The Tuesday before last I had the rare treat of getting off the whip in Parliament to attend a very special unveiling in Edmonton - a series of mosaics celebrating old music hall star, Marie Lloyd.I was joined by Year 6 pupils from St Edmunds Primary School who had made the mosaics, with help from community arts project, ArtStart (you can just see Debbie Dean from ArtStart at the back on the left), as well as the St Modwen Centre Manager, who had enabled the mosaics to adorn the entrance to the Market Square at Edmonton Green.
Thanks to a Heritage Lottery grant of £38,000, which I happily supported, the project was designed to commemorate Enfield's lost cinemas, theatres and music halls. The artwork - eight mosaics in total - is a depiction of the Empire Music Hall, which became the Granada Cinema before the building was demolished in 1970, for those of you who can remember that far back. Marie Lloyd gave the Empire much of its fame by giving her final performance there (she literally staggered off stage during the last song in her act, "It's a bit of a ruin that Cromwell knocked about a bit," and died a few days later), so it's only right that she is now remembered pictorially so close to the original site of the music hall.
It was great to see young children getting so involved in their local heritage through the project and having fun at the same time. Congratulations to everyone involved - the artwork gives Edmonton a great sense of character as people go about their shopping.