IN your paper Mr Marc Crank, chief executive of the charity, London Centre for Children with Cerebral Palsy, gave a brief history of the Muswell Hill Festival (Ear we go – it’s time for the 2010 donkey derby, H&H Broadway August 12).

I was rather surprised to see that Mr Crank did not make any mention of the fact that the festival was started and was organised by our association for many years.

Let me fill in the missing details. The first festival was organised by our member Liz Luxmore and held on 10th July, 1976, in the car park behind Marks and Spencer.

In 1977 it was decided by the committee of our association to make the festival an annual event (for more information, please see our publication “The History of the Muswell Hill and Fortis Green Association” which we have just published).

From that date it was held annually on the streets of Muswell Hill and was an integral part of life in the area.

For the first time since its inception the festival was not held in 2003, due to various problems, such as not getting permission to close the road and not getting enough stall holders to participate. In September 2003 I organised a public meeting to discuss the future of the festival and to save it if at all possible.

That meeting was attended by the then chief executive of the above charity and, after lengthy discussions, it was decided to join forces and organise a joint festival in Cherry Tree Wood in 2004.

This proved to be a success and since then our association has been a strong supporter of the festival, offering help with publicity, selling programmes and in may other ways.

We will also have our own stand at the festival as usual and this time we will be selling copies of our book.

John HaJDu

chairman, Muswell Hill and

Fortis Green Association