Dagenham – The Times They Are A Changin’
by Esmerelda Weatherwax (March 2011)
Their first citadel is to be The Dagenham Central Masjid (or community centre as the authorities insist in calling it) in Green Lane.
Green Lane forms part of an ancient highway which runs from Ilford through Hornchurch and Upminster towards Horndon. In the Middle Ages these towns were important church foundations but the track predates Christianity in its importance. Today the stretch called Green Lane (the very name indicates its age) is about 3 miles long, leaves Ilford Town centre as the A1083 and runs through the estates built around what were the hamlets of Chadwell Heath and Becontree. At Goodmayes Park the road crosses the boundary between LB Redbridge and LB Barking and Dagenham and the red brick Edwardian Villas give way to the 1930s houses of the famous Becontree estate. This was built as East End overflow and to house the workers of the new Ford Motor Works which was built on the north bank of the River Thames.
It is a busy road; along its length is a lively mix of housing, parades of shops, schools, Goodmayes Park and four remaining pubs. Just into Becontree is Rowallen Parade where the Becontree Heath Islamic Society (Dagenham Central Masjid) has their current premises at No 4, a former print shop. See picture left.
I must remind Major Schultz that on the corner diagonally opposite the four traditional English shops is the block of flats named Royal Oak Court which was the site of one of the missing pubs of Green Lane, the Royal Oak. I will confess to getting the Royal Oak, the Beacon in Oxlow Lane Dagenham and the former Matapan pub further down Green Lane, now called the Beacon Tree confused, which has led to me describing the Royal Oak as the original Beacon Tree pub in previous posts. We are losing community pubs frequently.
We have noticed the amount of snack bars and fast food shops in both Dagenham and Romford which bear the Arabic word for halal about the premises, to reassure the knowing but not to disturb the innocent. Below is a sample of Halal foodsellers in Whalebone Lane (an important road north into Hainault Forest at the junction where Green Lane ends) and south around the Dagenham and Redbridge FC ground and the Eastbrook pub.
In Green Lane the numerous establishments feel no need to be discreet anymore. Below is a selection of the variety of cuisines that can be sampled safely.
And if there was any doubt the seal of the Halal Monitoring Committee UK is Your Seal of Assurance.
Contrast this with the poster inside the now closed butchers shop.
I hope you can read it under the reflection of the buildings opposite. Finest Suffolk Chickens produced at the Diaper Farm since 1911. I checked Diaper Farm. Their chickens are free range and reared under RSPCA approved conditions, in contrast to cruel and barbaric halal slaughter.
Opposite the site in question the traditional butcher, greengrocer and fishmonger traded against a halal butcher and a halal fish bazaar.
The florist was still trading so I bought some flowers. She has found her own alternative premises which she prefers to the unit offered to her to the back of the halal butchers.
I hope to do business with her at her new shop which she is to share with another of the few remaining long established traders, greetings cards, in due course. At time of writing I do not know where the greengrocer and fishmongers have gone. The only source of English style foodstuffs in Green Lane now is a small branch of the Co-op.
I submit this article ahead of the next EDL demonstration scheduled for 12th March as evidence of the creeping influence of sharia out of London and into suburban Essex.
Photographs E Weatherwax February 2011
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