LIVES, INTERRUPTED

It’s a measure of just how long this here Winegum has been going now that when a five-year anniversary of a major news story comes around, I can point to an actual Telegram post reacting to it at the time it happened. Such is the case with the Grenfell fire half-a-decade ago today. 72 dead, hundreds of lives cruelly and brutally interrupted, a tower block reduced to a charred carcass – a grotesque blot on the London skyline that says so much about the capital’s priorities; and nobody yet behind bars following an interminable pass-the-parcel blame game that remains ongoing. Glancing at the 2017 Winegum response to the tragedy earlier today – a post grimly titled ‘Clad in Black’ – it’s interesting that the rumour which emerged early on, the one that hinted the horrific inferno was sparked by a fridge catching fire in one of the block’s apartments, was a rumour I was understandably sceptical about; in the 24-hour news age, such fevered speculation often accompanies a story when the full facts have yet to be established.

Ironically, it turned out the beginnings of the blaze were genuinely caused by this incident; however, the easy speed by which the flames swiftly engulfed the whole building – reaching the top floor in a mere 18 minutes – was entirely due to the superficial cladding that had been cheaply tacked-on to Grenfell Tower’s exterior to make this aesthetically ugly example of 1970s social housing more palatable to the panoramic views of the wealthy neighbours that had colonised Kensington since Grenfell’s distant construction. For those who lived at Grenfell and survived the tragedy, the fire has been one of those life-changing moments that have altered them forevermore; they will never again be the people they were before that day, and the fire has discoloured everything thereafter, almost coming to define the individuals they have been ever since 14 June 2017; most struggle with the kind of survivors’ guilt familiar to veterans of wars, wondering why they are still here and their comrades (or friends and neighbours) aren’t.

And these fortunate few only made it out of the building because they ignored the perceived wisdom of the fire service and didn’t stay entombed in their flats; those that did paid the price with their lives – all 72 of them. The fact Grenfell Tower is still standing serves as a potent reminder of the tragedy that is impossible to avoid whenever travelling through West London. Its gruesome wounds may now be hidden by cladding which is less flammable than the cladding that enabled the fire to spread with such lethal haste; but its continuous presence as a melancholy beacon for the neighbourhood’s less-affluent community is a damning comment on the corner-cutting contempt for them that seems to symbolise so much of modern urban living in Britain today. As was pointed out in a ‘Newsnight’ feature on the tragedy aired on the eve of its five-year anniversary, any attempts at closure by survivors are inexorably linked with justice, something that appears as remote five years on as it did in the dazed and confused days following the fire.

The inquiry into Grenfell has yet to conclude, and as a consequence there have been no charges and nobody has even been found accountable for what happened. Clearly, somebody must be responsible; unlike, say, 9/11, where the perpetrators were instantly identifiable and quickly named and shamed as deliberate instigators of a massacre, with Grenfell there has been shameless buck-passing from even before the government inquiry set up by Theresa May in 2017 began. The frenzied 999 calls from that night which were aired during the early days of the inquiry make for a heartbreaking listen as the residents are repeatedly told not to leave their homes; later calls that inform the emergency services that flames are outside the door then lead to belated advice that now is the time to go, however frightening a prospect it must have been for residents forced to fight through the fire when they could have exited long before it reached their floor.

The survivors may still be with us to recount their own personal stories of that night five years ago, but their survival comes with physical (on top of mental) scars that remain poignant obstacles to their futures. The appalling amount of toxic fumes inhaled during the inferno continue to affect their wellbeing, and long-term health issues are difficult to assess when there is still so much mystery surrounding the chemical nature of the materials used to ‘gentrify’ Grenfell for the benefit of those incapable of avoiding North Kensington when reclining on their South Kensington balconies. The radioactive traces of Hiroshima that everyone born after 1945 carries inside them via the contaminated atomic atmosphere has odious echoes in the lungs of Grenfell survivors, whose hopes of a long life are severely compromised by the poison they inadvertently ingested.

