West Green Road – Creatives

West Green Road’s draw to creatives and artists can be traced back to the 19th century and through to us today. As a place, West Green Road has been an area and community where its cultural identity and heritage has captured imaginations and inspired – from setting up creative businesses and homes, to influencing creative responses through writing, films, murals, storytelling, photography, art and music, and giving people their own sense of agency. 

This road’s artistic storytelling includes this photographic collection of portraits of the community in 2015 by Australian photographer Stephanie Rose Wood; and Jennie Pedley’s Art for the Street with young people, ‘Bridge Art’, displayed from 2014-15, retells important and pioneering heritage stories. Other nationally-important creative treasures who have either grown up here or count West Green Road and the area as home include actor Judith Jacob and members of the Adebayo family - radio presenter Dotun Adebayo and novelist Diran Adebayo, and also, going back over 150 years, Gothic novelist Charlotte Riddell who included a description of West Green in one of her books. Read on to find out about what other creatives are connected with West Green Road …

Body Music – Corner of West Green Road and Tottenham High Road

Body Music was an iconic shop, wrapping around the eastern-most end of West Green Road at its junction with the High Road, that recalls happy memories for so many. In its last few years, it was known as Everybodies Music – it really was for everybody!

Prominent on this corner from 1983 until it closed its doors in 2019, this shop served its community and beyond for four decades with owner Fitzroy Sterling at the helm. Taking over from Third World Records (1979-83), Body Music was the place to hear the sounds of the latest hits and up-and-coming bands or find hard-to-get records. The music industry would be nothing without shops like this, ensuring music was heard, purchased and danced to. Local Black History Tour Guide, Avril Nanton, remembers:

‘Everybody that was famous went into that shop and Fitz’s love of cricket meant that all the famous cricketers went there too! They even had a recording studio in the back where they did many recordings of reggae stars. I miss that shop.’

In 2010, after almost 30 years on the High Road, Body Music (Everybodies) was at risk of closure. A betting shop was going to replace the record store. The community rallied in support of Fitzroy’s independent music outlet – described as ‘a cultural hub and ….the holy grail for reggae enthusiasts who flock from all corners of London to indulge their passion’. Protestors picketed outside to campaign to stop more betting shops opening in the area. 

Leading the petition and protest was respected community activist Douglas Williams (1962-2020) - known to many as Brother Dougie. He said:

‘To lose Body Music is a massive blow. To lose it and gain a bookie's is even worse. The area is saturated with betting shops and the only bookshop in the area closed down a few years ago. We need something that will add something to our community, not help tear it apart.’ 

Years later, Dougie added: ‘The result of the campaigning and petitions led to us the local community stopping them from opening up the betting shop and the Body Music shop stayed for quite some time after that.’

Further resources

You can watch a short film of Body Music (Everybodies) with owner Fitzroy Sterling in 2011, warmly welcoming customers.

You can also see photographs of Dougie Williams by Tottenham-based photographer Agenda Brown of Visual Marvelry, as well as read an interview with Dougie, celebrated as a community ambassador and honoured for his activism in the series New Chieftains (in its 10th year).

Headstart Books and Crafts – 25 West Green Road

Haringey had the UK’s first Black bookshop with the radical New Beacon Books in Stroud Green Road, N4. Established by John La Rose and Sarah White, it has been trading since 1966. The early 1970s until mid-1980s saw more Black bookshops opening, amongst them Headstart Books and Crafts at 25 West Green Road, N15.

The Black Liberation Front (BLF) - founded in 1971 - established the ‘Headstart Education and Leisure Programme’. It ran a supplementary school and youth club for Black youth from offices at 54 Wightman Road, N4. In 1976 they set up ‘Operation Headstart’, a community resource centre and bookshop at 25 West Green Road, N15. Founder member and Director of Operation Headstart was Brother Pepukayi. With Brother Kwame, they specialised selling books, art and artefacts reflecting African and Caribbean culture.

 
Community warrior and activist Douglas Williams (1962-2020), known as Brother Dougie, shared how important Headstart was for him growing up in Tottenham. He was there ‘every Sunday between 4-8pm. It was like my church, my religion. Being part of the Headstart community raised my level of consciousness and blew my world wide open. This was nearly 40 years ago now, and it had such a fundamental part to play in my life.’

Sunday meetings were organised by the Pan African Congress Movement, held upstairs above the bookshop. A variety of speakers covered Black history, culture and current affairs. Dougie became a great advocate of and passionate about African history, crediting his initiation into activism from the years spent at Headstart. He took his passion for arts, heritage and culture into his radio programme on SLR Radio, inviting a variety of speakers covering many areas, including health and wellbeing.

Headstart bookshop was an important centre for communities, witnessing campaigns and activism in Tottenham and beyond. The shop is no longer trading but its founder Elder Brother Pepukayi continues providing books at 366a Tottenham High Road in the Maa Maat Cultural Centre, as Pepukayi Books.

