A Beautiful Life, or: 'The Estate We're In' - a BBC documentary on the story of West Hendon

Barratt Project Manager Nathan Smith and Barnet Tory leader Richard Cornelius

It is a curious experience, watching a film that features people you know, or have met, retold in a documentary, made for television, following the events of their lives through a sequence of events already familiar to you. 

Such a story, if you are lucky, in the hands of a gifted director, may become not just a process of documentation, but something else, a piece of work that reaches beyond the unfolding narrative and outline of the facts, and the sequence of events, and reveals something not seen before, or not acknowledged.

And this is what you find in watching  last night's BBC documentary,  'The Estate We're In' - the story of the destruction of a community in West Hendon, directed by Fran Roberts, and shot with assistant Alexis Wood - shot over a period of more than a year, during a crucial stage in the so called 'regeneration' of a council estate, by the side of the beautiful Welsh Harp. 

I've written many posts about this subject, but perhaps The Last Betrayal will give the best background to the film itself.

Faux regeneration: nature imitating art

The cinematic quality of the film at times creates a sense of unreality, as if the story were fiction: a drama, whose ending you could not predict, and which just might end more happily than you knew it would: than you know it did. 

And throughout the film, you wish desperately that the residents whose lives you follow could achieve a better outcome: a decent ending, if not a happy one, that recognised what is after all a basic human right, enshrined in law: not the right not to housing, but to the peaceful enjoyment of your home. 

This story is one that needed to be told, and told now, just before the London elections, not just because it is the story of one council estate in West Hendon, or a development that illustrates the merciless policies of one Tory authority, but because it tells the truth about the single most important issue facing our capital city.

That is of course the London housing crisis - and the myth of 'regeneration', that is devouring the social housing stock of our capital city, and creating vast profit for developers, at fatal cost to any community that might be in their way.

'The Estate We're In', filmed by a team of two women, focuses largely on a group of female residents, all of whom tell the story of West Hendon with great articulacy, expressed in the way that only comes from living in a time of heightened emotion, in the most distressing circumstances. 

Tenants, some of them, secure, and non secure - most tenants moved onto this estate over the last twelve years have been deliberately kept there on non secure agreements, so as to minimise their rights to rehousing, and only a few long term residents have security of tenure which was supposed to guarantee them homes on the new development. Supposed to. It didn't. 

The story of West Hendon, in Broken Barnet, is the story of broken promises. 

In the end, secure tenants were herded into an ugly building outside the luxury development, that denies them a view of the waterside, of course, and instead leaves them encircled by busy roads, and looking onto the backyards of kebab shops, and respray garages. 

Trying to exploit the motif of birds, an annexation that is so central to the virtual appropriation of West Hendon, down there, by the water's edge, Barratt London, who refused to take part in this film, have until recently refused to acknowledge the local history of the area, and named the new build properties after the birds who live around the harp, and whose protected status must be something the local residents view with envy.

And that is how the holding centre for the inconvenient secure tenants they cannot so easily dispose of became 'Bullfinch House'. Unsurprisingly, the building is better known to residents as 'Bullshit House'. It is also now plagued by an infestation of rodents, according to local councillors - the Labour members curiously annexed by the Tory leader as proof of the council's consideration for the people of West Hendon. 

Also featured in the film are leaseholders, former tenants, who bought their properties in good faith, encouraged by the local Conservative council - and who have now been utterly betrayed by that same Conservative council, offering them below market values for the compulsory purchase of their homes, which meant, conveniently, that they could not afford the shared equity purchase of new properties on the Barratt development, agreed in secret by the council, built on land given away for £3, despite being worth £12 million ...  

Another broken promise, having assured them they would have 'like for like' properties to replace their former homes.

Jacqui P

The estate itself is - was - on the edge of the waterside of the Welsh Harp, a Victorian reservoir, and a place of rare beauty: rare in the urban sprawl of North London, and here only yards away from the ceaseless traffic and and increasing dereliction of this part of the Edgware Road. Yards away, yet there, hidden away, a place of seclusion, bordered - until now - by trees and green spaces, the silent waters drawing the eye, from every angle, watched over by the geese and swans, and moorhen, and all the other species that make this location a site of Special Scientific Interest, and part of the uniquely lovely landscape that made this such a special place to live, for the residents in the film.

In truth, therein lies the reason for their eviction: the West Hendon estate was too beautiful for them to be allowed to enjoy, and in a time when everything has its price, such beauty must be inevitably be reserved for the exclusive use of those who can afford to buy it.

