Here we go again! More kidnapping, more Austin Maxis, more journeys to the curious recesses of the mind of my guest. This episode it’s cultural historian Emma Warren, who has championed everything from youth clubs to dancing in her marvellous books, and this time shares an infatuation with Lewisham High Street in South London.

As a former resident of Lewisham I am very familiar with the energy of this often maligned corner of South London. It’s too much for some, but not for the residents of this London Borough, who have seen everything from riots, redevelopment and reasonably priced fry-ups happen on their patch.

Emma takes us through the history of the place, as a hotbed of radicalism and resistance, but also as a community hub famed for its market and even its McDonalds (as featured in Novelists’s 2014 track Lewisham McDeez).

While we’re there she also alights on a church, from where you can buy Virgin Mary Holy Water bottles. Derided by some as the epitome of kitsch, these are also much-loved and nostalgic relics of Catholic family life, and here lapsed Emma shares the joy of holy water bottles shaped like Mary, an essential in the home of her maternal grandmother.

Emma Warren is a writer and broadcaster, author of a number of warm and wonderful books that cross social and cultural history, including her most recent, Up the Youth Club, which tells the brilliant hidden story of youth clubs from across the last century, and Dance Your Way Home: A Journey Through The Dancefloor (Faber, 2023). She was a founding contributor to Jockey Slut magazine, worked on staff at The Face and as an editorial mentor at Brixton youth-run Live Mag.

Get full access to Grindrodia at johngrindrod.substack.com/subscribe