1 00:00:02,200 --> 00:00:05,060 Once upon a time, it was a symbol of hope. 2 00:00:05,060 --> 00:00:10,100 Hope for a better life, if we did have a better life there. 3 00:00:10,100 --> 00:00:12,980 For some, Grenfell Tower is more 4 00:00:12,980 --> 00:00:15,580 than just the ruin everyone's seen on the news. 5 00:00:15,580 --> 00:00:19,060 Mum gave birth to me at Grenfell Tower in 1982. 6 00:00:20,100 --> 00:00:22,140 The flats were out of this world. 7 00:00:22,140 --> 00:00:25,980 To what we'd been brought up in, it was a palace. 8 00:00:25,980 --> 00:00:27,980 This is where I grew up, this is where my heart is 9 00:00:27,980 --> 00:00:30,660 and this is where I always want to be. 10 00:00:30,660 --> 00:00:32,780 Before the fire, you might have thought of Kensington 11 00:00:32,780 --> 00:00:36,300 as simply the wealthiest place in Britain. 12 00:00:36,300 --> 00:00:40,900 But now, everyone could see it was also one of the most deprived. 13 00:00:40,900 --> 00:00:45,980 We've always felt like there's a "them" and there's an "us". 14 00:00:45,980 --> 00:00:50,140 Today, the gap between the richest residents and the poorest 15 00:00:50,140 --> 00:00:53,220 is wider here than anywhere else in the country. 16 00:00:53,220 --> 00:00:55,020 We're talking about millionaires, 17 00:00:55,020 --> 00:00:57,020 the millionaires that live up the road. 18 00:00:57,020 --> 00:00:59,260 The disparity is almost surrealistic. 19 00:00:59,260 --> 00:01:01,900 People have got, like, clubs and swimming pools 20 00:01:01,900 --> 00:01:04,540 and things underneath their houses. 21 00:01:04,540 --> 00:01:08,220 But the extreme inequality that Grenfell revealed 22 00:01:08,220 --> 00:01:11,980 was something that the residents of this part of Kensington 23 00:01:11,980 --> 00:01:14,340 have lived with for over 150 years. 24 00:01:14,340 --> 00:01:17,140 It's part of a story, it's part of a journey. 25 00:01:17,140 --> 00:01:19,580 It's connected to the history of this borough 26 00:01:19,580 --> 00:01:22,420 and the disparity between the rich and the poor. 27 00:01:24,260 --> 00:01:27,740 This film will tell the story of the working-class community 28 00:01:27,740 --> 00:01:29,540 whose families have lived 29 00:01:29,540 --> 00:01:32,580 in the area around Grenfell Tower for generations. 30 00:01:32,580 --> 00:01:34,420 They're not just ordinary parents, 31 00:01:34,420 --> 00:01:37,060 they're parents who have come through that adversity for you 32 00:01:37,060 --> 00:01:39,700 and that strength is genetic in you. 33 00:01:39,700 --> 00:01:44,940 From Victorian slums to racial division and '70s housing estates, 34 00:01:45,180 --> 00:01:47,460 it's the story of how North Kensington 35 00:01:47,460 --> 00:01:50,460 became the most unequal place in Britain. 36 00:01:50,460 --> 00:01:53,180 It's the old story, divide and conquer. 37 00:01:53,180 --> 00:01:56,260 It was hard, it was damn hard, 38 00:01:56,260 --> 00:02:01,420 but that is what made me very strong. 39 00:02:01,740 --> 00:02:04,780 Because if you understand the history of this place, 40 00:02:04,780 --> 00:02:08,140 you'll understand how Grenfell could have happened here. 41 00:02:08,140 --> 00:02:11,780 It's the past disrespect, the ignoring of our voice, 42 00:02:11,780 --> 00:02:14,340 that made that disaster happen. 43 00:02:14,340 --> 00:02:16,700 We've learnt to be survivors 44 00:02:16,700 --> 00:02:19,700 and, no matter how much they tear us down, 45 00:02:19,700 --> 00:02:22,500 we will always get up and fight. 46 00:02:33,940 --> 00:02:36,180 Welcome to Kensington - 47 00:02:36,180 --> 00:02:39,060 five square miles of London, just west of the centre. 48 00:02:40,460 --> 00:02:42,340 It's the richest borough in the country. 49 00:02:43,660 --> 00:02:45,780 It has the richest residents, 50 00:02:45,780 --> 00:02:48,740 the richest homes, there's even a palace. 51 00:02:50,820 --> 00:02:53,660 But there's another side to Kensington, too, 52 00:02:53,660 --> 00:02:57,100 a side that, until recently, no-one really talked about... 53 00:02:58,540 --> 00:03:00,180 This side. 54 00:03:00,180 --> 00:03:02,180 There is an invisible boundary. 55 00:03:02,180 --> 00:03:04,620 On one side, those that can afford everything 56 00:03:04,620 --> 00:03:07,060 and then there's those that can't. 57 00:03:09,300 --> 00:03:14,380 In this part of the borough, average income is over £150,000 a year. 58 00:03:14,580 --> 00:03:19,380 But just yards away, a third of families earn £16,000 or less. 59 00:03:20,580 --> 00:03:25,220 It's all unequal and I think that everyone ignored it 60 00:03:25,220 --> 00:03:27,860 and then, as soon as Grenfell happened, 61 00:03:27,860 --> 00:03:30,420 it was thrown in your face 62 00:03:30,420 --> 00:03:33,420 and everyone could see around the... 63 00:03:33,420 --> 00:03:37,620 The whole thing is unequal, everything's unequal. 64 00:03:37,620 --> 00:03:39,660 You know, and it's not their fault 65 00:03:39,660 --> 00:03:41,380 because they wouldn't have a clue. 66 00:03:41,380 --> 00:03:43,580 It's just a different world. 67 00:03:43,580 --> 00:03:47,580 And I think, because of Grenfell, it opened up our world to people. 68 00:03:51,020 --> 00:03:53,900 Grenfell Tower stands in North Kensington, 69 00:03:53,900 --> 00:03:56,180 the poorest part of the borough, 70 00:03:56,180 --> 00:03:58,220 in an area called Notting Dale. 71 00:04:00,780 --> 00:04:02,100 If you know the whole story, 72 00:04:02,100 --> 00:04:03,860 then it's obviously connected 73 00:04:03,860 --> 00:04:08,660 to the disparity between the rich and the poor in this borough. 74 00:04:08,660 --> 00:04:11,620 Inequality is nothing new. 75 00:04:11,620 --> 00:04:14,500 It's at least 150 years old, going on 200 years old, 76 00:04:14,500 --> 00:04:16,100 just in this borough. 77 00:04:16,100 --> 00:04:18,540 It's always been about those two extremes. 78 00:04:21,620 --> 00:04:25,460 But the story of inequality in Kensington isn't a simple one. 79 00:04:27,660 --> 00:04:30,140 To understand how it ended up like this, 80 00:04:30,140 --> 00:04:32,180 you have to go back to its very beginnings. 81 00:04:34,620 --> 00:04:37,940 In the 1840s, London's population was growing. 82 00:04:39,300 --> 00:04:42,740 So on what was then the open fields of Notting Hill, 83 00:04:42,740 --> 00:04:47,180 ambitious property developers began building large, expensive houses 84 00:04:47,180 --> 00:04:48,540 for affluent families. 85 00:04:52,140 --> 00:04:54,300 But there was a slight problem. 86 00:04:54,300 --> 00:04:56,940 Right next door to the posh new houses 87 00:04:56,940 --> 00:05:00,100 was the worst slum in Victorian London. 88 00:05:01,300 --> 00:05:04,900 It was a pretty poor, rundown area. 89 00:05:04,900 --> 00:05:08,340 There wasn't housing as such. They were shacks. 90 00:05:08,340 --> 00:05:10,940 They were thrown together like... 91 00:05:12,180 --> 00:05:14,740 ..sadly, like we see now in Third World countries. 92 00:05:16,460 --> 00:05:19,700 Alan Tyrrell lives down the road from Grenfell Tower, 93 00:05:19,700 --> 00:05:21,340 right where the slums once stood. 94 00:05:23,140 --> 00:05:25,420 I mean, some actually lived with their pigs. 95 00:05:27,020 --> 00:05:31,260 You would have been up to your elbows in human excrement, 96 00:05:31,260 --> 00:05:33,100 pig shit, you name it. 97 00:05:34,300 --> 00:05:36,820 It's kind of pen and ink a bit, isn't it? You know. 98 00:05:37,980 --> 00:05:41,020 The average life expectancy here was just 11 years... 99 00:05:42,140 --> 00:05:44,460 ..compared to 37 across the rest of London. 100 00:05:46,500 --> 00:05:48,860 And the pig keepers were giving Notting Dale 101 00:05:48,860 --> 00:05:52,420 a reputation for filth and disease. 102 00:05:52,420 --> 00:05:55,900 Latimer Station been named Piggery Junction! 103 00:05:55,900 --> 00:05:57,260 I still can't believe it. 104 00:06:00,300 --> 00:06:02,780 It just makes you wonder 105 00:06:02,780 --> 00:06:06,620 about the way things were, 106 00:06:06,620 --> 00:06:09,460 the rich over there and the poor down here. 107 00:06:09,460 --> 00:06:11,500 It hasn't really changed. 108 00:06:11,500 --> 00:06:13,100 I think that stigma is still there. 109 00:06:15,100 --> 00:06:16,580 It's like two worlds, really. 110 00:06:20,020 --> 00:06:22,460 And these two worlds were divided by a wall. 111 00:06:23,820 --> 00:06:26,220 It was built in 1864 112 00:06:26,220 --> 00:06:29,060 and still stands at the bottom of Alan's garden. 113 00:06:29,060 --> 00:06:30,780 That's the infamous wall - 114 00:06:30,780 --> 00:06:33,660 it was to keep us out and them in. 115 00:06:33,660 --> 00:06:36,620 A physical barrier between them and us. 116 00:06:36,620 --> 00:06:38,700 They extended right the way along, 117 00:06:38,700 --> 00:06:41,060 right the way down to what is Wilson Street. 118 00:06:44,180 --> 00:06:46,420 On the southern edge of Notting Dale, 119 00:06:46,420 --> 00:06:49,900 the wall divides the affluent St James's Gardens, 120 00:06:49,900 --> 00:06:52,900 home then to lawyers, bankers, and sea captains, 121 00:06:52,900 --> 00:06:54,140 from Alan's side... 122 00:06:55,540 --> 00:07:00,220 ..then a notorious slum, filled with prostitutes, criminals, 123 00:07:00,220 --> 00:07:02,100 and those of the lowest class. 124 00:07:04,140 --> 00:07:08,180 All the people in St James's were the elite. 125 00:07:08,180 --> 00:07:11,220 I mean, there's record that one house, 126 00:07:11,220 --> 00:07:15,540 I think there was nine servants for just two people. 127 00:07:15,540 --> 00:07:17,700 Now, that says something, doesn't it? 128 00:07:17,700 --> 00:07:19,260 The affluence and the wealth. 