Barnet Council has apparently been trying to oblige the BBC to give them a preview of the film, which was refused. One can understand why they were so worried: not because of anything done by the production team, but simply because of the utter foolishness of the remarks made in the course of the programme by the Tory leader, Richard Cornelius, seen below laughing with his Tory colleagues, at the impassioned address made to them in the council chamber by a resident of West Hendon.

Cornelius looms over this film like a Victorian landlord, who sees slums all around him, and castigates the poor for living there, forgetting that the conditions they live in are his making, or at least the result of a Tory council, over many years, neglecting the maintenance of the buildings, so as to try to create the myth of a 'sink estate', worthy of condemning, or more importantly, ripe for development.

Barnet Tory councillors, including Barnet & Camden candidate Dan Thomas, left, and Leader Richard Cornelius, awfully amused by the speech made by a West Hendon resident.


'The buildings are grotty down there, he announces: They need rebuilding, there can be no doubt ...'

Yes, Councillor Cornelius, there can be doubt: there is doubt. They needed renovation, not demolition, and your council refused to consider that, and preferred to facilitate a luxury development, in its place, which has evicted and displaced the residents who lived there, has destroyed a happy, stable, and united community.

And what is 'grotty' to a Hatton Garden diamond merchant, who lives in well heeled comfort in Totteridge?  ... oh, hang on: not just grotty, actually no less than ... ghastly ...

'It is not an option to leave something ghastly for people to moulder in ...'

If the estate really were something 'ghastly', you fool, that is because your Tory chums have allowed it to become just that. And show some respect: you may not recognise the definition of 'community' in this context, or elsewhere - but you are talking about people's homes, their lives, and their families.

'One of the satisfactions of being a councillor is when something actually gets done, he says, in that self congratulatory way of his, on being shown round one of the new properties'.

'This is what makes it all worthwhile, seeing someone's new home, and comparing it with the former estate, and it's very important that people do have decent homes ... and this is an achievement ..'

Does this man really not understand what he and his Tory colleagues have done? That the people who are losing their homes, being evicted, watching them demolished, cannot live in these new properties? 

Only eight of the former residents, after a huge amount of protest, and publicity, have managed to be rehoused here, on latterly improved shared equity plans, and subject, after the end of capped agreements, to massive yearly charges which most of them will probably not be able to afford.

The film also interviews one of the new residents of West Hendon: 'Nicholas', a man of evidently substantial means, who looks like someone who features in Barratt's rather amusing sales brochures, in fact -  who bought one of the first penthouse flats on the waterside development, and has a property with a fabulous view. In fact he loves it so much, he bought another property. Lucky man.

When he belatedly becomes aware of the dispute which has involved the residents of the estate, he tries to be sympathetic, but says: 'they're living in accommodation which is clearly in disrepair, and falling down, and they are going to be moved into places which are bigger and better, and much more modern ...'

No, Nicholas, they are not. Read on.

They call this a slum, says Leigh, bemused, at the beginning of the film ... she has lived there for forty five years, and is a remarkable woman: intelligent, charming, sensitive, hard working: one of the many residents you see portrayed here who confound the offensive Tory demonisation of people who live in council estates.

Leigh, in her home of forty five years, now lost

Watching her forced from her home, with nowhere to go, is unbearable. I thought I had experienced every human emotion, until now, she says. 

It'll never, ever leave me ... it's just gone far too deep.

As she leaves for the last time, she leaves two roses on the floor of her home, and closes the door. How does that make you feel, she is asked? She cannot say. 

Because there are no words. 

Meet the two Jacquis: older women, with fierce determination, quiet dignity, and a slow burning fury that slips, at times into palpable distress, and deep sadness, that they should find themselves in this intolerable position, at this point in their lives.

Jacqui P, in the course of the film, visibly resigns herself to the merciless machinery of the 'regeneration' process, accepting, in the end, a one bedroomed flat, after being driven into ill health by the stress of the year's wrangling. As you will see from this post, she took part in the recent commemoration of the bombing of this part of West Hendon, and was clearly very upset when she read out the names of family members lost in the events of that terrible night: her roots in this community are far reaching, but this counts for nothing, when her presence here becomes an obstruction to the process of profit.

