Column: November 2018

One of our Common Councillors, Hatfield House resident Sue Pearson, blew her top not long ago at a City Corporation planning meeting, accusing the assembled decision-makers of “trashing our wonderful estate”. Two weeks later, it might have looked like she had egg on her face when the same planning committee granted conservation area status to both the Barbican and Golden Lane estates. But as residents will tell you quickly, words mean little if not followed by deeds.

Councillor Pearson is not alone in her dim view of council attitudes towards our estate. Many residents complain not just of the material neglect shown to what is studied worldwide as important modernist architecture, but of the institutional failure to genuinely attach any cultural value to these boxy coloured buildings we call home.

It was councillor Pearson who one warm day in 2016 invited me to join a party of volunteers 16 storeys up on the top of Great Arthur House, where there is, unbeknown to many residents, a spectacular roof garden (with pond). The garden has been closed for many years, yet it is one of the most beautiful and distinguished parts of our estate, and remains criminally ignored and underused.

Spectacular views in every direction

We had a job to do on that day because parts the garden's paving had become overgrown with weeds, so we set about our back-breaking work with little to sustain us other than the fabulous views of London in every direction. We finished with aching arms but the smug feeling of a job well done.

So I have some sympathy with councillor Pearson’s sentiments about our landlords. Residents would just like to get a sense that the City Corporation views its asset, our estate, with some pride.

It could be all be so different. In Barcelona, one of master architect Gaudí’s most celebrated buildings, Casa Milà (aka, La Pedrera), has a roof garden that has been properly secured and is scrupulously maintained, hosting regular summer evenings of light music.

Back on Golden Lane, a more enlightened approach can be seen unfolding behind the community centre. On her arrival as estate manager back in April, Michelle Warman took an instant shine to our fish pond, which sits in a peaceful sunken garden between Bowater House and Bayer House. The pond had fallen into a sorry state, but now it is a picture of nascent vitality. Fresh reed beds have been planted and a new aerating pump has replaced the old ugly one. The fish can once again breathe easily, free from choking slime. Their only problem is a hungry heron that has been spotted lurking on the roof of Bayer House, eyeing a feast below.

A picture of nascent vitality

It is some of the lesser used areas of the estate such as Great Arthur roof garden, the fish pond, the lawns and the open spaces that make Golden Lane so admired. But they’re also often the parts that come under the threat of development. That’s when councillor Pearson is likely to launch into another “trashing” fit.

Another example is the recent City Corporation decision to close the estate's management office and use the space to create new flats. Where the estate office will be re-located is a mystery. The City Corporation says it can move into the community centre, but nearly four months after the community centre officially opened after refurbishment, it is still not fit for wheelchair users. It's hard to argue against the creation of much-needed new homes, but in this case I’ll give it a go...

When the estate was first built, its administrative hub was deliberately put in a central, open and accessible place, on the ground floor of Great Arthur House. The present office fronts onto a paved plaza connecting it to the community centre. This plaza is where residents gather, bump into one another, swapping stories and information about activities and events. This space has been converted into a busy car park, and nattering residents are forced to step aside whenever a vehicle approaches.

Robbing the estate of its communal spaces is the kind of casual and careless “trashing” that councillor Pearson is trying to resist. Not long ago, she had a bad accident and simultaneously broke both of her arms. Yet still she soldiers on, often in the face of often ugly opposition. So when I say “more power to her elbow”, I mean it in more ways than one.

Councillor Pearson (left) goes out on a limb with Basterfield House resident Patsy Cox

Update: Last month I wrote about the dangers of u-turning traffic to residents crossing Fann Street. In two half-hour vigils, I counted 26 and 29 (almost one a minute) prohibited u-turns. Under the Freedom of Information Act, I asked how many penalties had been issued in the past year, the amount of the fine, and where the money is spent. The reply has just arrived, stating that 266 penalty notices went out in the past 12 months (fewer than one a day), that the fine for each is £130, discounted to £65 if paid within 14 days, and that the money is spent on off-street parking and other transport projects.