Further resources

More can be found about the life and legacy of Brother Dougie Williams (1962-2020) through The Good Brother Foundation, which contributes to supporting the Ukombozii Ancestral Drums Therapy Sessions at Chestnuts Community Centre in Tottenham.

Street Art: The Portland Road Squirrel

Painted by Boe-Art in May 2013, the giant squirrel, almost frozen in flight across the wall of 44-46 West Green Road where it meets Portland Road, still hasn’t grabbed its equally giant acorn yet (painted just a little further along the wall). A delightful mural that has fascinated so many passers-by for over a decade, whether on the 41 bus, walking by or as a child in a pram. Go see the Portland Road squirrel and do enjoy the other artworks of larger-than-life wildlife gracing walls painted by Boe-Art elsewhere in London. 

Café Lemon, Fab UK and Haringey Today

Known for hosting community art exhibitions when operating in Harringay Green Lanes in N4, Café Lemon moved to N15’s 118 West Green Road in 2016. Here the Keplan family continues their interest in cultural activities through supporting and promoting local community events, art and heritage organisations and news through Haringey Today and – covering a wider geographical remit – through Fab UK magazine. The short film ‘I Am West Green Road’ was also the brainchild of film-maker Eren Keplan, an alumnus of Exposure, that works with young people in the borough. 

International Cultural Icon: Althea McNish (1924 – 2020) 

In May 2023, a commemorative plaque honouring the life and work of trailblazer and pioneering textile designer Althea McNish was unveiled on her former home of over 60 years at 142 West Green Road N15. The plaque was installed and created by the Nubian Jak Community Trust in association with the Mayor of London's ‘London Unseen’ programme and Haringey Council.

In her former home in West Green Road, Windrush elder Althea’s studio was described as being ‘vivid with designs and mementoes of Trinidad’ creating – in her own words - a ‘corner of the Caribbean in Tottenham’. Here at home and in her studio she took inspiration from the vibrant colours of these collected Island memories from her birthplace in Trinidad & Tobago, along with the flowers she grew in her garden.It was in her home that Althea worked best, creating and designing her incredible textiles and developing her inimitable style. 

Further resources

Althea McNish – an introduction 

Remembering Althea McNish, A Forgotten Revolutionary Of British Design

‘I want that one’ – The Sample Street of Summerhill Road

Summerhill Road is a side road that meets West Green Road by the block of flats at number 168 and the housing of The Redlands.

From 1851 onwards, it was the first of the new roads that were soon to be built between West Green Road and Philip Lane. It became what was known as a ‘sample street’, a place where builders and architectural designers built different styles of housing to be chosen by prospective residents wanting to live in West Green. The architectural diversity of this road is a draw to both students and professional architects.

You can read more about the heritage and story of this unique road in Tottenham, alongside lots of other stories, on the dedicated website of the same name, curated by Alan and Ray Swain: Welcome to Summerhill Road Tottenham. Other stories includes that of artist Arthur Joseph Meadows, a marine painter, who lived at 23 Summerhill Road. His artworks can be seen on Art UK. 

Television’s Most Prolific Screenwriter: Tottenham’s Ted Willis

At 55 Stanley Road, N15, a small road off the western end of West Green Road, Ted Willis (1914-1992) the prolific playwright and screenwriter was born. He wrote about his life growing up in a working-class family during the 1920s and ‘30s in Tottenham – his delightfully evocative stories can be found in his autobiography ‘Whatever Happened to Tom Mix? The Story of One of My Lives’ (1970).

Ted was involved in Labour politics throughout his life. As a young man he was elected as the Chairman of the Labour League of Youth in 1937, later becoming Secretary General of the Young Communist League in 1941. Whilst serving during the Second World War he found his writing voice, becoming drama critic for the Daily Star. 

Ted’s writing career took off penning plays for small theatre, going on to what many will know him for - his television scriptwriting of the popular BBC police series Dixon of Dock Green and other TV dramas. His writing was widespread – from films to television and radio as well as novels. Ted became Lord Baron Ted Willis of Chislehurst in Kent in 1964. When he died in 1992, Ted was buried in Tottenham Cemetery. Read more about his life and writing career and his obituary.

Star of the Music Hall: Harry Champion (1865-1942)

Few people will realise that one of the most successful and famous music hall artists of the early 20th century lived for most of his life in Tottenham. Harry Champion was his stage name; William Crump was his real name. As Alan and Ray Swain of the local heritage website Tottenham Summerhill Road have discovered, in 1918 Harry Champion lived at ‘Ascot Lodge’ at 520 West Green Road (the most western end; now a block of flats).

He later moved to 161 Great Cambridge Road where he lived until his death in 1942. You can see more about Harry Champion when he topped the bill performing at the nearby Tottenham Palace of Varieties in the High Road.