129 00:07:20,740 --> 00:07:23,380 But it wasn't always supposed to be two worlds. 130 00:07:24,820 --> 00:07:29,300 Original plans show a road that was once meant to link rich and poor... 131 00:07:30,300 --> 00:07:31,340 Union Street. 132 00:07:32,940 --> 00:07:34,020 But it never got built. 133 00:07:35,300 --> 00:07:38,220 Where we're looking now was going to be a through road. 134 00:07:39,860 --> 00:07:44,140 Union was for everybody to be united, but it certainly didn't. 135 00:07:44,140 --> 00:07:46,460 In fact, it was the opposite. It was divided. 136 00:07:47,540 --> 00:07:50,940 It was a 19th-century Berlin Wall. 137 00:07:50,940 --> 00:07:53,020 It was to keep us out and them in. 138 00:07:54,900 --> 00:07:59,780 Inequality had been built into the very fabric of the streets. 139 00:07:59,780 --> 00:08:02,380 You know, there's always been that separation 140 00:08:02,380 --> 00:08:06,260 and that's been going on for, what, 150 years at least now. 141 00:08:06,260 --> 00:08:09,300 It would have always been there because the Royal Borough 142 00:08:09,300 --> 00:08:11,500 are all the king's horses and all the king's men, 143 00:08:11,500 --> 00:08:13,780 and not everybody is part of that. 144 00:08:13,780 --> 00:08:16,300 Yeah? There's the people at the bottom of the hill 145 00:08:16,300 --> 00:08:18,820 who will never be part of that establishment. 146 00:08:21,180 --> 00:08:23,260 Even today, homes on this side of the wall 147 00:08:23,260 --> 00:08:25,980 are worth around £8 million. 148 00:08:25,980 --> 00:08:28,300 But just on the other side of the wall is an estate 149 00:08:28,300 --> 00:08:31,820 with some of the highest levels of child poverty in Britain. 150 00:08:42,220 --> 00:08:46,100 For a long time, North Kensington remained two very distinct worlds - 151 00:08:46,100 --> 00:08:51,140 the rich up in Notting Hill and the poor below them in Notting Dale. 152 00:08:54,820 --> 00:08:58,860 Only after the Wall Street crash, when the Great Depression hit, 153 00:08:58,860 --> 00:09:02,100 did the boundaries between rich and poor really start to shift. 154 00:09:04,780 --> 00:09:06,100 And it was the Depression 155 00:09:06,100 --> 00:09:08,540 that brought many residents' grandparents here. 156 00:09:10,460 --> 00:09:12,380 This picture, I found. 157 00:09:12,380 --> 00:09:16,340 This is my great-grandfather, my great-grandmother. 158 00:09:16,340 --> 00:09:18,260 This is my gran. 159 00:09:18,260 --> 00:09:20,580 My grandad was a Jarrow walker 160 00:09:20,580 --> 00:09:22,660 and walked down from Newcastle. 161 00:09:25,060 --> 00:09:28,940 A period of extreme austerity after the financial crash 162 00:09:28,940 --> 00:09:33,620 had pushed unemployment in Britain to an all-time high. 163 00:09:33,620 --> 00:09:36,660 The gap now between rich and poor was vast. 164 00:09:38,100 --> 00:09:41,740 So thousands of the working classes from all across Britain, 165 00:09:41,740 --> 00:09:46,620 including Laura's grandfather, marched on London to protest. 166 00:09:46,620 --> 00:09:51,900 So they decided to walk down to the Prime Minister at Downing Street. 167 00:09:55,340 --> 00:09:56,900 Downing Street didn't open the door, 168 00:09:56,900 --> 00:09:58,380 so they couldn't actually get in, 169 00:09:58,380 --> 00:10:01,220 but it started off with, like, 200 men and ended up being 2,000. 170 00:10:01,220 --> 00:10:03,500 It's quite famous, the Jarrow Walk, 171 00:10:03,500 --> 00:10:07,140 but, anyway, he didn't move back to Newcastle. 172 00:10:07,140 --> 00:10:11,380 He got a job and sent for my grandmother, my gran, 173 00:10:11,380 --> 00:10:16,180 and my great-aunt and my great-uncle from Newcastle 174 00:10:16,180 --> 00:10:17,300 and sent them down. 175 00:10:17,300 --> 00:10:20,940 They got a boat down because they couldn't afford the train, 176 00:10:20,940 --> 00:10:22,620 so they got a boat down all the way. 177 00:10:22,620 --> 00:10:24,700 My nan said it was, like, ages. 178 00:10:26,820 --> 00:10:29,860 As the poor flocked to the city in search of work, 179 00:10:29,860 --> 00:10:32,700 the population of North Kensington began to grow. 180 00:10:34,340 --> 00:10:37,580 But the Depression had hit the rich round here, too. 181 00:10:37,580 --> 00:10:42,260 Their large homes beyond the wall were now too expensive to maintain 182 00:10:42,260 --> 00:10:45,700 and, with more and more poor families living nearby, 183 00:10:45,700 --> 00:10:47,940 many fled to the sanctuary of the suburbs. 184 00:10:49,180 --> 00:10:52,620 Their vacated properties were now hastily subdivided 185 00:10:52,620 --> 00:10:54,460 into cheap flats to rent 186 00:10:54,460 --> 00:10:57,460 and, soon, working-class families moved 187 00:10:57,460 --> 00:11:00,140 into the once wealthy Notting Hill. 188 00:11:02,140 --> 00:11:07,260 I can't imagine now how my parents, coming from a place like Llanelli, 189 00:11:08,180 --> 00:11:13,220 lovely fields, cows, sheep, and all that sort of thing, 190 00:11:13,220 --> 00:11:16,380 and coming to a rundown house in Portland Road. 191 00:11:18,620 --> 00:11:20,740 The landlords neglected the buildings, 192 00:11:20,740 --> 00:11:24,540 and soon they were riddled with vermin and lice. 193 00:11:24,540 --> 00:11:26,980 My mother was stuck in the top floor, you know. 194 00:11:26,980 --> 00:11:30,260 To go to the toilet, she'd have to go through someone else's house, 195 00:11:30,260 --> 00:11:32,660 out the kitchen. The cooker that was on the landing 196 00:11:32,660 --> 00:11:35,100 was shared by other families. 197 00:11:35,100 --> 00:11:38,340 But she...she did what tens of thousands of other mothers 198 00:11:38,340 --> 00:11:40,580 had to do in them days, get on with it. 199 00:11:42,500 --> 00:11:45,620 By 1936, there were over 2,500 families 200 00:11:45,620 --> 00:11:49,100 living in overcrowded and unsanitary homes. 201 00:11:50,140 --> 00:11:53,660 But the working-class population still continued to rise 202 00:11:53,660 --> 00:11:56,460 as more came looking for work 203 00:11:56,460 --> 00:11:58,660 because not all the rich had retreated to the country. 204 00:12:00,580 --> 00:12:02,380 Just a few streets away, 205 00:12:02,380 --> 00:12:05,340 South Kensington was one of the last remaining strongholds 206 00:12:05,340 --> 00:12:06,980 of the aristocratic classes... 207 00:12:08,180 --> 00:12:09,820 ..who still needed servants. 208 00:12:11,260 --> 00:12:13,900 My gran, at 13, moved into Portland Road 209 00:12:13,900 --> 00:12:18,540 and then my gran became a maid for Lord Holland. 210 00:12:18,540 --> 00:12:21,500 She used to scrub, you know, scrub the steps and stuff. 211 00:12:22,820 --> 00:12:27,500 Holland House was the grandest of all the mansions in Kensington 212 00:12:27,500 --> 00:12:29,820 and employed over 30 staff. 213 00:12:30,980 --> 00:12:35,540 It was hard work, but she was grateful that she had a job. 214 00:12:35,540 --> 00:12:38,260 If there was any sausages left, like two sausages, 215 00:12:38,260 --> 00:12:39,500 and she brought them home... 216 00:12:40,580 --> 00:12:42,300 ..she was like, the family were like... 217 00:12:42,300 --> 00:12:43,340 SHE GASPS 218 00:12:45,700 --> 00:12:49,300 Being allowed to take home scraps from your employer's table 219 00:12:49,300 --> 00:12:53,300 may have felt like a privilege to poor families like Laura's, 220 00:12:53,300 --> 00:12:54,700 but it came at a price. 221 00:12:56,140 --> 00:13:00,140 Imagine those children having to work there 222 00:13:00,140 --> 00:13:02,020 because they were children, you know. 223 00:13:02,020 --> 00:13:05,460 Imagine 13-year-olds having to work 224 00:13:05,460 --> 00:13:08,740 and doing that just because they had to, 225 00:13:08,740 --> 00:13:11,940 so they can help their family survive 226 00:13:11,940 --> 00:13:15,700 and you think, "Bloody hell, I couldn't do it". 227 00:13:15,700 --> 00:13:18,340 You know, that's the strongness of that generation. 228 00:13:18,340 --> 00:13:22,340 They didn't really have a choice and they had to, 229 00:13:22,340 --> 00:13:25,500 and that's why they've passed on, I hope, 230 00:13:25,500 --> 00:13:28,220 that strength down the genes. 231 00:13:30,660 --> 00:13:35,020 I think it's like, nowadays, there's people that are cleaners, 232 00:13:35,020 --> 00:13:40,220 that are nannies that work for the rich and come home to, you know, 233 00:13:40,420 --> 00:13:43,260 something...maybe a room, if they're lucky. 234 00:13:43,260 --> 00:13:45,260 You know, they might have a one-bedroom 235 00:13:45,260 --> 00:13:46,540 or they might have a bedsit. 236 00:13:49,100 --> 00:13:50,780 No-one on the estate's mums had it easy. 237 00:13:51,780 --> 00:13:53,420 They would squeeze families so hard 238 00:13:53,420 --> 00:13:55,460 and made it so hard for us at the bottom 239 00:13:55,460 --> 00:14:00,340 that all we can really focus on is keeping our roof over our head, 240 00:14:00,340 --> 00:14:02,620 and that was it. That's the be all and end all, innit? 241 00:14:02,620 --> 00:14:04,180 Like, just keep the roof over our head. 242 00:14:05,500 --> 00:14:08,020 People around here work hard. They work hard. 243 00:14:09,660 --> 00:14:13,340 Today, the same number of people work in domestic service in London 244 00:14:13,340 --> 00:14:15,140 as they did in Victorian times. 245 00:14:17,380 --> 00:14:19,180 But, 70 years ago, 246 00:14:19,180 --> 00:14:22,860 the old world of masters and servants was about to be destroyed. 247 00:14:31,100 --> 00:14:34,460 30,000 homes were bombed in Kensington by the Nazis. 