How My Father's Film Career Outdid John Wayne

Brentford West councillor Guy Lambert reports back

Cllr Guy Lambert

February 23, 2024

I have this lovely theory that I keep a day each week free from Hounslow-type nonsense so I become less of a cyberholic sitting in front of a screen all day each day. It’s probably a good ambition and the spirit is strong but the flesh is weak. Well the spirit is stronger than the flesh is more accurate but actually both were quite strong during the day on Friday, and my only date was with my dentist. The dentist who has grappled with what’s left of my pearly-yellow fangs for 40 years finally conceded defeat and retired, so I had a new one. On the first time in many he couldn’t find anything that he had an excuse to drill so I escaped.

Before that I had gone for a morning coffee in the Potting Shed – the café in Boston Manor Park. Lovely it was. There was a bloke in the queue before me who was doing a very complicated transaction. I realised he was refilling a lot of bottles with stuff from the Potting Shed shelves. Like shampoo (he excused himself for that, as he was bald as an orange) but I was impressed and people in Brentford with a reuse mentality have a great place to go.

There was also an ad for Street Dance Classes for kids, every Monday. Sadly I am usually busy on Monday evenings or I’d be there like a shot. And probably shot for pretending to be a kid.

On the way back home I stopped to look at the mess at the development opposite the station. Hounslow Highways guys were fixing the pavement that had been destroyed by lorries, meanwhile there were two large lorries parked on the street, causing a lot of delay and mayhem. Neither the Highways men or the builders I spoke to had little idea what they were doing and more to the point why. The locals think the developers here have no interest in following the rules and no interest in the opinions of their neighbours. The council enforcement team are on the case but the problems seem to persist.

In the evening I was back on duty, with the West London Oscars (as it were) where our nominee was the Lampton 360 commercial waste team. They weren’t really the Oscars, but the West London Business Awards. Lampton Recycling was up for one of them but came second boo hoo. You won’t know this but I actually have a sort of an Oscar in my flat.

My dad amongst other accomplishments was a serious amateur film maker, mostly about road safety. He won three of these beauties (one for each of his children) and I have the first one, from 1955. It says Awarded to E Lambert for his film Rode Safety. (if you are short of culture, it’s here) One of the Amateur Cine World 10 best films of 1955. I can’t say I really remember it but I remember him coming home with his third award and my big sister putting up a banner saying Welcome Home John Wayne. I didn’t know who John Wayne was then either. Looking back JW had won no Oscar or anything else of any great note until 1970 so sis was underselling my dad!

Oh and a quick call out for Alexanders. The Hounslow Community Foodbox’s most active supporters and they seemed to have been nominated for half of all the awards and win a lot of them. They are a wonderful company for Removals, Shipping and Storage.

None of that has anything to do with being a councillor in Brentford (apart from the Lampton and Boston Park/Road bits) so I’ll get back on subject, I promise.

Not yet though, because my next engagement was on Saturday for the opening of Hammersmith Bridge for us cycling types. A big load of us started out from Chiswick and met a lot more from Hammersmith etc. To be honest, cycling across the bridge and back was not all that exciting, but it had to be done because it is there.

I came back round Dukes Meadows and there were a lot of (I think all female) rowers out. Nice day to be out by the river.

On the way out I noticed a Jaguar E-type looking rather splendid as usual and it reminded me to take a look at the Duke’s show down Catherine Wheel Road when I was back in heaven.

It was packed with fancy cars and fancy people, plus a few from Brentford, fanciest of all, obviously. I had a go at Merlin about all the Rolls Royces (really) which were blocking the High Street. To be fair, they had hazard lights on so it didn’t count.

Whoof. On Monday morning I had been asked to go to the FoodBox because a well-wisher from Borras Construction had created and delivered some boxes (more than the picture) who had made some frames to help us grow fresh vegetables for our FoodBox users. I was there with Martha (a volunteer who looks after all this) and the man from Borras. The spade is strictly for decoration in my case.

Then I whizzed off to Hounslow, where I was meeting the homeless woman I mentioned before. We have made a bit of progress, and somebody read last week’s blog and we managed to collect 3 Oyster cards mainly from a charity which gave her £150 to help with her fares for a while. She was very grateful but she still lives in horrible circumstances, for now at least. I hate we have so much of this in what I think is still the 6 th richest country on the planet.

Then I did a session or two in an event which was celebrating LGBT History month. There was a small display showing a number of gay people with a connection to Hounslow, including Charles Hawtrey, EM Forster, Michael Redgrave, Freddie Mercury, Clare Balding etc. Plus some I had never heard of and some I didn’t know were gay – many had to keep quiet before it was decriminalised in 1967.

Later I had meetings with the deputy CEO about enforcement arrangements (my main interest is fly tipping!) and with the Deputy Leader, Deputy CEO and Finance Director about budget issues. Then home then back for a meeting about the budget with the Labour Group.

On Tuesday I was planning to go on an estate inspection but everything was falling behind so I cut that and prepared for a FoodBox trustee meeting in the afternoon and Cabinet in the evening, That was the public meeting, but the rest of us worked on until about 10pm debating privately about some things that are coming up shortly.

Except for a bit of exercise I spent Wednesday at home, doing various meetings. One was about NHS innovation around COPD – I think we called it mostly emphysemia and chronic bronchitis when I was a lad – which means it can largely be treated at home via apps or phone calls. This is better for the patient and the health professionals which would be engaged with a hospital visit. Of course, some calls will need hospital treatment but apparently something like 90% can be done this way. Has been piloted oop North somewhere and will now be rolled out across England. Very interesting and great presentation by a very fast-talking Nurse.

Then my regular meeting about Health Integration – proper meetings with other boroughs coming up and our own conclusions about how we should be reacting.

Then Lampton Group Audit committee, not my strong point despite having once been a qualified Accountant!

Now Thursday is back and in the morning I’m off in the drizzle to the Holiday Inn for the West London Festival of Business. Great place to do a bit of networking.

Then I joined a seminar about AI. At the start the presenter asked us all to assess our knowledge from 0 to 10. Then anybody who is more than 5 put your hand up. One hand between about 40 people (she turned out to be a lecturer!) and I was thinking 2 – I know how to spell it.

An informative talk but it makes you realise how little you know, and it is worth spending a bit of time on it, which I am planning to do.

So now I rate myself 3: I can spell it and know I have plenty of scope to learn.

Councillor Guy Lambert