Jacqui S, a soft spoken, thoughtful Irishwoman, speaks sadly of her dilemma, watched over by an image of Christ, the light of the world, and one of a Polish saint, whom she trusts will deliver her into safety, in the end. She talks about those broken promises, and the cat and mouse treatment of residents by the developers, whose agents, it must be said continued what one residents referred to as 'psychological warfare' until the very end, when deals over properties were reluctantly agreed:

'... they prefer to slowly build in front of you, and torment you as they go along, torment you with the building work, torment you with the noise, torment you with the lorries, torment you with the dust and the grime that you have to breathe in, then torment you with threats: if you don't move, the CPO's going to come in and we're going to take your home from you .. how can you trust anybody after that? You can't trust them ...'

Jacqui C

Both Jacquis, in the end, are two of the lucky handful of residents who manage to force the developers into upping the offer to the minimum level that would enable to have shared equity in a flat in the new development. Nice, shiny new properties with a view: but not what they were promised, and at what cost in terms of the battle to achieve justice? 

Jacqui S looks around at her new home and observes, in a deeply moving remark that perhaps might serve as an epitaph for the community of the West Hendon estate, that a beautiful home does not make a beautiful life: friends and family, she says, do that. 

And that is the message which this film leaves, for those who can read it: the support of neighbours; family networks, and friendship are what have helped these residents through the ordeal they have been forced to endure: but the forging of those bonds was in the old estate, and in a sense of community built up, in some cases, over generations. And that has been destroyed by the development as effectively as the bulldozers knocked down their old homes in Marriotts Way, the residents scattered in the new diaspora of the dispossessed, evicted, moved away, and largely driven out of the borough.

But let's not forget those who remain to continue the fight - such as the indefatigable Jasmin Parsons, who has fought the 'regeneration' process with everything she has, and represented residents at the CPO hearing, as you will have seen. 

This was a process of staggering inequality, with developers and the council fronted by a hugely expensive QC, whose patrician manner you may witness in the film, dismissing out of hand, in his summing up, when he could not be contradicted, allegations in what he described as 'political' complaints made to the CPO about the way residents were treated, claiming falsely, he said, that their views were ignored, and that bullying and harassment had occurred. 

These allegations are simply not accepted, he says, as Jasmin looks on, silently, her expression unwittingly revealing the vulnerability which lies beneath her bravado, and apparently limitless resourcefulness. 

Jasmin Parsons

As someone who sat through all of the days of this Inquiry, it seemed to me that there was on the contrary, plenty of evidence of all of those claims: certainly the perception amongst residents was that they had been excluded from consultation, and as in the case of Jacqui S, threatened and intimidated by the process imposed on them.

Consider now the case of Dorothy, also featured in the film: shocked to find she and her nine year old daughter had no security of tenancy, or rights, when it came to re-housing, other than to be summarily evicted, and wake up one morning to find a complete stranger in her house, with keys, and power to throw her out, with only an overnight bag, and a direction to emergency accommodation. 

If you want to talk about grotty housing, Richard Cornelius, or even slums, you might find a better definition here, in the squalid bedsit you assigned to Dorothy, and her little girl. 

Except Dorothy's daughter could not be allowed to sleep there,  in a damp room, with a hole in the skirting board gnawed away by rats, and only her mother was left to sleep in the unfurnished rooms, with not even a duvet, or pillow,  a pot or a pan to cook in, while she was denied access to her personal possessions, for three long weeks.

Dorothy, allowed back home to West Hendon to pack her belongings, after three weeks

And do you know, Richard, the most heartbreaking, gut wrenching thing of all, about this hard working, 'aspirational' mother, that you condemned to this pitiful end? 

After recalling the pride she felt in moving into the home from which she was evicted, she tells us, in the film, 'I don't want to be a member of society that's unable to support myself ' ... And as she leaves her home, with her few belongings in a small suitcase, she says she only ever wanted 'to make myself somebody in this world ...' 

And here it is, neatly nailed, by Dorothy, and Jacqui S, and Jacqui P, and Cindy, Katrina, Joe, Jasmin and all the others: the lie that is at the heart of the Tory ethos, more bullshit than could ever be accommodated at Bullshit House: the pretence that they are acting according to some sort of moral principle, that they emulate the ideal, created by Margaret Thatcher, of an aspirational, property-owning working class that seeks to become socially mobile, to work towards a better future.