248 00:14:35,820 --> 00:14:39,900 The bombs were indiscriminate, falling on rich and poor alike. 249 00:14:40,980 --> 00:14:42,740 Holland House was destroyed... 250 00:14:44,380 --> 00:14:46,020 ..and so too was Alan's. 251 00:14:47,420 --> 00:14:49,500 148 Portland Road, 252 00:14:49,500 --> 00:14:51,700 the only house at the time to get bombed, 253 00:14:51,700 --> 00:14:55,460 which my mum always said, "That's the best thing Hitler ever done" - 254 00:14:55,460 --> 00:14:58,020 because it got rid of all the bugs and the rats. 255 00:14:59,420 --> 00:15:01,660 When the smoke cleared after the war, 256 00:15:01,660 --> 00:15:05,340 the rich chose not to return to the bomb site that was North Kensington. 257 00:15:07,740 --> 00:15:11,100 The whole area was now equal for the first time - 258 00:15:11,100 --> 00:15:12,620 equally poor. 259 00:15:14,460 --> 00:15:17,060 But although the wealthy no longer lived here, 260 00:15:17,060 --> 00:15:19,140 they still owned almost all the homes. 261 00:15:20,540 --> 00:15:22,620 Rents had been capped during the war, 262 00:15:22,620 --> 00:15:27,060 but in 1957 a new law scrapped rent controls. 263 00:15:27,060 --> 00:15:29,500 Landlords could now charge what they liked 264 00:15:29,500 --> 00:15:32,300 and make life even harder for the residents. 265 00:15:32,300 --> 00:15:33,860 You are a representative 266 00:15:33,860 --> 00:15:36,780 of one of London's largest firms of flat owners. 267 00:15:36,780 --> 00:15:38,820 Are you going to put your rents up? 268 00:15:38,820 --> 00:15:42,460 Yes, we are, by an average of about 30%. 269 00:15:43,700 --> 00:15:46,740 Some unscrupulous property owners decided to make a killing... 270 00:15:47,980 --> 00:15:50,940 ..and they had an ideal group of new arrivals to exploit. 271 00:15:57,220 --> 00:16:00,340 Well, we were like pioneers, it was an adventure. 272 00:16:00,340 --> 00:16:03,580 We didn't know where we were going. We didn't know if we'd get there. 273 00:16:04,820 --> 00:16:08,420 In the '50s, desperately short of labour after the war, 274 00:16:08,420 --> 00:16:10,300 Britain had advertised for workers 275 00:16:10,300 --> 00:16:13,580 to come here from our old colonies in the Caribbean. 276 00:16:13,580 --> 00:16:15,380 Thousands answered the call. 277 00:16:17,020 --> 00:16:19,820 We were two weeks at sea. 278 00:16:19,820 --> 00:16:23,100 We stopped off at quite a few places 279 00:16:23,100 --> 00:16:25,540 until we got to England. 280 00:16:27,980 --> 00:16:33,220 The crossover from the Caribbean to here wasn't easy, 281 00:16:33,500 --> 00:16:36,900 but we made it easy by being together. 282 00:16:39,180 --> 00:16:43,700 Among the thousands who made the trip over in 1957 to look for work 283 00:16:43,700 --> 00:16:48,700 and a place to call her own was 21-year-old Vee Davies. 284 00:16:48,700 --> 00:16:52,780 It's the mother country, they used to call it the mother country, 285 00:16:52,780 --> 00:16:56,020 and everything would be all right. 286 00:16:57,220 --> 00:17:00,060 The only thing I never expected... 287 00:17:01,540 --> 00:17:03,900 ..to be reminded how black I am. 288 00:17:05,860 --> 00:17:10,860 Now, inequality in North Kensington was no longer just about wealth, 289 00:17:10,860 --> 00:17:13,140 it was also about race, 290 00:17:13,140 --> 00:17:16,380 and it began as soon as you tried to find somewhere to live. 291 00:17:16,380 --> 00:17:20,180 They tell you plain, no blacks, 292 00:17:20,180 --> 00:17:22,660 Irish, and the dogs. 293 00:17:24,220 --> 00:17:27,300 "If you're black, you can't come in my place, 294 00:17:27,300 --> 00:17:30,420 you can't, it's not allowed. You're not going to come". 295 00:17:31,660 --> 00:17:33,580 So, where would you go? 296 00:17:33,580 --> 00:17:35,860 Where would you go for a roof over your head? 297 00:17:38,460 --> 00:17:40,740 One answer was to approach a man in North Kensington 298 00:17:40,740 --> 00:17:44,020 who would become one of London's most infamous landlords... 299 00:17:45,140 --> 00:17:46,260 Peter Rachman. 300 00:17:49,300 --> 00:17:51,460 Down the mean streets of west London, 301 00:17:51,460 --> 00:17:55,740 Peter Rachman drove his crimson Rolls-Royce, PR 23. 302 00:17:55,740 --> 00:17:57,540 This was his empire. 303 00:17:57,540 --> 00:17:59,780 "Is it not passing great", he may have thought, 304 00:17:59,780 --> 00:18:03,860 "to be a property king and ride in triumph through Notting Hill?" - 305 00:18:03,860 --> 00:18:05,820 usually with a pretty girl on his arm. 306 00:18:07,540 --> 00:18:09,740 Rachman was a refugee from Poland 307 00:18:09,740 --> 00:18:12,820 who had fled both Nazi and Soviet labour camps 308 00:18:12,820 --> 00:18:14,820 before ending up here, in west London. 309 00:18:16,020 --> 00:18:19,100 Rachman's success lay in seeing more clearly than anyone else 310 00:18:19,100 --> 00:18:21,940 that dazzling opportunity for enormous profit. 311 00:18:23,300 --> 00:18:25,380 Taking advantage of the new law, 312 00:18:25,380 --> 00:18:27,900 Rachman began to evict white tenants, 313 00:18:27,900 --> 00:18:31,260 replacing them with newly arrived black families 314 00:18:31,260 --> 00:18:34,100 and charging them much higher rents. 315 00:18:34,100 --> 00:18:37,180 I remember the day I met him and I said to him, 316 00:18:37,180 --> 00:18:40,540 "I'm looking for a flat or a room or whatever". 317 00:18:40,540 --> 00:18:43,220 That's how I get to see this man, Rachman. 318 00:18:45,100 --> 00:18:50,300 He was the only man that would have you in his place. 319 00:18:53,580 --> 00:18:58,180 There's about three of us in a room and we pay one pound each. 320 00:18:58,180 --> 00:19:01,820 It was hard. It was damn hard. 321 00:19:03,140 --> 00:19:07,420 But that is what made me very strong. 322 00:19:09,900 --> 00:19:12,740 In a way, Rachman was like, you know, 323 00:19:12,740 --> 00:19:15,540 he was a landlord that took advantage 324 00:19:15,540 --> 00:19:19,020 of the dynamics of what was going on in the borough. 325 00:19:19,020 --> 00:19:22,300 People had come over looking for opportunities 326 00:19:22,300 --> 00:19:24,500 and found something very cold 327 00:19:24,500 --> 00:19:27,540 and much more sinister on the other side, 328 00:19:27,540 --> 00:19:30,020 and it became more of a battle of survival 329 00:19:30,020 --> 00:19:33,220 more than the legend of the streets being paved with gold. 330 00:19:36,140 --> 00:19:39,340 Rachman may have been exploiting the new arrivals, 331 00:19:39,340 --> 00:19:41,140 but, without intending to, 332 00:19:41,140 --> 00:19:43,700 he had created something new in North Kensington... 333 00:19:44,780 --> 00:19:47,660 ..one of the first multicultural communities in Britain. 334 00:19:49,260 --> 00:19:51,740 One young black boy, I can remember, 335 00:19:51,740 --> 00:19:53,340 they moved into a couple of rooms 336 00:19:53,340 --> 00:19:58,140 above the greengrocer's around the corner from us 337 00:19:58,140 --> 00:20:00,620 and he came to our school, but it was a novelty. 338 00:20:00,620 --> 00:20:02,500 You know, we'd never seen... 339 00:20:02,500 --> 00:20:03,700 What did they expect? 340 00:20:03,700 --> 00:20:06,740 You know, you wanted to examine him, sort of, you know what I mean? 341 00:20:06,740 --> 00:20:09,420 But not being nasty. I mean, you know, 342 00:20:09,420 --> 00:20:12,220 he was soon part of the gang, you know. 343 00:20:14,180 --> 00:20:16,860 And the main thing was that a lot of us came... 344 00:20:18,420 --> 00:20:22,700 ..to be here for five years. That's what we gave ourselves, five years. 345 00:20:22,700 --> 00:20:26,380 "And then we'll have enough money to go back home to live". 346 00:20:26,380 --> 00:20:28,620 But then you start having a life yourself... 347 00:20:29,700 --> 00:20:34,140 ..so one thing leads to another and then we had to stay. 348 00:20:38,420 --> 00:20:41,300 But some resented the new arrivals. 349 00:20:41,300 --> 00:20:44,420 They feared a new kind of inequality, 350 00:20:44,420 --> 00:20:47,380 where the immigrants would get the upper hand. 351 00:20:47,380 --> 00:20:51,260 When the first blacks started appearing in Latimer Road area, 352 00:20:51,260 --> 00:20:52,700 tensions started mounting. 353 00:20:54,220 --> 00:20:55,740 They're saying to themselves, 354 00:20:55,740 --> 00:20:58,380 "These blacks are going to take your jobs, your homes. 355 00:20:58,380 --> 00:21:01,780 "You know, that black family down the road, they've got a place, 356 00:21:01,780 --> 00:21:03,020 "how come they've got it?" 357 00:21:04,460 --> 00:21:07,060 And it...and it bred fears that... 358 00:21:08,500 --> 00:21:10,340 ..looking back at history, 359 00:21:10,340 --> 00:21:12,900 the fears were foundless, but at the time 360 00:21:12,900 --> 00:21:14,300 they were real, genuine fears. 361 00:21:15,820 --> 00:21:19,300 Then a small group of outsiders arrived here, 362 00:21:19,300 --> 00:21:21,500 determined to exploit those fears... 363 00:21:22,700 --> 00:21:26,580 ..and they based themselves around the corner from Alan's house 364 00:21:26,580 --> 00:21:28,860 in what is now an ordinary private home. 365 00:21:31,260 --> 00:21:35,700 This here, notorious with the connections of Colin Jordan. 