British aviation took off in Walthamstow – so why isn’t the council celebrating? (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

British aviation took off in Walthamstow – so why isn’t the council celebrating?

9:43am Saturday 25th July 2009

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By Janet Wright »

One hundred years ago this month, an Edwardian gentleman wheeled a bizarre-looking contraption out of his workshop under a Walthamstow railway arch. It had a motorbike engine -- made down the road in Tottenham – plus bicycle wheels and three sets of fragile wings. A few curious bystanders watched as he clambered in and started the engine.

Then Alliott Verdon Roe took a wobbly ride across Walthamstow marshes, lifted off and soared into history. A. V. Roe had made the first all-British manned flight.

Not surprisingly, this centenary is being celebrated by the aviation industry and across the country. If it had happened anywhere else, the local council would seize the opportunity to praise its famous son and celebrate the area’s wealth of inventiveness.

But not in Waltham Forest, where the council shows an extraordinary disdain for its people and history. (Remember their efforts to get rid of the unique and world-class William Morris art collection? And their failure to save Walthamstow Dog Track by refusing permission for change of use?) A replica from Roe’s pioneering plane was unveiled, by his descendants, on the marshes this month. It was a good day out, and a plaque was unveiled to mark the occasion. But only a couple of councillors were present. There was no sign of the mayor or council leader – not even local Labour representative Cllr Liaquat Ali, who usually pops up in front of any camera in sight.

Roe went on from Walthamstow to found the A.V. Roe Aircraft Co (Avro), as part of an eventful life. A brief flirtation with fascism during the 1930s was massively outweighed by Avro’s production of aircraft (including the Lancaster bomber) that saved Britain from Nazi invasion during the Second World War.

So why is Waltham Forest council ignoring this big local centenary? It wasn’t just forgotten: a cabinet agenda from November 2007 mentions an Avro Festival Committee planning meeting. What happened to that planned festival? Believe it or not, a spiteful little email was circulated saying that the council wouldn’t have anything to do with the centenary celebrations, because of Roe’s link with fascism.

You’d really have to rack your brains to come up with an excuse for dissing such a big local name, and ignoring such a major centenary, but Waltham Forest council managed it. What a feeble bit of token politicking. And – given Adolf Hitler’s delight in book-burning – an embarrassing own goal by the council that was later revealed to have sent thousands of our library books to the incinerator.

There’s a small Roe exhibition at Vestry House Museum, not mentioned on the museum’s (council-run) website, which may only be on till the end of July. So if you’d like to celebrate a local hero, get along to Vestry House on a Wednesday to Sunday between 10am and 5pm.

And a Roe exhibition is coming soon to the independent Pump House Museum and Lea Valley Experience, which celebrates Walthamstow’s long and impressive industrial history.

The Roe family’s celebration on the marshes had a photo of a bicycle Roe had designed – with Roe, on his 80th birthday, sitting on the handlebars and riding it backwards. A flawed human being like all of us, but someone for Walthamstow to be proud of. And in that respect, worth more than any of Waltham Forest’s book-burning councillors put together.