There is nowhere more fitting than here in Broken Barnet to witness this ideal being destroyed, by the same viral infection that Margaret introduced into the laboratory of political experimentation. It cannot be contained: mutating now into an uncontainable crisis, spread by the rampant greed of the right, the unstoppable progress of market forces, and the worship of profit, it threatens now to undermine the foundations of Tory ideology - and could bring the whole edifice crashing down.

The property market in London, the rental sector, and now the cost of housing: all has become unsustainable: an unregulated market is turning our city into something similar to how the Hendon MP, Matthew Offord would like to portray the community of West Hendon, and other estates in his own backyard: a no go area for ordinary people.

Barnet's housing spokesperson, Tom Davey, who wisely avoided being filmed for this programme, once said he was glad that places like West Hendon, with their monstrous towers of luxury accommodation, and penthouse flats, were being built not for local people, who would 'depend on council services', but for 'Russian oligarchs'. We want only well off people in Barnet, according to him.

Jacqui C's home

At least he was more honest than his group leader. It is reported that of the first 38 properties in West Hendon to be sold, the vast majority of them went to overseas buyers, most of whom will no doubt never live here, but have been bought off plan, in cash, for investment. 

Even by the Tories' standards, this cannot possibly be presented in any way as meeting the housing needs of this borough, or this city.

If Zac Goldsmith is elected as Mayor, or Dan Thomas, who speaks so glibly in the film about the 'success' of this development, is elected for Barnet and Camden; and if David Cameron's government have their way, every council estate in London will be subject to a 'regeneration' process similar to West Hendon. 

Sadiq Khan has commented on the documentary shown last night:

"I grew up on a council estate in South London which meant my brothers, sister and I had a stable and secure place to call home. We had a strong local community when we were growing up - the kind of community that, in Barnet, the Tory council is uprooting on the West Hendon estate.


"If I'm elected Mayor, I'll make sure estate regeneration only takes place where there is resident support - and where there are full rights to return for displaced tenants and a fair deal for leaseholders."

The plans - threats - to 'regenerate' the council estates of London by Zac Goldsmith, followed by vague assurances of rehousing for existing tenants, must be measured by the history of promises made by Tory administrations here, in Barnet: and the message is clear, then - if you watched this programme tonight, and it appalled you, as it should, remember this, in May, when you are at the ballot box. 

This is the future you do not want to see,in your borough, in your estate, or your community: but if we do not speak up now, the story of West Hendon, and every other regeneration estate in this borough, will be the story of London, and the end of social housing, in the capital city -  and everywhere else.  

All pics courtesy BBC/Two Step Productions

A Ghostlier Heritage, or: the Forgotten History of West Hendon

There is so much that could be written about the history of West Hendon, that has gone virtually unrecorded, or at least - unacknowledged, and that may now be passing out of memory, destined to become at best a footnote in a forgotten book, a faded photograph, or a few lines in a yellowing piece of newspaper. 

Does it matter, you may wonder? The world moves on, and we should move on with it, looking to the future, not the past. 

But it is always true to say that the future depends upon that past, and unless we remember what has gone before, what happens next may be the creation of something other than we deserve, or want: it may even sow the very seeds of our own destruction.

Here in Broken Barnet, integral to an understanding of the present story of the 'regeneration' of the West Hendon housing estate is a proper knowledge of the history of that site: of the very earth which is being churned up, and gouged out, in the pursuit of profit for the developers who now own it, in a literal, if not metaphorical sense. 

And the story of West Hendon is the story of London, as it was, and as it will be soon: a capital city of the future, from which ordinary Londoners will be excluded, and forgotten.

A memorial service in West Hendon, February 1941

History safely locked away in the basement stacks of local archives, unread: that is the preference of property developers, and their friends in the Town Hall. Less risk then, of intervention in the process of approval for their plans: proposals drawn on a special sort of map, which measures distance but not the value, in human terms, of the spaces in between, or the layers of time that lie beneath the ground they want to lay waste, and build upon.

And when inconvenient history threatens to impede the progress of development, as in the case of West Hendon, it is simply set aside, and not acknowledged. It does not exist. 

When residents objected to the plans imposed upon them here, to demolish their homes, evict them, and build a private, luxury development in their place, they were ignored. They had no part in the decision making process that had set the plans in motion: or rather they were tricked into believing they had been, when promised new homes in the new development.

One focus of much of the impotent fury felt by residents in West Hendon became a point of huge significance in the fight they are still pursuing against the iron fisted destruction of their community. And that point of focus was the issue of encroachment upon an open area of the estate known as York Memorial Park. 

