Saturday, 27 June - 1 pm to 6pm
We will be there - visit our stall
Ruskin Park Fete
All posts by Friends of Carnegie Library
Julia Hawkins – On Loneliness
How to overcome loneliness and isolation and enjoy solitude - a photographic project
Tuesday evening, 9 June - 7pm (6:30 for tea & cake)
The book contains 49 stunning portraits of unique individuals (including the author herself).
Through her photographs and interviews, Julia explores themes of loneliness with her subjects, of feeling invisible, misunderstood and alienated, as well as discoveries of unexpected paths to understanding and connection. This is a wonderful way to confront and learn to talk about what is afterall a universal experience at the edge of all of our lives.
Julia Hawkins is a London-based editorial and documentary portrait photographer, one of the winners of the Royal Photographic Society’s Portrait of Britain Award in 2024 and author of On Loneliness, photographs and interviews on the universal experience of loneliness.
Please join Julia and our wonderful audience for what promises to be an enlightening presentation and discussion.
Admission is free.
Please register for a place with Eventbrite, because this is very helpful for planning.
Organised by the Friends of Carnegie Library, in conjunction with the Lambeth Library Service.
God’s Little Artist with Sue Hubbard
Tuesday evening, May 12 • 7 PM - 8:30 PM
The Friends are delighted to welcome back novelist and art critic Sue Hubbard to discuss God’s Little Artist, a biography in verse of Welsh painter Gwen John (1876 - 1939).
As with many female painters of the time, John’s work was often overshadowed by that of her male contemporaries, especially her brother Augustus John. God’s Little Artist is a celebration of her, her passionate life and work, illustrated with precision, authenticity and the keen painterly eye of a poet, novelist and art critic.
This promises to be a fascinating evening.
Admission free.
Organised and hosted by the Friends of Carnegie Library, grateful for assistance from the Lambeth Library Service
Reservations are not strictly necessary, but we do ask people to register at Eventbrite, to help with planning.
Heron Academy – Art
Running to the end of June
The Friends of Carnegie Library are delighted to host an exhibition of art by the very talented students of Heron Academy.
Chris Roberts: South Parks
Tales from the Southern Commons
Tuesday evening, 14 April: 7 - 8:30 pm at The Carnegie Library
South Parks is a collection of twenty short stories set in, about or around a selection of South London open spaces. Inside are talking statues, strange cults, pagan estate agents and a very wrong horse. There are foxes and a vengeful toilet goddess but also stories of love, friendship, family life and growing up.
Expect anti-golf riots and stolen geese as we celebrate places to sit in, places to play in and places to spend the day in alongside contemporary (and older) threats to the concept of free open spaces in London. There may also be references to park toilet goddesses, pagan estate agents, mermaids looking for a mate and Peckham Rye’s gay cultural renaissance alongside a celebration of south London’s open spaces. The talk will switch between the real and the magically real and is based on his book South Parks: Stories from the Southern Commons.
Chris Roberts is a London writer and tour guide who has written books on the history of nursery rhymes, London's bridges, lost words and superstition in football. He has been conducting walking tours around London for most of this century.
The Friends of Carnegie Library invite you to attend this event with Chris Parks, which is part of our monthly series of Author Events, always on the second Tuesday of the month, always at the Carnegie Library (except once during covid), always Admission Free.
The event will start at 7 pm but please come early for tea & cakes, from 6:30.
Reservations are not strictly necessary, but we do ask people to register at Eventbrite, to help with planning.
We thank the librarians at Carnegie Library for their assistance with staging this event, and indeed for all their dedication and efforts which keep the Carnegie Library running as the great and much loved community library that it is for Herne Hill and Loughborough Junction and environs.
The event was well attended by a very appreciative audience. Many thanks to Chris and to all who attended for making this a memorable occasion.
The Occupation – ten years after
Saturday - 18 April
Carnegie Library Garden
On 31 March, 2016 Lambeth Council closed the Carnegie Library for an indefinite period, but local residents refused to leave and remained in occupation for 9 days
When they left, following a court order, they marched to Lambeth Town Hall accompanied by a thousand-plus supporters
This became national and international news
*
2pm Refreshments; 3 - 4:30pm Reunion
All welcome!
If you were there, share your stories, photos and souvenirs -
if you weren't, come and find out what happened!
*
Hosted by The Friends of Carnegie Library
Many thanks to all who attended (on Saturday and ten years ago)
There was laughter and there was tears and much to celebrate. We did it. We defended the ten. Ten years ago the Lambeth Council was talking seriously about closing libraries in its network and running some of them without librarians. That didn't happen. We still have ten libraries in Lambeth and they are all staffed by professional librarians. It was the "Occupation" wot done it, becoming for almost two weeks a focal point for local, national and even international news cycles.
Losses there have been. We miss the children's library in the front room (arguably once the bigliest and bestliest local children's library in the world) and the dedicated art gallery and meeting room next to it. Our librarians are under-staffed, working stretched and chaotic shifts to keep things going, and many thanks to them for that. The budget for new books has been axed (but somehow new and interesting titles keep appearing on the shelves). We miss the extra rooms, for the students to study in peace, for adult literacy groups (Ruskin Readers once used to call the Carnegie Library home), for the fabulous chess club, and our reading & wildlife garden is not what it once was, we cannot pretend otherwise. But the Carnegie Library Library is still here, there are still ten libraries in Lambeth, we still have a very talented team of professional librarians working for us, and the Council can be in no doubt of the importance of local libraries to the community.
On Saturday we also remembered Rachel Heywood, who could not be with us but sent a moving message that was read out. Rachel was the only councillor in the ruling party who acknowledged the community support for the libraries in opposition to proposed cuts. She spoke out on numerous occasions and she was there in front of the Brixton Library, speaking to and for the two thousand people reportedly who marched from the Carnegie Library to Windrush Square when the occupation ended. This ended her career in Lambeth politics.
