a bit of most thing.

There's a maybe a lack of upmarket offer, of anything really, some people would like to be able to spend more than a tenner on a bottle of wine, but do we really miss it? The popular nature of Lewisham is its personality, the dog-track was a fitting metaphor of it. It closed now and probably many miss it, I've never been to it actually so I can't speak on that.

The Borough famously doesn't have a cinema, they're talking of having one in the redevelopment of Lewisham Centre but I'm not sure that Lewisham Centre would be the best place for it because of the Picturehouse in Greenwich that's great and is only 5 minutes by bus. There's a risk of a deadly financial blow if it had another cinema so close since it already suffers from the competition of the ugly Cinemaworks multiplex on the Greenwich peninsula. Probably Catford that used to have one is the natural place that's missing it.

A good bookshop would be a good start probably. A cinema later.

7.What is the borough's best-kept secret?

You can buy manure for 50p a bag from a man that has horses in his back-garden in Brockley.

8.The one thing you want to tell the net about Lewisham is......

Don't drive here, you can get stuck on the South Circular, come by train, it's better than the tube.

Thanks Max!

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