Blogs - Newsroom and Reader Blogs for Epping Forest, Waltham Forest, Wanstaed & Woodford

Claire is a trainee reporter, who moved to Walthamstow from the Grim North and joined the Waltham Forest Guardian in May 2008. She was a student at UCL and went home to train at the Press Association Training Centre in Newcastle, but felt London Calling and came back. This blog chronicles her trials and triumphs as a "newbie in the newsroom". She likes writing, arguing, politics, religion, weird music and Chinese food. She is uncomfortable writing about herself in the third person.

Safe as houses?

Having just written a short article about rough sleepers using an Ilford bus route as a place to sleep, a thought occurs.

The new era continues...

As my first full week on the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian draws to a close and the second begins, there are two things I have found particularly striking about the area.

The end of one era, and the heralding of another

A new era has dawned for Waltham Forest's erstwhile 'newbie in the newsroom'.

Less a blog...

...more an announcement. From about 10.30am this morning, I will be in the Horizon cafe in Leytonstone High Road. This is at the corner of Burghley Road, near Lloyds TSB.

You can please some of the people, some of the time...

On Monday last week, I paid my second visit to Branches Homeless Hostel, in Leytonstone, where I met three very different men who are all down on their luck for very different reasons.

Who's afraid of the religious wolf?

The high-profile terror trial of the men accused of plotting to blow up transatlantic flights is finally coming to a close this week.

Ups and downs in Leyton's parks

Oh, my poor neglected blog. It is rapidly ceasing to be a weekly rundown of the news and becoming more an ad-hoc update on life at the WFG. So I’m updating it on a Saturday.

Streets of shame, again...

Although Kier workers are not going out on strike, this does not mean problems have abated. Apparently.

Time, tide and news wait for no one

The reason the latest instalment of the WFG blogodyssey (this is the internet, everybody makes up words...) is that I simply have not had time.

Wednesday morning, 4am

It is 4am. No one stirs save those who have not yet been to bed and the damp grey dawn has yet to gain purchase on the sky. It is cold. It is dark and silent as the grave.

An announcement

I am sitting in a cafe in Leyton, engaging in my latest reporter's surgery and testing out what it will be like to be a mobile journalist.

Panic in the streets of Waltham Forest

This week, there seems to be a pervasive thrum of panic in the borough, for one reason or another.

Oh frabjous day!

Callooh! Callay! Finally, some good news and I'm chortling in my joy.

Justice in action

The man convicted of killing Anthony Kearney - aka MC Boogaloo - has had his sentenced extended from five to eight years, following an appeal lodged by the victim's family.

One year on, the streets are still shameful

One year on, and the row over Kier Street Services has reared its ugly head again.

Inside the belly of the beast

I paid my first visit to the Old Bailey this week.

Mo' money, mo' problems

The MPs' expenses row rumbles on (and will most likely continue to do so for some time yet) and our Right Honorable Member has refused to apologise over his involvement.

Money, money, money

So Becks's boyhood house didn't sell.

Political figures and polyclinics

I met Nick Clegg on Friday.

Return of the blog

After a week's absence, the blog returns with another shameless (or shameful perhaps?) plug for my reporter's surgery.