366 00:21:38,060 --> 00:21:39,700 Don't you think you'll cause trouble 367 00:21:39,700 --> 00:21:41,420 by having your headquarters in this area? 368 00:21:41,420 --> 00:21:43,060 On the contrary, the trouble was here 369 00:21:43,060 --> 00:21:45,460 long before we set up our headquarters in this area. 370 00:21:45,460 --> 00:21:46,940 He thought he could make play 371 00:21:46,940 --> 00:21:50,140 by the fact that there was a lot of local people, indigenous people, 372 00:21:50,140 --> 00:21:53,340 that had been on the housing list for many, many years, some 20 years, 373 00:21:53,340 --> 00:21:55,300 living in appalling conditions 374 00:21:55,300 --> 00:21:58,380 and he could see their plight was going to get even worse 375 00:21:58,380 --> 00:22:00,500 if these people had to be housed. 376 00:22:00,500 --> 00:22:03,180 Well, there are many immediate evils of the coloured invasion, 377 00:22:03,180 --> 00:22:05,660 which are well known to everybody living in this area, 378 00:22:05,660 --> 00:22:07,780 but in our opinion the most important 379 00:22:07,780 --> 00:22:10,220 is the long-term one of mass interbreeding. 380 00:22:10,220 --> 00:22:13,140 That must mean the downfall of the civilisation and culture 381 00:22:13,140 --> 00:22:14,940 of our country, which we hold so dear. 382 00:22:17,180 --> 00:22:19,780 Working with them to stir up racial hatred 383 00:22:19,780 --> 00:22:23,860 was the prominent British fascist Sir Oswald Mosley. 384 00:22:25,540 --> 00:22:27,700 I can remember heckling him 385 00:22:27,700 --> 00:22:31,980 when he was talking from the back of a lorry in Blenheim Crescent. 386 00:22:31,980 --> 00:22:35,940 Local lad, Eddie Adams, found himself facing down Mosley's men. 387 00:22:38,260 --> 00:22:39,900 I sort of heckled him. 388 00:22:39,900 --> 00:22:42,140 I said, "You're talking a lot of rot." 389 00:22:44,420 --> 00:22:46,620 I knew what I was seeing was wrong. 390 00:22:46,620 --> 00:22:49,260 It goes against what I believe in, really. 391 00:22:50,340 --> 00:22:52,260 But Mosley's tactics were working. 392 00:22:53,580 --> 00:22:56,180 Many black residents were now living in fear. 393 00:22:57,340 --> 00:23:02,380 I remember coming from work at the train station, 394 00:23:02,540 --> 00:23:05,420 trying to go home as quickly as possible 395 00:23:05,420 --> 00:23:08,700 because you don't know who would attack you, you don't know. 396 00:23:11,020 --> 00:23:13,340 One night, on Bramley Road, 397 00:23:13,340 --> 00:23:17,340 the very same place where Grenfell Tower stands today, 398 00:23:17,340 --> 00:23:19,900 300 angry white youths gathered together. 399 00:23:21,100 --> 00:23:24,180 Someone's whispered, Chinese whisper, 400 00:23:24,180 --> 00:23:27,060 "A black bloke has just raped a white girl". 401 00:23:27,060 --> 00:23:29,660 The reaction's going to be horrendous 402 00:23:29,660 --> 00:23:32,140 and that's exactly what was happening. 403 00:23:32,140 --> 00:23:35,540 And all of a sudden this bloke was coming through the crowd 404 00:23:35,540 --> 00:23:38,420 and he was saying "Come on, let's get the black bastard." 405 00:23:38,420 --> 00:23:40,820 And...how can I put this? He wasn't working class. 406 00:23:40,820 --> 00:23:43,500 He had a posh voice, yeah, you know, 407 00:23:43,500 --> 00:23:46,980 it was somebody coming in, trying to stir things up. 408 00:23:46,980 --> 00:23:51,220 You knew that any minute they could blast your house down, 409 00:23:51,220 --> 00:23:53,460 do whatever they want to. 410 00:23:53,460 --> 00:23:57,500 So you had that fear, "I don't want them to hurt me". 411 00:23:58,860 --> 00:24:00,540 It's divide and conquer. 412 00:24:00,540 --> 00:24:02,340 It's the old story, divide and conquer. 413 00:24:06,580 --> 00:24:10,660 It took the murder of a young black carpenter called Kelso Cochrane 414 00:24:10,660 --> 00:24:13,580 by a gang of white youths less than a year later 415 00:24:13,580 --> 00:24:16,140 to finally bring a stop to the violence. 416 00:24:18,220 --> 00:24:20,140 I went to the funeral here. 417 00:24:20,140 --> 00:24:22,380 There was a mood of solidarity, yeah, 418 00:24:22,380 --> 00:24:25,100 and the crowd reflected that. 419 00:24:27,060 --> 00:24:29,660 If you see the film of his funeral, 420 00:24:29,660 --> 00:24:33,140 you suddenly see people that were bigoted and racist 421 00:24:33,140 --> 00:24:37,300 suddenly realising, "Whoa, that could've been my son". You know, 422 00:24:37,300 --> 00:24:40,340 "It could've been my husband, it could've been my brother." 423 00:24:40,340 --> 00:24:42,780 Because they were no different than us in everything. 424 00:24:42,780 --> 00:24:44,660 All right, colour, yeah, obviously, 425 00:24:44,660 --> 00:24:46,660 but in poverty and everything like that. 426 00:24:51,940 --> 00:24:53,180 It's boiled down to, 427 00:24:53,180 --> 00:24:56,420 "We're all the same, but we're still poor in this area". 428 00:24:59,060 --> 00:25:01,900 We're not listened to, that's the fact. 429 00:25:06,020 --> 00:25:07,380 You'll have had the race riots 430 00:25:07,380 --> 00:25:09,620 and then those people will have had their children, 431 00:25:09,620 --> 00:25:12,500 they would have been the children of people who fought the race riots, 432 00:25:12,500 --> 00:25:14,300 who came through the race riots 433 00:25:14,300 --> 00:25:17,300 and so they're not just going to be ordinary parents, 434 00:25:17,300 --> 00:25:19,980 they're parents who have fought that adversity, 435 00:25:19,980 --> 00:25:24,020 come through that adversity for you, and that strength is genetic in you. 436 00:25:24,020 --> 00:25:26,300 It then becomes genetic in you 437 00:25:26,300 --> 00:25:28,500 because it's a feature of the area 438 00:25:28,500 --> 00:25:30,740 and part of our ingrained history. 439 00:25:30,740 --> 00:25:32,260 It's innate in that sense. 440 00:25:34,620 --> 00:25:36,660 It's no different to us now. 441 00:25:36,660 --> 00:25:40,300 We're still going through the same as what our parents went through, 442 00:25:40,300 --> 00:25:43,180 so we've learned to be survivors. 443 00:25:44,340 --> 00:25:47,180 That's our skill, we are survivors, 444 00:25:47,180 --> 00:25:48,820 so that is where our history is. 445 00:25:48,820 --> 00:25:50,940 We know how to survive. 446 00:25:50,940 --> 00:25:53,660 And no matter how much they tear us down, 447 00:25:53,660 --> 00:25:55,740 we will always get up and fight. 448 00:26:03,820 --> 00:26:08,700 By the early 1960s, having overcome so many of the divisions, 449 00:26:08,700 --> 00:26:12,180 a new kind of community began to blossom in North Kensington. 450 00:26:14,220 --> 00:26:17,220 Everyone was friendly because we all played out on the street. 451 00:26:17,220 --> 00:26:20,660 Your front doors was open, you know, 452 00:26:20,660 --> 00:26:23,580 nobody had keys and you didn't lock up and all that. 453 00:26:25,260 --> 00:26:27,420 INTERVIEWER: The good old days or not? 454 00:26:30,860 --> 00:26:33,100 Well, in those days, it was the good old days. 455 00:26:33,100 --> 00:26:36,340 But when you look back at it, it wasn't all right. 456 00:26:36,340 --> 00:26:37,380 It wasn't. 457 00:26:40,420 --> 00:26:41,660 Whether black or white, 458 00:26:41,660 --> 00:26:45,940 many were still living in miserable conditions. 459 00:26:45,940 --> 00:26:48,780 You know, like the big Victorian houses, 460 00:26:48,780 --> 00:26:53,980 you had like one, two, three, four families to a house, 461 00:26:54,860 --> 00:26:57,620 so you had two rooms each... 462 00:26:58,900 --> 00:27:00,740 ..and one shared bathroom. 463 00:27:02,340 --> 00:27:05,180 There was ten of us in one bedroom. 464 00:27:05,180 --> 00:27:07,540 We never had no bath, no bathroom. 465 00:27:08,660 --> 00:27:10,500 Two outside toilets. 466 00:27:10,500 --> 00:27:14,140 Chickens, chickens, you know, down in the yard. 467 00:27:14,140 --> 00:27:17,180 You know, we thought we lived a life of luxury. 468 00:27:17,180 --> 00:27:21,460 Growing up and living in that, you didn't know any different. 469 00:27:21,460 --> 00:27:23,540 You know, you make the most of what you have. 470 00:27:25,700 --> 00:27:27,940 But, looking back... 471 00:27:29,780 --> 00:27:30,780 ..they were dumps. 472 00:27:32,820 --> 00:27:34,060 Real dumps. 473 00:27:36,700 --> 00:27:39,740 But now, as part of a bold national movement 474 00:27:39,740 --> 00:27:42,780 to tackle inequality once and for all, 475 00:27:42,780 --> 00:27:46,220 a plan was drawn up to tear down these slums... 476 00:27:47,420 --> 00:27:49,260 ..and replace them with something better. 477 00:27:50,900 --> 00:27:54,740 I'll probably swoon with nostalgia looking at these, I love them. 478 00:27:56,420 --> 00:28:00,380 This is one of the few surviving copies of the plan. 479 00:28:00,380 --> 00:28:04,500 This map is really a culmination 480 00:28:04,500 --> 00:28:08,180 of the London County Council's effort 481 00:28:08,180 --> 00:28:12,220 to put together all the sites that needed to be rebuilt. 482 00:28:13,420 --> 00:28:15,700 Peter Deakins was a young architect 483 00:28:15,700 --> 00:28:19,260 who would go on to create the first designs for Grenfell Tower 484 00:28:19,260 --> 00:28:21,180 and the Lancaster West Estate. 485 00:28:22,220 --> 00:28:25,220 North Kensington was certainly pretty terrible. 486 00:28:26,260 --> 00:28:30,100 Very neglected and very crumbling properties. 487 00:28:31,900 --> 00:28:35,620 Huge swathes of North Kensington were to be demolished and rebuilt. 488 00:28:36,820 --> 00:28:40,300 Blue areas were to be knocked down within 15 years, 489 00:28:40,300 --> 00:28:43,300 while red was to be bulldozed within five, 490 00:28:43,300 --> 00:28:46,340 but the big homes of Notting Hill were to be spared. 491 00:28:47,380 --> 00:28:49,420 It was a very optimistic time. 492 00:28:49,420 --> 00:28:53,580 It was all part of trying to create a new world, 493 00:28:53,580 --> 00:28:56,980 trying to make a much better place for everybody to live in. 494 00:28:59,620 --> 00:29:01,820 I could never see any reason 495 00:29:01,820 --> 00:29:05,420 why poor people shouldn't have good quality housing, 496 00:29:05,420 --> 00:29:08,460 just as much as rich people. 