THE ANCHOR & The MEDIA
SAVING BRITAINS PUBS
Tom Kerridge & his awesome team gave my business a new lease of life. Being one of four pubs in the UK to be selected for the program in itself was phenomena. Then the real work started on me & the business and it paid off big time!
LANDLADY PORTRAIT
A photo from the gallery showing of: ‘Landlady Portraits’ by Photographer David Emery.
CHILDREN OF THE CARIBBEAN REVOLUTION WITH LINDSAY JOHNS
One Saturday in Oct 2022 I was contacted by Jaimie D’Cruz Creative Director, ACME TV further to a film part I auditioned for the year before. At the time I thought I had only auditioned then forgot about the whole process. To my surprise & gratitude I am actually featured in the film which is being broadcasted on Sunday October 9th at 10pm on BBC4. It will be available on BBC iPlayer from that date.
It is going out with the title of CHILDREN OF THE CARIBBEAN REVOLUTION with Lindsay Johns & is billed as a celebratory visual essay which reframes the history of the Caribbean through the lives of four inspirational revolutionary leaders.
Thank you for watching/recording and passing on the details to encourage viewing. Lana
‘WE’RE NOT A BLACK PUB. EVERYONE IS WELCOME’: MEET BRITAIN’S BAME LANDLORDS
Back in the days when you arrived here from Jamaica, the Golden Anchor was a place you could go to hear reggea music, meet family/friends & maybe get work in the building trade.
I remember around 1980 walking into pubs in Bermondsey and being the only black person there it felt strange.
By 1998 Nelson my first pub boss had long since passed and the landlords, one of whom was Jamaican, were looking to leave the Golden Anchor. I started back this time as the landlady, but with the 'boys' effectively running the pub! Ah that's why the previous landlords had given it up so keenly. The 'boys' had clients but I wasn't selling drinks? It wasn’t nice at all, but I had to front them out, me & my God against the 'boys' NO MATCH.
The Times
Going for Growth
For our Lana the cup is always half full: "People in the industry have had to adapt and reinvent themselves"..."...I almost gave up, but held on and everything changed for the better. I've got a new normal now: people are booking tables in the pub and I love it. I feel very lucky to even be open".
THE GOLDEN TOUCH THE PECKHAM PECULIAR
Legendary local the Golden Anchor is known for its music nights, tasty Caribbean food and community vibe. We popped in for a chat with landlady Lana Bewry, who has run the pub for 20 years.
From outside, the Golden Anchor on Nunhead’s Evelina Road looks like a typical neighbourhood corner pub – albeit with some cheerful pot plants out the front. But step through the door and it becomes clear this place is something a bit different. With a tropical palm tree mural on the wall behind her, and serving up a cool glass of Ting, landlady Lana Bewry (pictured above with her partner Greg) has run the Caribbean-flavoured pub for 20 years now.
Before that the landlady, who grew up on Queen’s Road, worked behind the bar there on Sundays and at other Peckham and Nunhead pubs too, while working for Royal Bank of Scotland during the week.
“It looked so dirty and dingy compared to the last time I’d seen it,” she says of the moment she stepped into the pub she’d just taken over. “It felt like we spent months cleaning it. I wanted it clean, full of customers and full of people dancing.”She ripped up the old, sticky carpet – “I remembered there was a lovely parquet floor underneath. I pulled up the carpet and there it was” – and bringing the pub back up to her own high standards, as well as setting up a kitchen serving authentic Caribbean cuisine.
Been So Long with Michaela Coel
The pub has recently been dressed up for another reason: it was used as a film set for an upcoming British movie called Been So Long. The film, which stars BAFTA-winning actress Michaela Coel (of hit comedy “Chewing Gum” fame), used the Golden Anchor as a classic London venue. The crew transformed the pub’s back room into an 1980s-style cocktail bar: “It was a really great experience,” says Lana.
Domino: a Short Film About West Indian Culture in the Uk
A film by Marcus Hessenberg with Elam Forrester.
Dominoes is a game that many recognise but not everyone knows how to play. In many cultures around the world, the game is hugely popular and in the West Indies it is common place. Filmed at the amazing Golden Anchor, Nunhead, a Caribbean pub in the quiet Victorian back streets of Nunhead near Nunhead Green, I meet regulars who play the game regularly and interview them about the game and the links to Caribbean culture.