The tragedy has also emotionally separated survivors in the aftermath, with the understandable reluctance to be reminded of what happened leading to estrangements and divorces as attempts to rebuild lives often require the expulsion of anyone whose presence is a painful reminder of the old lives that can never be returned to. The more tangible fallout of Grenfell was easy to see in the months immediately following the fire; before the physical damage was gradually removed from the landscape, there was a lengthy period in which it served as a gory memorial both to the 72 who lost their lives and those who survived but have never been able to recapture the lives they led prior to the fire. The scale of the wreckage in all its myriad forms is incalculable, which makes the likelihood of simple financial slaps on the wrist for the accused come the conclusion of the inquiry intolerable for these survivors. They need someone to properly answer for the crime that they are the living victims of, and the immoral avoidance of that crime by the guilty parties has been one of the more unedifying examples of the vast chasm between the haves and have-nots seen in recent years.

Central and local government, cladding manufacturers, the outsourced contractors entrusted with ‘refurbishing’ Grenfell – all played their part in the build-up to the tragedy by turning a blind eye (or, more accurately, focusing that blind eye on profit) that in retrospect feels like it could only ever end one awful way. The prevailing 21st century trend seems to be for visually prettier materials to be glued on to the outside of unfashionable 20th century edifices in order to render them easier on the eye, though proper checks were spurned en route by inefficient regulators when confronted by cladding that manufacturers lied about the safety of, and by politicians always eager to take the cost-cutting option when it comes to social housing. And all have played the ‘It weren’t me, guv’ card when their role in the tragedy has been highlighted.

Yet, as research has subsequently revealed, Grenfell’s cladding was not some unique exception to the rule; there are dozens of residential buildings up and down the country still coated in similarly dangerous cladding that was added to exteriors with full knowledge of its potential risks, simply because it was a cheaper alternative for people too poor to give a flying f**k about. In many respects, it’s a miracle Grenfell hasn’t been repeated on numerous occasions ever since 2017, though the fatal potential is present in each and every one of them. Five years on, distance has not dimmed the anger of those on the frontline of the tragedy, as can happen with anyone whose life is derailed by an event that never really goes away, especially if justice is frustratingly elusive and may well remain unresolved by the time the legal process completes its ineffective journey.

© The Editor

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A TALE OF TWO CITIES

‘They thought they could snub the conventions of decent society when they seized the sixty-room mansion and transformed it into hippie house!’ No, not a Daily Mail leader, but the booming tones of the British Pathé News reporter covering the end of the celebrated squat at 144 Piccadilly in 1969. The film clip covering the Met’s raid on the property after it had been taken over by the London Street Commune, a loose collective of ‘hippies’ formed to highlight homelessness in the capital, is unsurprisingly one-sided in its perspective as what the narrator describes as ‘the spongers who call themselves hippies’ are evicted from the residence they’d occupied for a week. The commentary goes onto say ‘by their shameless actions, (they) disparage the plight of decent people who cannot find homes’. Decent as in those who regularly visit a barber, one wonders?

There’s no doubt what began as an admittedly ‘radical’ (in the jargon of the time) attempt to bring homelessness to the public’s attention worked as a PR campaign, and whilst there would have been deserving cases taking advantage of the operation, there would also have been a fair few rich kids slumming it and bumming around from one squat to another as they indulged in a bit of counter-cultural backpacking; the additional infiltration of Hell’s Angels and drug-dealers then made its dramatic ending inevitable. But the roots of many homeless charities we take for granted today were in such stunts and in that respect they served a purpose, even if the media coverage was more or less entirely from the viewpoint of the short-back-and-sides generation.

It’s interesting when watching the Pathé report to notice that virtually all of those being herded out of 144 Piccadilly look to be under 30. A good half-decade of Swinging London propaganda had attracted young people to the capital from across the globe, like monochrome moths drawn to a psychedelic flame, even though many of those arriving soon found themselves in a similar situation to the one that befell the lead character in Ken Loach’s landmark BBC TV play ‘Cathy Come Home’ in 1966. Today, London retains its attractiveness to the overseas eye, though there’s a glaring divide between those imported as a cheap labour force (with employers recycling the hackneyed excuse that ‘British workers won’t do these jobs’) and those with the big bucks to buy up huge chunks of the capital.

