This page was last updated on: May 27, 2021
THE LEVERSTOCK GREEN CHRONICLE
an in-depth history of one village in Hertfordshire UK.
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For a variety of reasons I can no longer spend the same amount of time as in the past on my research and updating this website, though I DO still explore our local history and continue to find new historic items of interest. e.g.from http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ which now publishes items online.

It is still my intention to update existing pages on the Leverstock Green Chronicle website and to add new information as and when time permits. With Social Media, and the digitisation of many national archives new information and images surface regularly. AS well as saving all this information to my computer, I ensure all new information is documented and printed and added to the growing number of Chronicle Archive Albums. The contents of these albums are catalogued and added to a spread sheet enabling myself (or anyone else in the future) to readily find the information, even should the website itself no longer exist.

If YOU have any information relating to Leverstock Green's history and members of your family who lived here, including photographs, ephemera etc.please contact me so I can arrange a meeting and/or exchange email addresses so I can include your information in my archive of Leverstock Green's history.

        Thankyou, Barbara Chapman 12/10/2018
To be continued.........
Please alter your viewing % if items are overlapping or muddled.  80%+ will probably give you the best view, but you will have to scroll to right/left to view everything.
LIFE DURING A PANDEMIC
As the cover of my annual family photobook says, 2020 was a year like no other!  Only sadly, it looks as if 2021 is following in its footsteps whether Covid or the Weather, though fortunately with some hope built in.
                                            THE INITIAL LEVERSTOCK GREEN ISOLATION CHALLENGE

As Leverstock Green’s Local Historian I thought it would be a good idea to record, if only in a limited fashion, what life is/was like in Leverstock Green during the present Corona Virus Crisis.  

The Challenge is open to all current Leverstock Green residents to record using text and/or photographs what is happening in ONE OR MORE of the following three categories.

I have set up a new Facebook Group page; “LEVERSTOCK GREEN’S ISOLATION CHALLENGE”, where I am asking you to join, and record your report(s) at least twice a month, but more often if you wish. By all means if you wish share your comments on your Facebook Time Line, but initially post your reports on this group page so that I can easily save them all to eventually collate together so that future Leverstock Green residents 25-50, or even 100 years down the line can get an idea of what it was like here in 2020. The three categories are as follows:

THE BOTANICAL CHALLENGE: Report on anything botanical within you house and garden, and further afield which you can see from your windows or garden. That is A)your garden if you have one, and the trees, flowers, fruit and vegetables growing there, whether in the ground or containers. Especially at this time of year as the trees grow their leaves, produce blossom etc. and the plants grow and add to the colour of our surroundings. B)Any houseplants, widow boxes, hanging baskets, pots of spring bulbs etc. Hopefully with photographs we can all share in the wonderful colours of all these plants.

THE WILDLIFE CHALLENGE: report on any wildlife you come into contact with or see whilst you are at home, or if taking your daily exercise, visiting the pharmacist etc. This can include your resident spiders, and other “wildlife” which makes it into the house; minibeasts, insects etc. Reptiles such as frogs and toads, many of which will have been spawning in your ponds if you have one. Small mammals such as mice, voles, squirrels, hedgehogs, and larger ones such as foxes, badgers and deer which might come into your gardens, or which you can see see from your window or garden. (It is quite usual for us to have a fox in the garden, and occasionally some Muntjac deer). And of course it also includes our birds. Are your garden birds nesting ( or preparing to do so)?; Which birds do you see in the garden? Do you have bird-feeders, birdbaths etc. and what other birds do you see from your windows and gardens? e.g. the magnificent Red Kites we see frequently, and other larger birds such as Kestrals, Woodpeckers, Magpies, Crows, Gulls etc. 

C) Lastly the PERSONAL CHALLENGE. Record under this theme any tasks and skills you have undertaken which you would not normally have done. For example, learning to Skype, home-tutoring your children, following celebrities on TV as they try to get us to “Keep Fit” etc.



       
         To be continued.........

At the time of writing this webpage (25 May 2021) I have amassed well over a 1000 pages which I have already put into albums as well as saving electronically. I have also sent the details to HALS on DVD as part of their Covid-19 Project. See https://archives.hertfordshire.gov.uk/recording-herts-response-to-covid-19/

Below is the introduction I wrote for the first complete album - LEVERSTOCK GREEN CHRONICAL DOCUMENTS ALBUM No56
LEVERSTOCK GREEN CHRONICLE DOCUMENTS, ALBUM No.56
INTRODUCTION TO THE CONTENTS OF THIS ALBUM,
BEING INCLUSIVE OF ITEMS RELATING TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC,AND STARTING FROM THE END OF FEBRUARY 2020.

My usual practice with these albums containing a mixture of documents, photographs and some ephemera relating to Leverstock Green, is to include them in the order I come across the information. Some items can be over 100 years old, other written the day before.