The UK is home to a huge amount of people from the West Indies, especially London, due to the links with the old Empire and the Windrush generation that originally moved here in the 50s. West Indian culture has had a huge affect on British culture ever since and London was introduced to a whole new culture. South London became a home to those who came from Jamaica and neighbouring islands, with Brixton and Peckham becoming hubs for Caribbean food and culture. Electric Avenue in Brixton was turned into a song by Eddie Grant, Bob Marley was a regular to the area and the arcades started selling all the foods from home. Peckham turned from a British style high street to a West Indian and West Indies market place.
Domino: a Short Film About West Indian Culture in the Uk
A film by Marcus Hessenberg with Elam Forrester.
Dominoes is a game that many recognise but not everyone knows how to play. In many cultures around the world, the game is hugely popular and in the West Indies it is common place. Filmed at the amazing Golden Anchor, Nunhead, a Caribbean pub in the quiet Victorian back streets of Nunhead near Nunhead Green, I meet regulars who play the game regularly and interview them about the game and the links to Caribbean culture.
The Morning Advertiser:
‘I’d never seen another black person running a pub until a couple of years ago’
11-Aug-2020 By Stuart Stone
In light of the Black Lives Matter movement, The Morning Advertiser (MA) asked how well the pub industry reflects the society it serves.
SAVING BRITAIN'S PUBS with tom kerridge
Episode 1
Episode 1
Episode 1
For the last 20 years, pubs have been closing down at an alarming rate. Concerned by a crisis in the industry he loves, Tom Kerridge sets out on a mission to revive struggling pubs. Tom travels into London to find a third pub to support. Times have been tough for the capital’s pubs, with an average of 80 closing every year since 2000. Tom
For the last 20 years, pubs have been closing down at an alarming rate. Concerned by a crisis in the industry he loves, Tom Kerridge sets out on a mission to revive struggling pubs. Tom travels into London to find a third pub to support. Times have been tough for the capital’s pubs, with an average of 80 closing every year since 2000. Tom arrives in the south London neighbourhood of Nunhead to meet Lana, leaseholder at The Golden Anchor. She is struggling to pay the bills, and unless she can pull in more punters, The Golden Anchor will close. Tom learns more about the pub when he joins a game of the dominos with the regulars.
Episode 2
Episode 1
Episode 1
It is early 2020, and Tom Kerridge is adding a fourth pub to the list of businesses he wants to support. In south London’s Golden Anchor, Tom needs to convince Lana to push ahead with the modernisation of her once-thriving pub. For inspiration, he takes her to meet the enterprising landlord of the nearby Prince of Peckham pub and enlists
It is early 2020, and Tom Kerridge is adding a fourth pub to the list of businesses he wants to support. In south London’s Golden Anchor, Tom needs to convince Lana to push ahead with the modernisation of her once-thriving pub. For inspiration, he takes her to meet the enterprising landlord of the nearby Prince of Peckham pub and enlists Eve, his sister-in-law, to push ahead with refurbishments. Just as the hard work in all four pubs seems to be paying off, the pandemic strikes Britain. Now every pub in Britain faces a fight for survival.
Episode 3
Episode 1
Episode 3
Coronavirus is spreading and the British public are told to stay away from pubs. Tom and the landlords he has been supporting face a moral dilemma. Do they keep trying to trade or do they close their doors to fight the virus? On Friday 20 March 2020, the decision is taken out of their hands when the prime minister tells all pubs to close
Coronavirus is spreading and the British public are told to stay away from pubs. Tom and the landlords he has been supporting face a moral dilemma. Do they keep trying to trade or do they close their doors to fight the virus? On Friday 20 March 2020, the decision is taken out of their hands when the prime minister tells all pubs to close until further notice. Tom started this journey to save four pubs from going under - now every pub in Britain, his own included, finds themselves in a fight for survival. Finally, after 106 days closed, Britain’s pubs are allowed to welcome back customers. For roughly half of Britain’s pubs that do reopen, it is cause for celebration. But even they aren’t out of the woods yet.