Billy Mann has lived on the Golden Lane Estate for 24 years. He is a City of London Community Builder and blogs about neighbourhood happenings at basterfieldbilly.blogspot.com.

An edited version of this text appeared in the City Matters newspaper, issue number 085.

Life on the edge: the Golden Lane/Islington paradox

Cross Golden Lane from one side to the other and you step over the line. The west side, the estate side, is in the City of London, less a London borough than a super-rich enclave of business and finance within the capital, a sort of mini-state, like the Vatican is to Rome, but without the Pope. The east side of Golden Lane is in Islington, a proper London borough that shares many inner-city characteristics with its neighbours Hackney and Camden.

So there is a physical and a political split down the middle of Golden Lane. Not that anybody pays much attention, apart from the road cleaners (they wash the City side). City of London and Islington residents around here have lived in each other’s pockets for years. Golden Laners use Fortune Street Park (Islington) and Islington children use the Golden Lane Estate (City) as a cycle park. I sometimes think Golden Lane gets the best of the shared deal, but it hasn't always been the case.

Recently I was loaned a copy of an unpublished memoir by Pat Moriarty, a former resident of the nearby Peabody estate off Whitecross Street (Islington). In it she describes life in our neighbourhood in the 1950s and 1960s. The area was razed beyond recognition by German bombing during the second world war, but what Pat describes is an area pulling itself together again. The picture she paints is best described as grim with a grin, a proper black-and-white story of enduring hardship where the Peabody's women took turns daily to boil up a copper cauldron in which they did the family laundry, while the men scratched around for a bit of portering work and hard drinking at the local Whitbread brewery. But at the heart of these memories is a warm smile and a gentle hello from a rich cast of local characters. This is post-war Britain at its best.

One of the great moments of relief for young mothers from the Peabody back in the 1950s and early 1960s was to wheel their young children over to the newly constructed Golden Lane Estate, where a sunken lawn provided a ready-made open-air playpen. While the children ran free, the women bonded to form what might be described as an early feminist club, a kind local social sisterhood born from the rubble of international conflict.

Sometimes it looks like history is repeating itself. Nearly all of the activities and events that take place today on the Golden Lane Estate are the work of women. Our estate manager is a woman, our community centre manager is a woman, our community engagement officer is a woman. The only councillor who lives on the estate is a woman. I cite these examples only because nobody ever does.

Two women I was pleased to introduce to our newly redesigned Golden Lane Estate community centre not long ago were the actors Rachael Spence and Lisa Hammond. Both are accomplished board-treaders and regulars on film and TV. Lisa is probably best know for her work as a cunningly perceptive detective in TV’s 'Vera' (starring Brenda Blethyn) and as Donna Yates, a market stallholder in 'EastEnders'.

But Rachael and Lisa have together been carving out their own theatrical niche for more than 10 years. It started, so the story goes, one day while they were trying to write parts for themselves (as young actors inevitably do). They were lost for words, didn't know what to say or how to say it. So they took to the streets they knew best, their own neighbourhood, and asked people what to write about and in what words.

Out of this gonzo exercise came ‘No Idea’, a stage show that defined their cluelessness. They found a spiritual home in this method of “verbatim theatre” and, between regular acting jobs, kept the idea of going. Sometime last year I reported on ‘Old Street New Street’, a show they put on at Shoreditch Town Hall, in which a group of local teenagers performed words lifted from interviews Rachael and Lisa had done with old people from the area. In the process of mouthing the words, the young actors became so absorbed in the voices of their surrogate oldies that they slipped into character and began to mimic them, often in hilarious caricature.

Now Rachael and Lisa are at it again, in a 10th Anniversary reworking of the 'No Idea’ idea, in a show imaginatively titled 'Still No Idea’ at the Royal Court theatre in Chelsea. They cut a curious comedy double act. Rachael is tall and leggy, Lisa is short and compact, whizzing around in her wheelchair with characteristic abandon. But they make the most of the contrast and play it off against one another. This softens the edges of what can sometimes be squirmingly hard material that skates the thin ice of bad taste and taboo.