The tragedy that occurred at Grenfell Tower in North Kensington in the early hours of Wednesday morning has already been politicised, though not necessarily by politicians themselves. Whilst the cause of the appalling event would appear to have been an accident, the shoddy corner-cutting workmanship and lacklustre fire safety precautions that enabled the inferno to take hold of the tower block with such frightening speed seems to be symbolic of a vast chasm between rich and poor, not just in the capital as a whole, but in one specific corner of it, where the haves and have-nots sit cheek-by-jowl. London Mayor Sadiq Khan received a rough ride from residents when he attempted to give a media statement at the site, whereas Theresa May’s decision to avoid residents and speak to fire-fighters away from cameras and microphones was the latest PR own-goal of a PM giving Gordon Brown a run for his money in the ‘most unsuitable candidate for the job ever’ stakes.

Far be it from me to imply there’s any political mileage to be got out of this terrible disaster, but Jeremy Corbyn seems to have captured the mood of the moment in a completely natural manner that contrasts sharply with his awkward opposite number in Westminster. His ease with the general public has been demonstrated yet again in the wake of Wednesday’s events; of course it won’t do him any harm with the electorate, though it really would be churlish to suggest his visit to North Kensington and to the church where many of the survivors have congregated was some sort of points-scoring exercise. If it was, then he once again trounced Mrs May, who doesn’t seem capable of doing anything right at the moment.

During an emergency session of Parliament, briefly recalled to respond to the tragedy, Corbyn made a salient point about the housing crisis in London. ‘It can’t be acceptable that in London we have luxury buildings and luxury flats left empty as land banking for the future while the homeless and the poor look for somewhere to live,’ he said, and then added: ‘Kensington is a tale of two cities. The south part of Kensington is incredibly wealthy; it’s the wealthiest part of the whole country. The ward where this fire took place is, I think, the poorest ward in the whole country and properties must be found – requisitioned if necessary – to make sure those residents do get re-housed locally.’

The new MP for Kensington, Emma Dent Coad, is (lest we forget) Labour, though it has emerged she was actually on the board of the discredited quango running the flats on behalf of Kensington and Chelsea Council, the one that gave the green light to the fatal refurbishment of the block last year. That naturally doesn’t look good, though this fact has been overshadowed by the predictably hysterical headlines from the likes of the Mail claiming Jezza has called for private property to be ‘seized’ for the benefit of those made homeless by what happened at Grenfell Tower. This isn’t another example of his so-called ‘Robin Hood’ policies, but seems to me a genuine attempt to once more underline the social inequalities of life in the capital.

It goes without saying that these social inequalities have been part of London life for centuries; after all, what better chronicler of the capital than Dickens, who documented the disparity between rich and poor in fictional form over 150 years ago? Yet, the nightmarish scenario in North Kensington now looks like something that was a long time coming, just as the collapse of the Savar sweatshop in Bangladesh was in 2013. Jeremy Corbyn has managed to articulate the anger arising from Grenfell Tower better than any other politician, but people are angry. And they’ve every bloody right to be. That’s why they stormed Kensington Town Hall today. This could prove to be a crucial turning point in the way this country is run as much as Hillsborough was for the way our national sport is run. Time will tell.

© The Editor

CLAD IN BLACK

I suppose there’s a genuinely valid point to be made about the manner in which Central London has descended into a shameless, superficial whore exclusively opening her legs for every disgustingly wealthy, greedy, grasping Oligarch and Arab to buy her favours and own her outright. Maybe. The appalling inferno that consumed Grenfell Tower in North Kensington in the wee small hours has led to a loss of life that we’ve yet to be told the extent of; but the suggestion that the spread of the fire may have been caused by the cladding recently installed around the tower’s exterior in order to make a characteristically ugly 70s council block more aesthetically easy on the eyes of the building’s luxury apartment neighbours could be summarised as the story of our capital city over the last twenty-five years in a nutshell.

The shocking extent of the blaze, engulfing what appeared to be the entire building, was reminiscent of a similarly horrific fire that destroyed the Summerland entertainment centre on the Isle of Man in 1973. Summerland had been opened for just two years, boasting swimming pools, games rooms, restaurants and dance halls all under one roof; it was intended to increase tourism by appealing to families, but the untested modern materials used in the building’s design proved to be fatal for those trapped inside when a fire broke out on 2 August 1973. The fact the fire exits were locked and bolted to prevent people sneaking-in without paying exacerbated the tragedy that unfolded, one that eventually claimed up to 53 lives – at the time, the worst loss of life via fire since the Blitz.