497 00:29:14,980 --> 00:29:16,220 By the mid-'60s, 498 00:29:16,220 --> 00:29:19,780 the demolition of old 19th-century streets in North Kensington 499 00:29:19,780 --> 00:29:21,420 was in full swing. 500 00:29:23,220 --> 00:29:27,340 And at the heart of the area to be demolished was Testerton Street, 501 00:29:27,340 --> 00:29:29,620 where Pat Matthews was born. 502 00:29:29,620 --> 00:29:31,860 So what happened to Testerton Street? 503 00:29:31,860 --> 00:29:33,060 Well, they blew it up. 504 00:29:33,060 --> 00:29:35,100 SHE LAUGHS 505 00:29:36,300 --> 00:29:41,020 But all I remember, honestly, as much as I loved it, they were rank. 506 00:29:41,020 --> 00:29:43,020 You know what I mean? They were rank. 507 00:29:46,500 --> 00:29:48,700 Peter Deakins was put in charge 508 00:29:48,700 --> 00:29:51,580 of designing the huge new council estate 509 00:29:51,580 --> 00:29:54,820 that would replace Testerton Street and others around it. 510 00:29:59,060 --> 00:30:04,380 I was 29 when I first became involved in Lancaster West. 511 00:30:05,420 --> 00:30:07,860 Yeah, it was a fantastic time, 512 00:30:07,860 --> 00:30:10,900 one of the most exciting times of my life, I think, really. 513 00:30:13,500 --> 00:30:14,740 I'm an architect, 514 00:30:14,740 --> 00:30:18,260 I like designing things and here's a nice project, 515 00:30:18,260 --> 00:30:20,220 and I thought was doing a good thing. 516 00:30:20,220 --> 00:30:23,260 We all thought we were doing a good thing. 517 00:30:23,260 --> 00:30:28,100 And we were determined to make a much better world. 518 00:30:29,260 --> 00:30:31,980 And, yeah, I was... 519 00:30:31,980 --> 00:30:37,220 I wouldn't say fanatical exactly, but extremely enthusiastic. 520 00:30:38,500 --> 00:30:42,860 Peter's original plans for the estate featured swimming pools, 521 00:30:42,860 --> 00:30:47,260 a school, a public library, a shopping centre and shared gardens. 522 00:30:48,660 --> 00:30:51,780 I don't see it as utopian, really, 523 00:30:51,780 --> 00:30:54,540 because it was clearly very achievable. 524 00:30:54,540 --> 00:30:57,540 But the Kensington Council housing committee 525 00:30:57,540 --> 00:31:00,620 were less than impressed with Peter's grand plan. 526 00:31:02,420 --> 00:31:07,100 They seemed, from all the newspaper reports, to be quite horrified 527 00:31:07,100 --> 00:31:11,060 because it was so new and not what they expected. 528 00:31:11,060 --> 00:31:13,900 It was not, you know, the neat and tidy 529 00:31:13,900 --> 00:31:17,140 cheap little council estate that they were expecting. 530 00:31:19,100 --> 00:31:22,100 Peter's vision of the estate was rejected. 531 00:31:22,100 --> 00:31:23,700 He left the firm soon after. 532 00:31:24,820 --> 00:31:28,420 But eventually, a reduced version of Peter's plan did go ahead. 533 00:31:30,820 --> 00:31:35,980 The scheme that now is built at Lancaster Road, in my view, 534 00:31:36,780 --> 00:31:41,860 falls far short of what we originally hoped to achieve. 535 00:31:42,020 --> 00:31:45,700 All the amenities weren't there and the shops weren't there, 536 00:31:45,700 --> 00:31:48,140 the workplaces weren't included. 537 00:31:49,540 --> 00:31:53,180 And essentially, people don't want to spend their tax money 538 00:31:53,180 --> 00:31:54,540 on helping other people. 539 00:31:54,540 --> 00:31:59,020 Whether you call that a betrayal or not, you know, if you... 540 00:32:01,180 --> 00:32:04,220 If you think we are all in it together, 541 00:32:04,220 --> 00:32:07,860 like we were during the war, it's a betrayal, 542 00:32:07,860 --> 00:32:09,020 isn't it, really? 543 00:32:13,340 --> 00:32:16,420 The building programme in London is being greatly accelerated 544 00:32:16,420 --> 00:32:19,020 and the new homes will have bigger rooms, central heating, 545 00:32:19,020 --> 00:32:24,140 and pedestrian walks safely away from traffic. 546 00:32:24,300 --> 00:32:27,140 The Lancaster West Estate was part of a great wave 547 00:32:27,140 --> 00:32:32,260 of council house building that had transformed the skyline of London. 548 00:32:33,260 --> 00:32:34,540 You know, you think, "My God". 549 00:32:34,540 --> 00:32:36,100 And then you see them going 550 00:32:36,100 --> 00:32:39,740 as if they're going to touch the sky, you know. It's like New York. 551 00:32:39,740 --> 00:32:42,380 It was the beginning of a new dawn, or so people thought. 552 00:32:44,620 --> 00:32:48,260 By 1975, when the estate was finally finished, 553 00:32:48,260 --> 00:32:51,340 families who had been living in slum housing for years 554 00:32:51,340 --> 00:32:54,580 were at the top of the waiting list for new flats. 555 00:32:54,580 --> 00:32:58,660 It wasn't excited, it was sort of thinking, "Would I get one?" 556 00:32:58,660 --> 00:32:59,860 You don't know. 557 00:32:59,860 --> 00:33:02,140 Waiting, just waiting, you know, 558 00:33:02,140 --> 00:33:04,620 to get a letter to say you've got a flat. 559 00:33:06,380 --> 00:33:09,180 Where we were moving from, I was living in two rooms, 560 00:33:09,180 --> 00:33:12,140 myself, my husband and three children. 561 00:33:12,140 --> 00:33:14,900 And then suddenly we got this place 562 00:33:14,900 --> 00:33:16,540 and, when we came in to visit, 563 00:33:16,540 --> 00:33:21,180 the children were running from room to room, downstairs, upstairs. 564 00:33:21,180 --> 00:33:24,020 And we thought, "Well, we couldn't leave this," so we had to take it. 565 00:33:24,020 --> 00:33:26,300 So we went and signed up. 566 00:33:26,300 --> 00:33:29,300 It's like your whole hand was shaking, like, you know? 567 00:33:29,300 --> 00:33:30,660 "Oh, got somewhere at last." 568 00:33:30,660 --> 00:33:31,940 I loved it, I tell you. 569 00:33:33,380 --> 00:33:37,020 And at the heart of the estate was Grenfell Tower. 570 00:33:37,020 --> 00:33:39,260 I moved in there the second day they opened, 571 00:33:39,260 --> 00:33:41,780 but the flats were out of this world. 572 00:33:41,780 --> 00:33:44,940 You know, to what we'd been brought up in, 573 00:33:44,940 --> 00:33:45,980 it was a palace. 574 00:33:47,220 --> 00:33:51,260 I can't give you the dimensions of the sitting room 575 00:33:51,260 --> 00:33:52,860 because it was huge. 576 00:33:52,860 --> 00:33:54,500 You know? It was huge. 577 00:33:54,500 --> 00:33:59,220 It was like walking in Buckingham Palace, I suppose, to us, you know? 578 00:33:59,220 --> 00:34:02,020 Compared to what you've left, 579 00:34:02,020 --> 00:34:04,540 you weren't sharing kitchen, 580 00:34:04,540 --> 00:34:06,500 you weren't sharing a bath 581 00:34:06,500 --> 00:34:09,780 with a whole set of other different families. 582 00:34:09,780 --> 00:34:12,060 It was luxury. 583 00:34:12,060 --> 00:34:13,580 It really was luxury. 584 00:34:15,820 --> 00:34:17,660 I had the best childhood. 585 00:34:17,660 --> 00:34:19,620 I grew up playing on these walkways. 586 00:34:19,620 --> 00:34:21,500 We used to play Knock Down Ginger 587 00:34:21,500 --> 00:34:24,780 and you could hide and seek really well in these flats as well. 588 00:34:25,860 --> 00:34:28,020 This is where I grew up, this is where my heart is, 589 00:34:28,020 --> 00:34:29,940 and this is where I always want to be. 590 00:34:32,180 --> 00:34:35,540 Grenfell Tower and the Lancaster West Estate opened 591 00:34:35,540 --> 00:34:38,220 at a unique moment in British history. 592 00:34:38,220 --> 00:34:40,700 When the residents first moved in, 593 00:34:40,700 --> 00:34:44,460 the country was more equal than it's ever been - 594 00:34:44,460 --> 00:34:45,980 before or since. 595 00:34:45,980 --> 00:34:50,740 By 1979, 40% of the country lived in council housing, 596 00:34:50,740 --> 00:34:54,020 including both high and low earners. 597 00:34:54,020 --> 00:34:57,380 The optimism was that we were going forward. 598 00:34:58,900 --> 00:35:00,700 We were looking forward. 599 00:35:02,420 --> 00:35:05,380 Grenfell was a symbol of hope. 600 00:35:05,380 --> 00:35:07,660 Hope for a better life, 601 00:35:07,660 --> 00:35:10,820 if we did have a better life there. 602 00:35:12,300 --> 00:35:13,780 Well, looking at it now... 603 00:35:16,580 --> 00:35:18,020 ..words fail me. 604 00:35:21,060 --> 00:35:22,580 Where has the hope gone? 605 00:35:22,580 --> 00:35:23,580 Where's the optimism? 606 00:35:31,580 --> 00:35:33,620 Just where that lift's coming down, 607 00:35:33,620 --> 00:35:36,060 it's just passed my flat, where I was. 608 00:35:42,980 --> 00:35:46,220 Grenfell Tower was one of the last high-rise council blocks 609 00:35:46,220 --> 00:35:47,940 to be built in Britain. 610 00:35:49,060 --> 00:35:50,420 As I say, I loved it. 611 00:35:50,420 --> 00:35:54,300 But don't seem like they've done anything else since, have they? 612 00:35:54,300 --> 00:35:57,780 You know? Haven't built any other houses or anything around here. 613 00:36:00,300 --> 00:36:02,100 From the beginning, 614 00:36:02,100 --> 00:36:06,540 what we had in the beginning when we first moved here, 615 00:36:06,540 --> 00:36:08,780 42 years ago, it was good 616 00:36:08,780 --> 00:36:10,020 and then it went downhill. 617 00:36:11,620 --> 00:36:15,060 Within a couple of years of moving in, problems began. 618 00:36:17,580 --> 00:36:19,780 Yeah, the novelty did wear off after a while 619 00:36:19,780 --> 00:36:22,580 because walls are cracking 620 00:36:22,580 --> 00:36:27,060 and this isn't working and that isn't working. 