Lisa Hammond and Rachael Spence in 'Still No Idea'

They were visiting our community centre because next year they fancy reworking the 'Old Street New Street’ idea by putting the words of teenagers into the mouths of old people. That’s where I came in. They were trying to use me to entice unsuspecting old folk into talking like da kids. I think they probably overestimate my pulling power with the pensioners, but they also wanted to have a look at the community centre's refurbishment as a potential space for rehearsals or workshops.

It didn't take long for reminiscence to kick in. Rachael currently lives off Whitecross Street and Lisa grew up in the neighbourhood. Both recall the old Golden Lane community centre and the pleasures of performing on its stage. The newly remodelled community centre offers fabulous views of the estate's fish pond, where Lisa would play as a child, and inevitably fall in.

Their attachment to the area seems genuine, and in their self-styled theatre work they are looking to explore the changes wrought on this part of London and its residents from its earlier identity as part of working-class Finsbury to the aspirational, gentrified habitat of middle-class modernists of Golden Lane and the brutalist poseurs of the Barbican. 

Interestingly, the very southern tip of Islington, south of Old Street towards St Giles and the Barbican, still retains much of its working-class kudos. The social housing is still there, the street market thrives. The street signs still declair them as part of Finsbury. And you can't move in Kennedy's fish and chip shop for gobby taxi drivers.

It is a Whitecross Street Pat Moriarty and her first generation of exotic locals would recognise. Much has changed, but some things also stay the same.

'Still No Idea' is at the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, Chelsea, London SW1W 8AS, until November 17.

Art: Masks, a studio project

Submit to Love's current artist-in-residence is Steven Wright, who found fame turning his house in Dulwich, south London, into a living museum of Outsider Art. He called it his “House of Dreams”, so it was interesting to see him bring his dreamworld to Submit to Love. 

One of his first projects was to get members making masks. The temptation to draw parallels between masks and dreams is strong. It could be said that both are multi-layered confessions, and Steven agreed that masks are more often about revealing than concealing. 

Our members took first-base inspiration from a serious book about Mexican masks, but roamed freely with the subject thereafter. So it wouldn't be a good idea to read too much into these masks. Some of them are of real people (Michael Jackson), some are just for fun. Some are self portraits. AD's image of herself depicts a wild-headed woman with her tongue sticking out. It's a remarkable likeness, both physical and metaphorical, of the AD I know. Studio manager Michelle modelled herself on an evil crone with sunken eyes and a hooked nose. As I said, don't read too much into these things. Errol Drysdale did the mask of a lion. That's a good character fit, too.

One of the fascinating things these masks all have in common is that inside them, their essence, their soul, is one day: Tuesday, October 16, 2018. This is because they all started as scrunched-up pages from that day's copy of the Metro newspaper, on top of which is layer upon layer of Modrock. 

The front-page headline in the Metro on that Tuesday was “MEXIT!” followed by a story about how Prince Harry's wife, Meghan, will be enduring the pain of childbirth on the same day the UK is scheduled to leave the EU. Good luck with that, thought Sam Jevon as she turned this story into the outsized nose of a grinning idiot.

Other stories that day included one about Katya from Strictly Come Dancing trying to repair her marriage after a slip of the tongue with a long-haired comedian called Seann. There was something about Universal Credit not only being a pathway to misery for tens of thousands, especially women, but a total waste of billions for the taxpayer. But my favourite story was an interview with the artist Finn Stone (aka, the Mad Hatter), whose north-London house looks like it just came out of Steven Wright's toilet.

It is weirdly comforting to think that the Metro newspaper's worldly wisdom is embedded in these creations. More so that each of them carries an identical tabloid voodoo and yet look so vastly different. It's both enlivening and creepy in one take. 

I still can't resist mentioning that huge pink nose to Sam Jevon at every opportunity. She giggles coquettishly, but I'm pretty sure she's wishing I’d just shut up and piss off.

Column: October 2018

A prize for the Most Dangerous Place on Golden Lane does not exist. If it did, it would go to the southwest corner of the estate at the junction between Fann Street and Goswell Road. This is the closest we have to an urban death trap.