Images of the gruesome Summerland carcass were echoed in North Kensington today; the charred remains of Grenfell Tower even resemble a hideous evocation of HMS Sheffield during the Falklands War, whilst the horror of a tower block going so badly wrong is reminiscent of the Ronan Point disaster in Newham, East London, in 1968. And if the insulation wrapped around the building was indeed to blame for the speed with which flames swamped the building, there’s a hell of a lot of questions requiring answers.

Part of a social housing complex of the kind we will probably never see erected again – certainly not in Central London – Grenfell Tower has stood for 43 years. It was only last year that an £8.6 million refurbishment under the guise of ‘regeneration’ came to that corner of the capital, motivated in part by a desire to upgrade the appearance of the building, surrounded as it is by the architectural hallmarks of the mega-rich that have indulged in a ghastly game of Monopoly in recent decades. Planning documents for the regeneration of Grenfell Tower claimed the changes, little more than cheap cladding suggesting ‘gentrification’ of the shallowest order, was clearly intended to improve the view seen from apartments of a different nature in the nearby neighbourhoods.

It’s emerged in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire that residents had repeatedly aired fears of the block’s safety relating to fire, and it’s not too far-fetched to speculate that the materials used to insulate the tower were not necessarily the expensive variety proven to be non-flammable; such cladding is apparently commonplace when it comes to representatives of an unfashionable architectural era and corners are undeniably cut, especially when the residents of such residences are amongst the poorest in London. Fires have broken out in other London tower blocks in the last few years, few of which actually contain sprinklers; but it would seem potential dangers have been overlooked and ignored. And look at where that has got us.

An early and somewhat unlikely story of the fire starting via a tenant’s exploding fridge appeared to be one of those that are usually circulated, especially in the 24/7 news age, before facts have been established. But it’s seeming more and more likely that the materials used for the cladding of the building played a large part in the terrible disaster that has reduced what was home to hundreds of people to a charcoal skeleton akin to those we’re familiar with seeing in archive film of the Blitz. An outsourced private company running the flats on behalf of Kensington and Chelsea Council had been criticised by residents associations online long before what happened last night, but ears have been deaf to such protests until now. And now it’s too late.

ANITA PALLENBERG (1944-2017)

A Swinging 60s It Girl and one of many women whose immersion in the unhealthy circle of The Rolling Stones both made her and came close to claiming her, Anita Pallenberg was one of her era’s most exotic and alluring butterflies. Of Italian and German descent, she’d been amongst the hangers-on at Andy Warhol’s Factory until leaving New York for London; she then became the woman on the arm of the Stones’ most stylish member, Brian Jones, with the couple morphing into the stunning Siamese Twins of what Twiggy’s mentor and manager Justin de Villeneuve referred to as ‘the new social aristocracy’.

However, Jones was a troubled soul and it would seem the pair weren’t exactly well-suited; an ill-fated trip to Morocco with Brian and Keith in 1968 saw Pallenberg swap partners; she and Keith were partners in both the romantic and narcotic sense for the best part of a decade, though she bore him three children. Early on in their relationship, she played one of Mick Jagger’s two female companions in the sublimely dark ‘Performance’, a part that Keith remains convinced wasn’t entirely acted.

Anita Pallenberg had a few more notable movie roles, including a deliciously sexy villainess in Roger Vadim’s ‘Barbarella’, but her reputation as a Swinging 60s survivor in the decades thereafter was largely based on ‘Performance’. I pen this brief obituary because that film, as disturbing as it occasionally is, remains one of the most unforgettable and irresistible cinematic temptations I’ve ever been seduced by. Part of me still wants to be Turner Purple and still wants to inhabit that malevolently erotic household; Anita Pallenberg sold a dream that was also a nightmare, but I can’t see anyone today opening such a lascivious portal to such a divinely decadent world; and our world is all the blander for it.

© The Editor