621 00:36:27,060 --> 00:36:29,100 I mean, at the beginning, things were good 622 00:36:29,100 --> 00:36:32,260 because you were new and everything was new and didn't need fixing. 623 00:36:32,260 --> 00:36:33,940 But then afterwards, you know, 624 00:36:33,940 --> 00:36:36,620 you started to see your place in North Kensington, 625 00:36:36,620 --> 00:36:40,260 how much you didn't matter in North Kensington. 626 00:36:40,260 --> 00:36:43,100 It was, you know, like them and us. 627 00:36:43,100 --> 00:36:45,700 The council and us. 628 00:36:45,700 --> 00:36:48,060 So we were having, like, a lot of problems. 629 00:36:50,820 --> 00:36:52,420 Cockroaches and mice. 630 00:36:52,420 --> 00:36:55,900 It wasn't much different to what we'd left behind. 631 00:36:55,900 --> 00:37:01,140 Then we had red ants and black ants and all these other ants. 632 00:37:03,460 --> 00:37:05,020 The cockroaches, right? 633 00:37:05,020 --> 00:37:07,700 You know, every morning. 634 00:37:07,700 --> 00:37:11,740 I'd leave my husband bleach and everything on the side 635 00:37:11,740 --> 00:37:15,700 to get rid of them, you know, because you had white tops up there, 636 00:37:15,700 --> 00:37:18,020 and they would be just black in the morning 637 00:37:18,020 --> 00:37:21,100 where they'd come out in the night, like, you know, 638 00:37:21,100 --> 00:37:23,700 all baby ones and, oh, they were awful, awful. 639 00:37:26,980 --> 00:37:29,220 But cockroaches weren't the only problem. 640 00:37:29,220 --> 00:37:32,260 It was all open, so we used to roller-skate through 641 00:37:32,260 --> 00:37:34,580 but then you could also get mugged at one end, 642 00:37:34,580 --> 00:37:36,940 so it was like my gran got mugged 643 00:37:36,940 --> 00:37:39,980 going to church walking through there. 644 00:37:39,980 --> 00:37:43,420 It wasn't a nice place in the evenings. 645 00:37:44,860 --> 00:37:47,700 Pat Matthews was even attacked getting out of the lift. 646 00:37:48,900 --> 00:37:53,700 As the door opened, I went to step out and they rushed at me... 647 00:37:56,460 --> 00:38:00,500 ..and I said "Whoa!" You know, like you sort of shout, 648 00:38:00,500 --> 00:38:02,660 as far as I can remember, 649 00:38:02,660 --> 00:38:05,660 and obviously, they wanted to mug me. 650 00:38:05,660 --> 00:38:09,820 I said, "Listen, all I've got on me is empty boxes. Here, have 'em" 651 00:38:09,820 --> 00:38:12,940 And I threw them at them. That much, I can remember. 652 00:38:12,940 --> 00:38:16,500 But I probably shouldn't have done that 653 00:38:16,500 --> 00:38:20,380 because that sort of set them off hitting me, you know. 654 00:38:21,820 --> 00:38:23,860 I know I was knocked out 655 00:38:23,860 --> 00:38:27,940 and I got myself back in the lift and I thought, 656 00:38:27,940 --> 00:38:33,180 "Oh, no, it's going to be like mugger's paradise in here", you know? 657 00:38:37,660 --> 00:38:41,500 By the 1980s, the reputation of the Lancaster West Estate 658 00:38:41,500 --> 00:38:44,340 and council estates everywhere was suffering. 659 00:38:44,340 --> 00:38:45,980 Shops have closed down, 660 00:38:45,980 --> 00:38:49,420 ground floor windows are boarded up, crime has flourished. 661 00:38:49,420 --> 00:38:51,660 Those facts of life are uncomfortable... 662 00:38:51,660 --> 00:38:53,940 They urgently needed investment, 663 00:38:53,940 --> 00:38:57,180 but the new government proposed a different way to tackle the problem. 664 00:38:57,180 --> 00:39:02,380 A nation of homeowners will be self-reliant, independent, 665 00:39:03,260 --> 00:39:08,540 and able to do what they want with their own lives in their own homes. 666 00:39:10,580 --> 00:39:13,020 Margaret Thatcher started offering council tenants 667 00:39:13,020 --> 00:39:15,140 the chance to buy their flats. 668 00:39:16,180 --> 00:39:19,580 Properties were now more than just homes, they were assets. 669 00:39:21,300 --> 00:39:22,980 Some on the estate took up the offer... 670 00:39:24,780 --> 00:39:27,060 ..but they weren't the only ones entering the market. 671 00:39:29,260 --> 00:39:32,140 Now, the rundown Victorian homes of Notting Hill 672 00:39:32,140 --> 00:39:34,740 also began to attract new buyers. 673 00:39:36,260 --> 00:39:38,820 Notting Hill was not only not very fashionable, 674 00:39:38,820 --> 00:39:42,660 it was distinctly...dodgy. 675 00:39:42,660 --> 00:39:47,140 My mother, who lived in London in the late-'50s, 676 00:39:47,140 --> 00:39:48,980 was distinctly worried by the fact 677 00:39:48,980 --> 00:39:52,500 that we were moving to this part of town 678 00:39:52,500 --> 00:39:57,540 because it had the reputation from the race riots, from Peter Rachman. 679 00:39:57,700 --> 00:40:00,780 What was it that attracted you to the Notting Hill area? 680 00:40:00,780 --> 00:40:03,780 We were a young married couple, we didn't think twice about anything. 681 00:40:03,780 --> 00:40:04,820 Yeah. So... 682 00:40:07,860 --> 00:40:11,020 Hanover Lodge was first bought in 1855... 683 00:40:12,340 --> 00:40:16,180 ..but just over 100 years later, when the Du Canes moved in, 684 00:40:16,180 --> 00:40:19,460 it was worth less than £300,000 in today's money. 685 00:40:21,220 --> 00:40:24,300 Houses like Hanover Lodge were very run down. 686 00:40:24,300 --> 00:40:27,100 Well, when we moved in, yes, it was pretty... 687 00:40:27,100 --> 00:40:30,620 Very damp down in the basement when we first moved in. 688 00:40:30,620 --> 00:40:35,660 In the basement level, it was dark, damp, 689 00:40:35,740 --> 00:40:37,300 and the mushrooms loved it. 690 00:40:40,340 --> 00:40:42,660 I mean, I think we fitted the sort of profile 691 00:40:42,660 --> 00:40:45,260 of a lot of people who moved in at that time, 692 00:40:45,260 --> 00:40:47,260 in the sense that we were not rich 693 00:40:47,260 --> 00:40:50,500 in the same way as people moving in now are rich 694 00:40:50,500 --> 00:40:53,540 and we were young, bringing up our family, 695 00:40:53,540 --> 00:40:57,860 and, as I think with many young families at that stage, 696 00:40:57,860 --> 00:41:00,260 nothing is impossible. 697 00:41:00,260 --> 00:41:04,260 The Du Canes gradually began to do up the house, 698 00:41:04,260 --> 00:41:06,980 turning it back into the single-family home 699 00:41:06,980 --> 00:41:10,220 its Victorian builder had always intended it to be. 700 00:41:11,940 --> 00:41:17,140 What I've got here is an estate map for the Ladbroke estate. 701 00:41:17,700 --> 00:41:21,580 It is, I think, probably unique. 702 00:41:21,580 --> 00:41:24,460 The freehold estate of Felix Ladbroke, Esquire, 703 00:41:24,460 --> 00:41:26,900 in the parishes of Kensington and Paddington 704 00:41:26,900 --> 00:41:28,620 in the county of Middlesex. 705 00:41:28,620 --> 00:41:31,340 What this shows is, it's a snapshot 706 00:41:31,340 --> 00:41:36,300 on the history of the estate as at 1847. 707 00:41:36,300 --> 00:41:39,860 And that is Hanover Lodge. 708 00:41:41,660 --> 00:41:44,140 I think, in many ways, this is the beginnings 709 00:41:44,140 --> 00:41:45,780 of modern day Notting Hill. 710 00:41:46,900 --> 00:41:50,100 There it is, just round the corner. 711 00:41:50,100 --> 00:41:52,220 As more and more of the Victorian houses 712 00:41:52,220 --> 00:41:54,500 were restored to their former glory, 713 00:41:54,500 --> 00:41:57,860 the makeup of North Kensington was changing once again. 714 00:41:59,540 --> 00:42:01,420 The wealthier were returning 715 00:42:01,420 --> 00:42:03,980 to reclaim the grand homes of Notting Hill. 716 00:42:06,300 --> 00:42:08,900 Notting Hill, through the '90s, 717 00:42:08,900 --> 00:42:13,140 attracted many bankers who had done well in London. 718 00:42:13,140 --> 00:42:16,420 Undoubtedly, it was referred to as gentrification. 719 00:42:16,420 --> 00:42:18,900 But I think it's too... 720 00:42:20,660 --> 00:42:25,380 ..it's too polarising to say gentrification bad. 721 00:42:25,380 --> 00:42:27,780 Yes. I think there's always been a bit of a divide, 722 00:42:27,780 --> 00:42:29,140 but perhaps it was less so 723 00:42:29,140 --> 00:42:32,540 than it seems to have become more polarised in recent years, perhaps. 724 00:42:34,300 --> 00:42:37,340 So it changed. The '90s then changed the whole area. 725 00:42:37,340 --> 00:42:39,340 Everyone wanted to be in Notting Hill 726 00:42:39,340 --> 00:42:41,420 and all the stars then started moving in, 727 00:42:41,420 --> 00:42:43,740 and it became more like the place to be. 728 00:42:47,300 --> 00:42:51,380 At first, these posh new neighbours up the hill were a bit of a novelty. 729 00:42:51,380 --> 00:42:54,620 I remember all the art galleries on Portobello Road 730 00:42:54,620 --> 00:42:56,420 would have wine nights 731 00:42:56,420 --> 00:42:58,660 and you'd go and go, "Yes, oh, I like that one," 732 00:42:58,660 --> 00:43:00,500 just to get the wine, let's be honest! 733 00:43:00,500 --> 00:43:03,340 It wasn't like I was arty. 734 00:43:03,340 --> 00:43:05,860 But you know, like, you just went just because everyone... 735 00:43:05,860 --> 00:43:07,060 ..it was the thing. 736 00:43:08,660 --> 00:43:10,860 You know, and all the pubs started to change 737 00:43:10,860 --> 00:43:12,900 and everyone was, "We need to go and drink..." 