For reasons I can only guess at, wind speeds at this corner nudge 50km/h, and images of hapless pedestrians being blown into the path of raging traffic are never far from the imagination. Safety is further compromised by motorists heading north on Goswell Road lunging into prohibited u-turns, swinging with menace over Fann Street’s busiest crossing point. Fingering taxi drivers is cruel sport, but they are unquestionably the chief culprits.

A group of miffed residents has taken to the estate’s website (about this. Stories of residents risking their lives trying to cross Fann Street are possibly an exaggeration. Only just (in two separate 30-minute slots, I counted 26 and 29 u-turns, including three by City of London Corporation vehicles and one by a non-emergency police car).

And these unhappy residents are joined by their Barbican neighbours, who are livid that drivers seeking to avoid u-turn detection by the roadside cameras on Goswell Road swoop into the underground car-park slip road alongside Blake Tower to perform a 3-point turn. This manoeuvre is not prohibited, but nevertheless dangerous, as many terrified Barbican residents will testify.

I’ve been told that the u-turn danger spot is the result of traffic diverted by Crossrail building work at Farringdon. I’m told also that the City Corporation has not received a single complaint from Golden Lane residents and that we “are good at complaining to each other, but not to City officers”. This came from one of our Common Councillors.

The City Corporation doesn't make it easy to complain. Once you’ve navigated to the relevant page on its website, you are asked first whether your complaint is a actually a complaint. Anything the City Corporation considers “frivolous or vexatious” is rejected. Then, assuming you tick all the boxes, the instructions outline a three-stage process for complaining, the first of which amounts to: “don’t call us, call whoever it is you want to complain about.”

I decided to run a test. Early last month I sent written questions to the City Corporation asking how many fines have been issued for the Fann Street/Goswell Road junction in the past 12 months, and where the revenue collected is spent. I didn't get an answer, so contacted complaints@cityoflondon.gov.uk. Two days later I got a message advising me to submit my questions under the Freedom of Information Act, which I have now done. Watch this space.

The trouble with complaining is that you run the risk of sounding paranoid, or slightly unhinged, which is probably why many residents don’t bother. Some, thankfully, do. One of them is a close neighbour in Basterfield House. His name is Nigel.

One of Nigel’s biggest problems is that he is too clever for his own good. He is a retired architect and building surveyor, so when he fires off an angry email to an unsuspecting City Corporation officer about the finer points of the Listed Building Management Guidelines, he knows what he's talking about.

The effect can be intimidating and whenever I start reading one of Nigel's sizzling complaints (he always copies me in) I picture him sat red-faced in front of a computer screen dripping with a noxious slurry of spit, venom and bile.

His letters all start with an attempt at politeness in the “Dear Sir/Madam” mould. Unfortunately, Nigel's courteous opening line somehow can’t disguise the contempt and hostility that is to follow, which quickly mutates into barbed sarcasm along the lines of “It pains me to bring to your attention the matter I first brought to your attention three months ago.”

It’s hard to say whether Nigel's dogged attacks have any effect. It might just be coincidence, but after several months of Nigel's rolling vitriol on the poor quality of the concrete repairs currently in progress on the estate, residents were told that the City Corporation were conducting a detailed investigation. That sounds like a home win for Nigel to me.

For the benefit of his health, I urge Nigel to chill. He assures me that he does, at long, lazy lunches in upmarket restaurants with his son. My concern is half-hearted. I want him to keep ranting. My parting words with him are always the same: “See you later, Nigel. Stay angry. Carry on complaining.”

Billy Mann has lived on the Golden Lane Estate for 24 years. He is a City of London Community Builder and blogs about neighbourhood happenings at basterfieldbilly.blogspot.com.

An edited version of this column appeared in the City Matters newspaper, number 083.

