Celebrating 365 published posts

Everyone has a story – many interviewees, friends of the blog and readers met for a party to celebrate our 365 published interviews. It was so lovely to have the Islington Faces “family” all together again. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us, especially on a summer night with such big rain. Report by Islington Faces founder and chief writer Nicola Baird (updated 28/10/24). Photos by Claudia Janke

We were happy to welcome more than 40 people who’d been interviewed plus many friends and readers to the 365 celebration. Our guests filled the Islington Ecology Centre. As it was July and holiday season some guests couldn’t make it and they were much missed, including our regular photographer Kimi Gill. It’s far better to be on holiday though than to have died! Sadly since Islington Faces began in 2012 some of our faces are no longer with us.

FOLLOW Islington Faces, a new interview is published approx once a fortnight. 

Here’s a short slideshow of the 365 Celebration at Islington Ecology Centre on 15 July 2024 showing how the get-together was a fabulous feel good evening. The event was made possible thanks to funding from Cripplegate/Islington Giving’s Make it Happen fund (from the October 2023 round). This slide show below is by photographer/artist Claudia Janke.

Slideshow cover front row (l-r) are all Islington Faces: Shereener Browne (social issues play producer), Alison Marshall (women’s equality), Roshni Shah (community organiser and food specialist), Raquel Siganporia (campaigning lawyer), Pawel Ryczan (food waste specialist), Mojo (disco barber) and Nicola’s writing arm (in red!). This slide show was created by photographer Claudia Janke.

Big thanks to Mayor Anjna Khurana for agreeing to do an interview in front of the crowd. It was a very raw and interesting conversation about the way she’s become her childhood role model. The Mayor was diagnosed with MS in 2006 but has made a point of doing what she can – which at this event included taking a lead role dancing. The edited interview is already on the blog.

Islington Tribune reporter Isabel Loubser was ill on the day, but contacted me after the event to produce this piece for this famous campaigning local newspaper for the 26 July 2024 edition. Here’s the write up.

A party needs food so a huge thank you to everyone who helped make mocktails, crostini (french bread with a unique cheese topping), raspberry cake and watermelon. In particular thanks to our trustee Ursula Yates (also known as a specialist in sustainable diets, the nutritionist Ursula Arens). Trustee Michael Keshani who produced hot slices of pizza! Islington Ecology Centre caretaker Priti who helped out hugely. Also thanks to Lola, Nell, Rose, Pete and chair of trustees Ernie Jegorovas-Armstrong.

Hanisha Solomon was probably the most famous woman in the room – she’s a popular Amharic (Ethiopian) singer on You Tube/Facebook, but she kindly spent most of the 365 celebration party sharing dishes with guests.

We’ve always thought Islington Faces have every sort of skill which is why the celebration of our first 100 interviews was on stage at the King’s Head Theatre back in 2014. So it made sense to ask who’d like to perform. The result was an amazing snapshot of local talent. We had standup and Islington envy from King’s Cross based Tom Wakeford. Here’s a link to Tom’s most recent Islington gig the Last Laugh (so you can follow him on Eventbrite).

We had the amazing Stanley Smart singing Moon River.

We were wowed by chiropodist Joan Williams sharing information about the first black woman to work at the BBC, Una Marson, and then recited a witty poem written by Una. Joan and her sister learnt this poem when they were just 10 years old.

The whole show closed after Mojo Stewart the amazing disco barber, aka as Groove Groom Grub, got us all dancing. See Mojo’s funding appeal to fund a hair cutting apprenticeship Haircuts for Humanity.  Also follow his insta @GrooveGroomGrub

Back in 2019, before covid, regular Islington Faces photographer Kimi Gill took 20 portraits of people for Islington Faces’ Inspiring Islington exhibition held at Islington Museum from April – June. These portraits have gone on tour to Ringcross Community Centre N7, Space N4 in Finsbury Park and Islington Climate Centre N1. The portraits have delighted viewers at every venue, but as they don’t have a permanent home it was time for the Big Give Back. That’s the photo above – in fact we had 10 of the original 20 at the event. The Inspiring Islington people are busy, so some had to slip in for just a few moments including Yemi Haliemariam and Freightliners’ farmer Liz McAllister

During August and September another eight of the Big Give Back photos of Inspiring Islington people have occurred – photos of this will be in a future post.  It’s been such a lovely way to catch up with what people are doing – moving, marrying, dreaming up projects, writing songs, dealing with illness, following the footie… Community projects, like an interview, can be very intense for a short time so organising the 365 Celebration was a rare opportunity to slip back into people’s lives and find out how things are with them. This get together was a timely reminder at how important it is to just pick up the phone (or an email) or knock on a door and spend some time checking how people are. It’s neighbourly but also gives everyone a bit of a boost. I’m going to make sure Islington Faces has a day a month of catch ups with the ‘family’. I hope it will be nice for them, and also a great way to help us all tackle that tricky feeling of isolation and loneliness you can get when your home isn’t full.

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Just in case there was anyone in the room who didn’t know someone they felt confident to chat to, three well known faces in the community, all writers, ran a friendly stall where you could talk books or just chill quietly. Thanks to Richard, Teresa and Pete for helping out.

Every now and then a greeting was really filled with emotion as old friends met up. This was especially true for Rita who escorted her mum, Nina Marcangelo  to the celebration. Nina was one of the original Inspiring Islington portrait sitters and has so much back in the day Islington knowledge as a result of working at Alfredo’s cafe on Essex Road in the 1950s onwards. Happily (and unexpectedly) Rita met up with two former work colleagues/campaigners at the get together, life coach Karin Liebenguth and John Ackers.

So here’s a huge thank you to everyone who has been involved in Islington Faces. It was amazing to be able to host a 365 celebration. When that first interview was published on the blog in 2012 I had no idea my curiosity about what people did in Islington was going to become such an unexpected way to make friends and share life’s adventures around EC1, N1, N1C, N4, N5, N7, N16 and N19. Thank you Islington and all its Islingtonians. And for this event extra thanks to the team at Islington Giving/Cripplegate.

Over to you
If you’d like to nominate someone to be interviewed who grew up, lives or works in Islington, or suggest yourself, please let me know, via nicolabaird dot green at gmail dot com. If you enjoyed this post you might like to look at the A-Z  index, or search by interviewee’s roles or Meet Islingtonians to find friends, neighbours and inspiration. Thanks for stopping by. Nicola