738 00:43:12,900 --> 00:43:15,660 "..Sol." Sol. 739 00:43:15,660 --> 00:43:18,700 That was the thing with a piece of lime in it, you know. 740 00:43:18,700 --> 00:43:21,620 So it changed, the '90s then changed the whole area. 741 00:43:23,460 --> 00:43:25,500 It was good fun. I'm not saying it wasn't good fun. 742 00:43:25,500 --> 00:43:29,740 We had good fun, but that's when I think more, 743 00:43:29,740 --> 00:43:34,900 it became more, you know, noticeable that there was an inequality 744 00:43:35,260 --> 00:43:39,620 because all of a sudden you were seeing people right next to you 745 00:43:39,620 --> 00:43:41,580 that had more than you. 746 00:43:42,700 --> 00:43:46,860 The Bishop of Kensington finds the wealthy in his own diocese 747 00:43:46,860 --> 00:43:49,900 often fail to comprehend the reality of poverty, 748 00:43:49,900 --> 00:43:51,900 even when it's a stone's throw away. 749 00:43:51,900 --> 00:43:53,460 On that side of the road over there, 750 00:43:53,460 --> 00:43:55,340 there are houses that must be changing hands 751 00:43:55,340 --> 00:43:56,420 for about half a million. 752 00:43:56,420 --> 00:43:57,820 Here, on this side of the road, 753 00:43:57,820 --> 00:43:59,740 we have, just a couple of hundred yards away, 754 00:43:59,740 --> 00:44:01,180 a block of council flats 755 00:44:01,180 --> 00:44:03,780 which was described in the local paper this week 756 00:44:03,780 --> 00:44:05,100 as a tower of despair. 757 00:44:06,980 --> 00:44:09,380 As the surrounding area got richer, 758 00:44:09,380 --> 00:44:11,900 estates like Lancaster West 759 00:44:11,900 --> 00:44:15,180 became a byword for crime and anti-social behaviour. 760 00:44:16,980 --> 00:44:19,860 There was an outside reputation, where people used to say, 761 00:44:19,860 --> 00:44:21,780 "Oh, Lancaster West is bad." 762 00:44:21,780 --> 00:44:25,700 But we couldn't see that because we knew the people that were in it, 763 00:44:25,700 --> 00:44:29,460 and so we didn't understand why other people thought that. 764 00:44:30,500 --> 00:44:33,940 It's the mentality around social housing and estates. 765 00:44:33,940 --> 00:44:35,660 It, you know, it just goes without saying, 766 00:44:35,660 --> 00:44:38,820 "Oh, they're an estate child", or, "They're off an estate". 767 00:44:38,820 --> 00:44:42,340 Each estate has its own culture but nobody cares to look at that - 768 00:44:42,340 --> 00:44:44,740 it's just an estate and it's a big estate - 769 00:44:44,740 --> 00:44:48,340 so, because it's so big, we've got to be rough, unruly poor people. 770 00:44:49,900 --> 00:44:52,140 In fact, figures from the time showed 771 00:44:52,140 --> 00:44:54,660 that the crime rate on Lancaster West Estate 772 00:44:54,660 --> 00:44:56,900 was one of the lowest in North Kensington. 773 00:44:58,740 --> 00:45:02,340 Because we are also close to very affluent areas, 774 00:45:02,340 --> 00:45:04,620 we have those sorts of people to look down on us 775 00:45:04,620 --> 00:45:07,460 and probably that's where it originated from. 776 00:45:07,460 --> 00:45:09,220 They probably felt, 777 00:45:09,220 --> 00:45:12,740 "Oh, we can't walk through there" - because of their own hang-ups 778 00:45:12,740 --> 00:45:15,420 and that manifested into our deviance. 779 00:45:18,020 --> 00:45:21,180 Prices in Notting Hill kept on rising. 780 00:45:21,180 --> 00:45:24,100 By the 2000s, if you owned a house there, 781 00:45:24,100 --> 00:45:25,940 you'd earn more from it in a year 782 00:45:25,940 --> 00:45:29,620 than most of the residents in Notting Dale could earn 783 00:45:29,620 --> 00:45:31,220 by working for 20 years. 784 00:45:32,340 --> 00:45:35,500 W11 is the place to live because of the '90s, 785 00:45:35,500 --> 00:45:36,940 so then it was like the yuppie thing, 786 00:45:36,940 --> 00:45:38,340 and then it was the place to live 787 00:45:38,340 --> 00:45:41,140 so we had a bloody film, Notting Hill, all that rubbish, 788 00:45:41,140 --> 00:45:43,700 and it's like this is the place. And everyone started moving in, 789 00:45:43,700 --> 00:45:45,420 and then you could... 790 00:45:45,420 --> 00:45:47,660 ..then the prices just... 791 00:45:47,660 --> 00:45:51,500 ..it was just... something that we thought... 792 00:45:51,500 --> 00:45:55,420 Even today, I go, "What the hell? Like, what?!" 793 00:45:56,820 --> 00:46:00,500 These last 17, 18 years, mate, it's gone bonkers. 794 00:46:00,500 --> 00:46:02,900 The money at the top is just so ridiculous. 795 00:46:02,900 --> 00:46:05,580 Like, these people are buying £75 million houses, like, 796 00:46:05,580 --> 00:46:08,180 looking over the whole estate, kind of like thing, you know. 797 00:46:08,180 --> 00:46:10,260 It's like, what? And no-one even lives there, 798 00:46:10,260 --> 00:46:12,460 you know, it's just like... And then we're all over here 799 00:46:12,460 --> 00:46:14,620 and people's families are struggling to pay rent, 800 00:46:14,620 --> 00:46:17,900 but they work three jobs and they can't afford to feed their kids 801 00:46:17,900 --> 00:46:19,700 and using food banks. It's like... 802 00:46:20,780 --> 00:46:23,020 Yeah, the 2000s is when I can say 803 00:46:23,020 --> 00:46:25,700 money at the top was just bonkers, innit? 804 00:46:28,660 --> 00:46:31,500 Homes that had been called slums not that long ago 805 00:46:31,500 --> 00:46:34,580 were now some of the most desirable properties in the country. 806 00:46:39,900 --> 00:46:43,780 This is my home, the first address I remember learning. 807 00:46:46,420 --> 00:46:51,260 You paid for a room, you rented a room, so we rented three rooms. 808 00:46:51,260 --> 00:46:55,860 There was four of us in the bedroom - my grandma... 809 00:46:55,860 --> 00:46:57,740 ..my grandad, my mum and myself. 810 00:46:59,100 --> 00:47:01,020 Yeah, and look at it now, wow. 811 00:47:02,420 --> 00:47:04,260 It looks like one house. Wow. 812 00:47:06,500 --> 00:47:11,260 I walked past this and dreamed about buying this for years... 813 00:47:11,260 --> 00:47:13,620 ..and I will, one day. 814 00:47:22,340 --> 00:47:24,300 It's all right, love, 815 00:47:24,300 --> 00:47:26,220 you can walk down my road. 816 00:47:26,220 --> 00:47:30,900 I feel like I shouldn't walk down this road, you know? 817 00:47:30,900 --> 00:47:35,940 People probably look at me like, "She's not wearing Prada. 818 00:47:37,900 --> 00:47:42,020 "She shouldn't be in this part of Portland Road." 819 00:47:44,060 --> 00:47:46,380 Probably everyone that lives here... 820 00:47:47,500 --> 00:47:49,980 ..would never have thought that I used to live here. 821 00:47:52,380 --> 00:47:56,260 Let's be honest, because they probably don't know 822 00:47:56,260 --> 00:47:58,940 how it was social housing as such. 823 00:48:01,500 --> 00:48:06,020 Oh, sorry. I was just looking. I'm from here, as a child. 824 00:48:08,060 --> 00:48:09,060 So sorry. 825 00:48:10,460 --> 00:48:12,100 So sorry, sir. 826 00:48:12,100 --> 00:48:14,340 You're very welcome to come in. I used to... We used to... 827 00:48:15,820 --> 00:48:18,660 ..my grandmother and my mother used to rent rooms. 828 00:48:18,660 --> 00:48:20,860 We could only afford three rooms, 829 00:48:20,860 --> 00:48:23,700 so this was the kitchen and that was our front room. 830 00:48:23,700 --> 00:48:25,900 But it's just...I was just looking at it. 831 00:48:25,900 --> 00:48:27,780 I always say, when I win the lottery, 832 00:48:27,780 --> 00:48:30,780 I would love to buy my home. Well, you can't buy it because I love it. 833 00:48:30,780 --> 00:48:32,620 Oh, well, that's good. I'm glad you love it. 834 00:48:32,620 --> 00:48:33,780 That's all right, then. 835 00:48:33,780 --> 00:48:36,980 We've had several people who lived here in the past. 836 00:48:36,980 --> 00:48:39,340 Yeah. I've lived here now for a very long time. 837 00:48:39,340 --> 00:48:41,580 It's such a lovely area. 838 00:48:41,580 --> 00:48:44,180 Lovely. That's good, I'm so glad you love it. 839 00:48:44,180 --> 00:48:45,900 I'm so glad you love it. 840 00:48:45,900 --> 00:48:51,100 You're welcome any time. Thank you very much, thank you. Take care. 841 00:48:51,500 --> 00:48:53,740 I did feel like I was trespassing... 842 00:48:54,980 --> 00:48:57,940 ..but...but he was very lovely. 843 00:48:59,940 --> 00:49:01,660 It is two worlds. 844 00:49:01,660 --> 00:49:06,860 I feel like these people wouldn't come over to Henry Dickens Court. 845 00:49:07,180 --> 00:49:12,060 It's sad for them that they're missing out on such lovely people 846 00:49:12,060 --> 00:49:13,460 on the other side. 847 00:49:13,460 --> 00:49:15,700 If they want to join our community... 848 00:49:15,700 --> 00:49:19,140 They've moved into our community, but no-one wants to join it. 849 00:49:22,100 --> 00:49:25,260 To this day, it's like, obviously, the affluent part matters. 850 00:49:25,260 --> 00:49:29,460 Those are the votes that this council goes for, 851 00:49:29,460 --> 00:49:32,740 those are the votes that are important to this council, 852 00:49:32,740 --> 00:49:35,380 and those are the people that this council 853 00:49:35,380 --> 00:49:38,220 feel most of their duty towards. 854 00:49:40,380 --> 00:49:45,340 By 2010, Kensington was officially the most expensive place to live 855 00:49:45,340 --> 00:49:46,500 in the country. 856 00:49:47,780 --> 00:49:49,900 Oligarchs and billionaires were moving in. 857 00:49:51,460 --> 00:49:52,860 But in Notting Dale, 858 00:49:52,860 --> 00:49:56,340 residents started to feel like second-class citizens. 859 00:49:57,500 --> 00:50:01,380 It was really around the quality of life that we have. 860 00:50:01,380 --> 00:50:04,420 There was no money, really, put into any, sort of, 861 00:50:04,420 --> 00:50:07,100 even community or social building. 