Sunday 14 Dec : Deptford Fowlers Molly + London Pantomime Horse Race

Deptford Fowlers Troop do a kind of morris dancing as part of a tradition associated with Plough Monday, the first Monday after Epiphany. Molly dancing began with out of work ploughboys touring around villages offering the landowners the opportunity to pay them to dance instead of plough (since there would be no ploughing till Spring). If the landowners refused them money, they might find their garden lawns ploughed up, so the dancers would conceal their identities by blacking their faces with soot and dressing up in a variation of their Sunday best, with one of the members – the Molly – dressed up as a woman.

Basically it's a pub crawl with music and dance and a bit of dressing up! If you fancy joining the festivities, here's the schedule:

12.00: at the Royal Albert, 460 New Cross Road with dance commencing at 12.30. 
1.30: dance at the Little Crown, 495 New Cross Road
2.30: dance at the Job Centre, 120-122 Deptford High St
3.30: dance at the Dog and Bell, 116 Prince St

Deptford Fowlers Troop also celebrate Mayday when the Deptford Jack in the Green tours south London and the City. The video above is shot outside the Dog and Bell, their spiritual home. If the dancing starts a little too early for you, you can catch them at the Dog & Bell later, and meanwhile, head down the road to Greenwich for the annual Pantomime Horse Race...

Now in its fifth year, this Greenwich event has grown in size (though the contestants remain smallish in numbers – they're hoping for between 20 and 40 this year). Lots of comedians and showbiz personalities get involved.

This year the festivities begin with a science fiction themed opening ceremony at 11am. Stormtroopers (including Darth Vader) will march from the Cutty Sark to Devonport House where the race will start at 1pm. The panto nags then race to the Union Bar on Royal Hill. An after-race party hosted by comedian Stephen Frost starts at 2.30pm at the Greenwich Tavern next to Greenwich Park (£12 on the door). The event raises money for Demelza Children's Hospice – for more details and to see the route go the website!

Deptford X continues till Sunday...

Photo by George Avvakoumides

The Deptford X banner "Art Makes People Powerful", created by a flash mob of artists in Giffin Square last Saturday (see video) now hangs on the front of the LESOCO building on Deptford Broadway.

We wonder if Art Can help Make Powerful all the highly qualified staff who have been made redundant (at Southwark, at least, without any renumeration packages) as a result of the merger of Lewisham and Southwark colleges and education cuts in general.

Meanwhile, this weekend there are Open Studios and an Art Quiz at the Dog and Bell on Sunday as well as a multitude of gallery shows and shop takeovers. We like the installation at the new Vinyl cafe in Tanners Hill – called Soft Wax, it looks at music and culture of the Jamaican diaspora at the end of the 1950s. The new cafe is lovely, and there's a secondhand vinyl shop in the basement, along with the exhibition.

On Saturday at the Albany (10am-4pm), artist Bernadette Russell asks "Is it possible to change the world just by being kind?" in her interactive show 366 Days of Kindness. The idea is that members of the public can write a few words about how a kind act from a stranger touched their lives, on a ticket which is attached to a balloon. The balloons are then released at the end of the day.

There is still much for us to see, and too much to cover in detail, but we especially like Deptford Is Forever, who have given out paper bags to high street shopkeepers and market traders with a tattoo design printed on them that says "Give Us Back Our Bloomin' Anchor". The design is lovely, and to pay for the free bags the group has also had printed some T-shirts and cotton shoppers that locals seem to be snapping up. The T-shirt has the Deptford Is Forever logo on it (see below, the shirt being worn by Niaomh from the Deptford Community Cookbook team). You can pick up your T-shirt for £10 at Kids Love Ink, the tattoo parlour at 138 Deptford High Street.

The Waiting Room Coffee shop, Little Nan's bar on Deptford Broadway, and Ralph at High Street Flowers also have some cotton shoppers for sale apparently (£5), and the group commissioned High Street Flowers to make a "ghost anchor" to hang in the window.

Not only that but the group have organised a day of FREE tattooing (a little anchor of your choice) at Kids Love Ink. That's tomorrow and is apparently oversubscribed – those wanting to take up the offer had to book today, or else take a chance tomorrow. Participants will be asked for a donation to Deptford Reach, the project that looks after Deptford's street drinkers and anyone who's hit hard times, and Build The Lenox, the local project that wants to build a replica 17th century ship at Convoys Wharf.

The Deptford Is Forever "Anchor Fest" continues on the weekend with a musical procession along the high street at around midday-2pm which features a huge cardboard anchor made by Arthouse artist Laura X Carlé that was last spotted in the My Deptford show at the South Bank and seen by anyone attending London Open House at the Master Shipwright's House. The procession gathers at the Dog & Bell pub at 12 and aims to end up before 3pm at Lewisham Arthouse on Lewisham Way, where there's an exhibition and Open Studios all weekend.

We also hear that Little Nan's will be having a bit of a "Deptford Is Forever" night on Saturday, with nautically themed cocktails, some of which will feature Pusser's rum, the preferred drink of the Navy which used to be stored in Deptford Dockyard.

The group certainly seem to have run with the Deptford X theme Art Makes People Powerful, and have an informative website about the Anchor and the Deptford Dockyard (some of which has been taken from this blog). But whether the Deptford Anchor returns to the high street and its environs is another matter...

More info at www.deptfordisforever.net
Or like their Facebook page

www.deptfordx.org

Dog and Bell wins Pub of the Year Award again

Deptford's favourite pub the Dog and Bell has won the Greater London Pub of the Year 2011 from the Society of Preservation of Beers from the Wood...for the fourth time. Charlie and Eileen will get their award on January 24th, but they got a mention in this week's South London Press, along with some customer recommendations that drew attention to the number of Deptford boozers that have been lost to betting shops.

Congratulations to "Mr & Mrs Gallagher" and cheers to the Beer Preservation Society!