However, we are currently living through a period of time, the like of which we have never before experienced in modern times. That is we are in the midst of a World Wide Pandemic of the virus COVID-19. Full details of the pandemic and its spread can be found at https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/events-as-they-happen
The first occasion the virus was brought to the attention of the World Health Organisation was on 31 December 2019, and a few days later it became apparent that there was a newly mutated Covid Virus causing major problems in the Chinese district of Wuhan.

0-12 January 2020
The World Health Organisation (WHO) published a comprehensive package of guidance documents for countries, covering topics related to the management of an outbreak of a new disease:
•Infection prevention and control
•Laboratory testing
•National capacities review tool
•Risk communication and community engagement
•Disease Commodity Package (v1)
•Disease Commodity Package (v2)
•Travel advice
•Clinical management
•Surveillance case definitions

Full details of the growth and knowledge of this new disease during January can be found on the previously listed website. With the rapid increase and spread of the disease, mostly in China, but spreading to other countries, by 5 February 2020 WHO's headquarters began holding daily media briefings on the novel coronavirus, the first time that WHO has held daily briefings by the Director-General or Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme.

On the 5 March the first death from COVID-19 was recorded in the UK. The first Hertfordshire death occurred on 9 March, with more deaths following from 21 March.

I was due to attend the Ulcer Clinic at Gossoms End (near Berkhamstead) on 13 March, and I contacted the clinic to ask if indeed I should attend. As I was assured that the nurse I was seeing was indeed the only member of staff there that day, and that there was only one other patient due at the clinic that day, I attended. Thankfully this subsequently led to my referral to the Lymphoedema Specialist nurses, who have come out to me regularly twice a week, covered in their protective clothing. 

The Government first published its “Stay at Home & Stay Away From Others” – i.e. “Safe distancing” guidance on 23 March. By this time Supermarkets were being totally emptied of goods due to panic buying, and we had already decided to have groceries delivered from Sainsbury’s for the foreseeable future.
My “Historian’s” brain had quickly realised how important the whole problem was to the World, and that it presented an opportunity as Leverstock Green’s local historian to document what was happening locally, so I decided to give residents a challenge, and post details of our village, and how our residents lives’ changed on Facebook. 
FULL DETAILS OF THIS CHALLENGE FOLLOW AFTER THIS DOCUMENT.
.............................................................................

THINGS TO NOTE RE WHAT I HAVE RECORDED.
Firstly, only a few people formally signed up to the challenge, however it soon became apparent that with so much time on their hands following “Lockdown” lots of people were documenting their local environment, their gardens, and other aspects of life during lockdown, mostly on the LGVA Facebook page. It also very quickly started to show the compassion of many people, and the desire to help others if at all possible during such difficult times.. One way in which this materialised was the way in which locals offered many items they had now decided they no longer needed, to others locally and mostly for FREE. Another was by using their own skills to make masks and in some instances other related items such as Scrubs. (See photos below) 

Secondly I had originally intended to keep specifically COVID related items and all other items separate. However, I now realise that it would make much more sense to arrange ALL items, wherever possible in chronological order of when they happened. The document I created, mostly from Facebook and occasional other social media pages, I headed with “LEVERSTOCK GREEN CHALLENGE (number), POSTED BY....... (DATE). The only problem with this being that for a variety of reasons, the number of each document as I created it chronologically, was not the same necessarily as the date when it was published. In part this was due to the fact that each time I logged on, I was naturally taken to the head of the column, but also I noticed, as I often had in the past, that even given the date they were published, the list itself could be in a muddled order. Why? I do not know, possibly to do with the speed at which different Internet providers published their clients information.  

In any case I continue to give the documents a number in the order I created them, but once printed, I decided I would re-arrange the documents in order of their original date of publication, and slot in, also in original publication date, the other items I had saved. The idea being that eventually the overall picture given would give a true picture of life in Leverstock Green during the pandemic as it progressed.
Lastly, I am today starting on printing the 130 plus documents I have amassed since the end of February 2020. Today – 4 July 2020 – is also the first day in England when lockdown is being officially eased with the opening of venues such as certain shops, pubs and other venues. However, as an individual, and one within the more vulnerable category, we shall continue to stay predominantly at home, not least because the photographs of the thousands who flocked to the beaches recently, where you could barely put a pin-prick between people, let alone 1 meter plus ( the new guidance) makes me fearful of things getting worse again before continuing to improve. We shall have to wait and see.

Also I today received an email from HALS re contributing to their COVID 19 catalogue. This I shall print out when I get to the July section of documents.
                                                    Barbara Chapman 4 July 2020

  I shall be posting some photos and photo galleries in due course giving examples covering various subjects. e.g.  Local sites, Special Activities and Events, The Weather, Helping Others etc. I will however, first of all need to ensure the photographers are happy for me to include their photos. I am also hoping I shall be able to import some whole documents as examples, but have as yet not been able to find out how to do this, and will also have to get the permission of the initial contributor for both photos and documents.  BAC 25/05/2021
Masks and Scrubs made by local resident Julie Roberts, seen here modelling a pair of Scrubs. 
© Julie Roberts