862 00:50:07,100 --> 00:50:08,340 We were just left. 863 00:50:10,300 --> 00:50:14,580 The maintenance of the estate was badly let down. 864 00:50:17,020 --> 00:50:19,940 You know, you have to go down all guns blazing 865 00:50:19,940 --> 00:50:21,700 for something to be done. 866 00:50:21,700 --> 00:50:24,780 You have to go three, four, five, six times, 867 00:50:24,780 --> 00:50:26,820 then something will be done about it. 868 00:50:26,820 --> 00:50:28,100 It shouldn't have to be. 869 00:50:31,660 --> 00:50:34,820 When this estate was new, it was like, "Oh, a new place to live." 870 00:50:34,820 --> 00:50:37,140 For us, it was something nice. 871 00:50:37,140 --> 00:50:41,820 But then the more we saw money going into other places, 872 00:50:41,820 --> 00:50:44,420 respect going into other places, 873 00:50:44,420 --> 00:50:48,740 the authorities' attention being put in other places, 874 00:50:48,740 --> 00:50:52,980 it perpetuates that thinking that, "You're nothing, 875 00:50:52,980 --> 00:50:55,820 "you are worth nothing and we are investing nothing in you." 876 00:50:57,020 --> 00:50:59,860 But I think that was the catalyst 877 00:50:59,860 --> 00:51:02,940 for our community becoming so strong. 878 00:51:02,940 --> 00:51:04,380 We lived in that vein where, 879 00:51:04,380 --> 00:51:07,180 "Everyone thinks we're crap, but we know we're not." 880 00:51:10,820 --> 00:51:13,500 But the more neglected the estate got, 881 00:51:13,500 --> 00:51:15,460 the further apart these two worlds became. 882 00:51:17,740 --> 00:51:20,220 You could just see. 883 00:51:20,220 --> 00:51:25,060 You'd go out and our shops became delis, 884 00:51:25,060 --> 00:51:29,220 pubs became bars and it slowly was like, "Hold on a minute." 885 00:51:29,220 --> 00:51:32,820 And then a pub became Waitrose and, you know, it's like, 886 00:51:32,820 --> 00:51:37,660 "Hold on a minute, everything's sort of becoming for... 887 00:51:37,660 --> 00:51:41,460 "..not for us anymore, for the people that have moved in." 888 00:51:42,740 --> 00:51:44,380 Now, for the residents, 889 00:51:44,380 --> 00:51:47,620 the changes to the area didn't just seem strange, 890 00:51:47,620 --> 00:51:49,660 they started to feel threatening. 891 00:51:49,660 --> 00:51:54,820 North Kensington was a rundown, Dickensian craphole. 892 00:51:56,340 --> 00:51:59,220 Now they suddenly see there's money, 893 00:51:59,220 --> 00:52:01,420 it's got the golden postcode, West 11. 894 00:52:01,420 --> 00:52:02,860 That will sell. 895 00:52:05,060 --> 00:52:09,380 We're sitting on a pot of gold, the land that we're sitting on. 896 00:52:09,380 --> 00:52:14,620 It's worth so much money to them that I think they just want to, 897 00:52:14,860 --> 00:52:18,580 they don't really want social housing in this area. 898 00:52:18,580 --> 00:52:23,780 They know they can make money and so they'd like to get rid of us. 899 00:52:25,180 --> 00:52:28,980 70% of homes in Notting Dale were still social housing... 900 00:52:30,140 --> 00:52:31,900 ..but that number was starting to fall. 901 00:52:33,140 --> 00:52:36,700 By 2015, a two-bedroom flat in Grenfell Tower 902 00:52:36,700 --> 00:52:39,660 that had been bought under right to buy 903 00:52:39,660 --> 00:52:42,260 was worth a quarter of a million pounds. 904 00:52:44,980 --> 00:52:47,140 Then the council began to clad the tower. 905 00:52:48,380 --> 00:52:52,860 I was on the board when it started coming about to do the cladding. 906 00:52:52,860 --> 00:52:54,660 Some residents had said no. 907 00:52:56,780 --> 00:52:59,540 The residents wanted it left how it was. 908 00:52:59,540 --> 00:53:03,580 But then again, you had, like, a lot of the well-to-do people, 909 00:53:03,580 --> 00:53:06,780 the wealthier side, saying it was an ugly thing to look at. 910 00:53:09,060 --> 00:53:11,940 So, no matter what way we were going, we weren't winning. 911 00:53:14,500 --> 00:53:18,020 The residents in the tower, even when the works was going on, 912 00:53:18,020 --> 00:53:23,100 they've had, you know, blowouts and little fires and things like that. 913 00:53:23,300 --> 00:53:25,300 You know, their television 914 00:53:25,300 --> 00:53:30,100 and computers and that would blow up and things, there was problems, 915 00:53:30,100 --> 00:53:32,100 but they just continued doing the work. 916 00:53:34,580 --> 00:53:39,060 They weren't even listening to the residents who were living in there. 917 00:53:40,180 --> 00:53:43,420 It was like, "We did tell you several times, 918 00:53:43,420 --> 00:53:47,660 "you didn't listen and you still chose to just carry on." 919 00:53:47,660 --> 00:53:50,140 And so it's like, "They really don't matter." 920 00:53:52,340 --> 00:53:53,740 North Kensington felt 921 00:53:53,740 --> 00:53:58,060 like it had become two very distinct worlds once again. 922 00:53:58,060 --> 00:54:02,060 By 2016, with the work now completed on the tower, 923 00:54:02,060 --> 00:54:04,540 the gap between the incomes of the richest 924 00:54:04,540 --> 00:54:09,420 and the incomes of the poorest was the same as it had been in 1850. 925 00:54:10,820 --> 00:54:13,260 Inequality had come full circle. 926 00:54:15,900 --> 00:54:19,140 If you're just joining us, good morning, welcome to you. 927 00:54:19,140 --> 00:54:21,500 There is a fire in west London. 928 00:54:21,500 --> 00:54:24,620 A block of flats in the Lancaster West Estate... 929 00:54:27,900 --> 00:54:33,180 One of my sons sent me a text with a picture of a tower block on fire... 930 00:54:35,820 --> 00:54:36,980 ..and I looked at it... 931 00:54:39,260 --> 00:54:41,780 ..and I thought, "My God..." 932 00:54:44,980 --> 00:54:48,420 I lost friends, I lost a whole family there. 933 00:54:48,420 --> 00:54:50,860 I know their friends, my son lost friends. 934 00:54:54,940 --> 00:54:57,540 Some nights I go to bed and I think I'm in a dream, 935 00:54:57,540 --> 00:55:02,220 so when I wake up in the morning and look out it'll be like it was. 936 00:55:07,700 --> 00:55:11,100 It hurts that, you know, the anger, it's like, it's not even... 937 00:55:11,100 --> 00:55:12,860 I don't even know if it's anger. 938 00:55:12,860 --> 00:55:17,420 I'm just, like, hurt that no-one listened. 939 00:55:17,420 --> 00:55:22,340 It breaks my heart that my area is broken, you know, 940 00:55:22,340 --> 00:55:25,580 my community is broken, their hearts have been broken. 941 00:55:28,020 --> 00:55:33,260 Grenfell is the culmination of the disrespect, the neglect, 942 00:55:33,500 --> 00:55:35,860 and the way that we were never listened to 943 00:55:35,860 --> 00:55:37,860 and our voice was never important. 944 00:55:37,860 --> 00:55:41,420 Grenfell would have never happened if there was some respect, 945 00:55:41,420 --> 00:55:43,580 even just some respect, for our voice. 946 00:55:45,500 --> 00:55:49,540 Especially when you know it could have been avoided. 947 00:55:54,420 --> 00:55:56,660 That is the most hurtful thing, 948 00:55:59,100 --> 00:56:04,340 that you become so powerless, there's nothing you can do about it. 949 00:56:04,780 --> 00:56:08,660 They were hell-bent in doing what they wanted to do. 950 00:56:11,860 --> 00:56:15,540 It's just heartbroken, we're all heartbroken, 951 00:56:15,540 --> 00:56:20,020 but it's given us the strength to say, "Right, enough is enough. 952 00:56:20,020 --> 00:56:22,860 "We've had enough of what you've been doing to us. 953 00:56:22,860 --> 00:56:25,700 "We are going to be the ones that's calling the shots now." 954 00:56:28,740 --> 00:56:30,580 It's started change. 955 00:56:30,580 --> 00:56:33,820 It's started change, mate. Young minds are woken. 956 00:56:33,820 --> 00:56:35,700 Young minds have been awoken, 957 00:56:35,700 --> 00:56:38,500 but now young minds have the drive behind them now, innit? 958 00:56:38,500 --> 00:56:41,940 The fire gave some people drive, innit? 959 00:56:43,780 --> 00:56:45,220 I think this has made us... 960 00:56:45,220 --> 00:56:48,780 ..we've always been strong within North Kensington, 961 00:56:48,780 --> 00:56:52,100 but I think this has just made us more stronger. 962 00:56:52,100 --> 00:56:53,660 That was the mentality. 963 00:56:53,660 --> 00:56:57,820 It's like, "Not this community. We are going to hold this together 964 00:56:57,820 --> 00:57:02,020 "until they are able to deal with their trauma and come back." 965 00:57:02,020 --> 00:57:03,900 We don't collapse and die. 966 00:57:03,900 --> 00:57:07,100 We don't fall down and go, "Oh, it's all too hard." 967 00:57:07,100 --> 00:57:08,340 We just come out fighting. 968 00:57:13,140 --> 00:57:16,700 We are a community that has been dismembered 969 00:57:16,700 --> 00:57:21,060 and it's about putting the pieces back together again 970 00:57:21,060 --> 00:57:23,540 in order to keep that thread going... 971 00:57:24,820 --> 00:57:28,180 ..and that it can pass on from generation to generation, 972 00:57:28,180 --> 00:57:31,100 the culture, tradition, who we are, what we have done, 973 00:57:31,100 --> 00:57:32,340 who we are going to be. 974 00:57:36,780 --> 00:57:38,420 Things have to change. 975 00:57:38,420 --> 00:57:42,220 Things must change for us. 976 00:57:42,220 --> 00:57:46,500 We all can't afford to be in our own homes. 977 00:57:46,500 --> 00:57:50,180 We cannot afford to own something 978 00:57:50,180 --> 00:57:54,780 that, you know, substantial for ourselves. 979 00:57:54,780 --> 00:57:57,460 And if the local authorities are going to do all this, 980 00:57:57,460 --> 00:58:00,340 they have to do it right. 981 00:58:00,340 --> 00:58:04,420 It cannot be continuing to do it the way it is, it's no good. 982 00:58:08,100 --> 00:58:11,980 It has to happen, it must happen. 983 00:58:11,980 --> 00:58:16,020 Grenfell has to be a symbol of hope for everyone... 984 00:58:17,860 --> 00:58:19,060 ..for everyone.