Diary: September 2018

1 September 2018, London
At Guildhall Art Gallery.


2 September 2018, London
At the British Museum.


4 September 2018, London
The storming of the CityCorp's Cripplegate noticeboard gathers pace.


12 September 2018, Moulsford
Funeral day.


14 September 2018, London
The Roof of the Sir Ralph Perring Centre on the Golden Lane Estate is a potential death trap for delinquent male teenagers, who prowl its dizzy heights in testosteronic competition and juvenile joshing with one another. I spotted one unlucky specimen today attempting a tricky climbdown, only to twist over on his ankle during the final drop. He staggered painfully to his feet and was ushered away supported by two friends, who both looked like they were enjoying his pain. I smiled a smile bordering on laughter, and felt slightly ashamed.

21 September 2018, London
Yesterday Cris gave me a copy of the feedback document from the Science Museum event we took part in back in July. The event featured me and Y talking about memory and remembering; basically, two people with brain injuries jibber-jabbering. The best bit of the feedback for me was one answer to the question, “What motivated you to attend the event?” Some comedian answered that it “sounded fun”. Bloody hilarious.

22 September 2018, Brussels
30th Anniversary weekend. Liverpool 3 Southampton 0. Top of the world, Ma.


23 September 2018, Brussels
30 years ago today. Walthamstow register office, ‘Theme From The Deer Hunter’. Quickly-bought ring for me from H Samuel, Camden High Street. Today is surreal.


23 September 2018, Brussels
In Museé Magritte we spotted a group of young women in traditional dress; long patterned pleated skirts, white blouses closed to the throat and a kind of loosely bowed neck tie or ribbon thing. They wore circular squat pillbox hats/headdresses in patterned red/burgundy (hair tied up or back) and body-hugging waistcoats in the same colour (sketch below gives a rough idea).

They were Latvian, we discovered and here in Brussels for a festival. On one of the women I noticed a small tear just below the collar of her blouse at the back. The tear looked like a mark of wear (a bit grubby) and it made me wonder whether this blouse had been passed down through generations. Was she wearing her grandmother's festival blouse?

23 September 2018, Brussels
Champagne, cheese, grapes and the last episode of Bodyguard.


24 September 2018, London
Vanity Fair on ITV catch-up.

"In a world where everyone is striving for what's not worth having."

27 September 2018, Hackney
S was looking around in a shifty manner today while we were doing reading practice. Perhaps she is nervous about being seen doing it.

28 September 2018, Brighton
Email to Natasha Lockyer, Director of Services, Headway East London.

‘Hi Tash
I just spotted this story in Hackney Citizen about St Leonard's. I fleetingly once thought that St Leonard's would be a good 'partnership' for HEL and a good location. I knew it had/has loads of empty space. I also knew/know that in the City & Hackney health/social services partnership, the City of London (very rich) could do with contributing a bit more to support Hackney (very poor), though the Corporation of London (arseholes) would argue differently. These are of course the gross generalisations of a tabloid journalist, and of little real interest, but anchoring HEL more in the community is something I'm interested in, so I thought I would pass it in on.’
Billy

28 September 2018, Brighton
Email to Jade Ibegbuna at CoL Community Engagement dept re the training that started one year ago with an 8-week Action for Happiness course of workshops.

‘I was sceptical of the Action for Happiness idea, and one year on some of my doubts have been sidelined, but the jury is still out. I never liked the Buddhist flavour. This is probably a misconception, but a lot of buddhism seems to emphasise the individual, whereas I believe in the team. The persecution of the Royhingya muslims by the Myanmar military is another stain that has not been cleaned for me. At times it looks like it is drifting blind into genocide, and that makes me nervous.

'Political ranting aside, I think it is worth mentioning how the Action for Happiness workshop threw together a group of driven strangers who all shared a desire nurture change: for a greater understanding of one another and for a way to work together that would be transformative.

'Continuity has also been important for me. Dovetailing the Action for Happiness workshop with the Community Building project has been a great success. Thanks to the training workshops that followed, I am now a better planner, a better listener and a better friend to my neighbours.

Overall, the biggest impact for me has been to see the strength in others. Their weaknesses they can keep, but show me what you're good at and I'll be like a rat up a drainpipe finding a way to make the most of it.’

28 September 2018, Brighton
In Paris House, Western Road.