Play it and they will come

Well that was bloody brilliant.

We'd like to say thank you to The Ladywell Tavern for hosting us, to Moira and the Brockley MAX team for creating the festival, to Brockley Jon for organising the night, to the musicians for performing for free - Louise & Irene, Rob Marr, Skinny Lister and Dune Lake (who also provided a lot of the equipment and technical help) and of course to all the people who turned up and gave their support.

We've no idea how many of the people even knew what Brockley Central was, but we're glad they came and it was nice to put more faces to names - Monkeyboy, Maradoll, Bagelmouse and Fabhat.

We also dragged a large contingent of people from work along, ostensibly because Irene is one of our colleagues but actually to convert them to South East London and guarantee at least some crowd. Weaned on Oyster and Revolution, they had to be herded on to an overground train, grumbling all the while. They came expecting the Wicker Man but found Local Hero.

As we stood by the bar, we were introduced to some people with an exciting business idea for Brockley and we did what we always do in those circumstances - we urged them to take the plunge on the basis that there is latent demand for more good businesses in Brockley. Last night, wedged amongst the Brockley massive, this line of argument hopefully sounded more a little more credible than usual.

At closing time, we walked home over Hilly Fields, dogger-free, dark, beautiful. Stars shone in the cloudy night sky.