The fury they felt, and their sense of failure from an inability to protect this piece of land, was both directly related to the issue itself, and the wider impotence and vulnerability of the people in the face of decisions made without their consent. It is a symbolic point of entrenchment: a last defiance. Here we stand: leave us alone.

This area of green space, leading down to the water's edge, fringed by trees, was part of land left undeveloped after the war: land which the older residents knew was the site of something now almost forgotten, part of their own unacknowledged history: their own inconvenient history. 

This was the place where, in February 1941, the Luftwaffe had dropped a massive bomb, destroying outright three entire streets, killing and injuring many residents, as well as making around 1,500 others homeless. Of the dozens who lost their lives, some were never found, and the site of the bombing therefore became a place of commemoration, and left untouched.

The site of the bombing in West Hendon, taken the next day, 14th February 1941

In the early days of what was supposed to be a refurbishment and renewal of the housing estate that was built in the late sixties, to accommodate a new generation of the families of this part of West Hendon, the Tory council had made certain promises to residents: that they would all have new homes here, of course - and that York Memorial Park would not be built upon.

These promises were quietly buried by Barnet Tories, once they had made a deal, in secret, with Barratt London - to turn what had been a plan to renew the housing in the estate, for the benefit of local residents, to one of private development; subsidised by public funding, in the form of land given for free, on the pretext that this was necessary in order to make the deal economically viable. 

Residents were no longer all to be housed on the new development - in fact it became clear that almost certainly none would be so lucky - and then: York Memorial Park was to be built on, after all.

In fact York Memorial Park, as such, they said, did not exist. 

By the time it came to last year's Housing Inquiry into the Compulsory Purchase Orders of properties on the estate, the position of the council and Barratt London, as presented by Capita and their QC led legal team, was that there had never been a Memorial Park, and that anyway the properties in question were not in the area that had been bombed.

This claim was one step too far for me, listening to the case put by the development partners, at the hearing in the Town Hall: and one lunchtime visit to the borough's Archives next door quickly yielded evidence of the memorial services held there, days after the terrible event, and then for years afterwards. 

Equally, a cursory look at the maps provided to the Inquiry, and the use of a ruler, was enough to show that yes - some of the property in question was part of the bombed area, and part of the open green space added on to existing parkland after the terrible incident, and huge loss of life. 

After some consideration, I was 'allowed' to submit this as evidence , with a warning that such a course might make me personally liable for huge costs, for presenting material, at that stage, even if it was to correct misleading information put to the Inquiry. I wasn't held liable, luckily, but the QC cleverly asked me no questions when giving evidence: and then misrepresented what I had said in his summing up, when I was not allowed to contradict him, claiming there was no proof of continuing memorial services, of which there was, in the material deposited. 

I was also sent a typically churlish email, incidentally, from Barnet Council, keen to obscure wider knowledge of the events of 1941, and the implications of the associated evidence, objecting to the use of the only image then available of the bombing, seen below - in response to which I invited them to prove copyright, which they have not. 

History belongs to those who lived it, and those who inherit the legacy of their experience - not to those who try to deny it.

The story of the bombing of West Hendon, of course, was concealed in wartime, in line with restrictions on reporting the extent of loss, for fear of the effect on morale, and in order to confound the strategy of the enemy. And now in Broken Barnet, seventy five years later, this terrible incident still has the power to disrupt, and disturb the narrative of another story, whispered in secret, behind closed doors.

Why had planners not visited the Archives to check for themselves the status of the land, and its history? Or studied their own maps? We don't know.

What we do know is that the whole affair did nothing but bring further bad press to what was gathering momentum as a media story of no little interest. 

Eventually, someone, somewhere, had the sense to see the only direction for the developers to go, in order to redeem something from the self inflicted damage they had created. The weight of protest and opposition from residents, and the level of support and sympathy felt for them, forced valuable, if belated concessions in terms of, for example, the previously low valuation of leaseholders' properties: and some tenants were rehoused in rather better accommodation than had earlier been put before them.

And then came a gesture of conciliation over York Memorial Park. At last, a change of tone. 

The 75th anniversary of the wartime bombing would be on 13th February, this year. One or two residents had wanted to have a service of remembrance. This was now to be authorised, and Barratt's 'media consultants' HardHat liaised with residents' spokesperson Jasmin Parsons, offering at last to pay for a memorial and allocate some part of the green space to be set aside in commemoration of the events of 1941.

Too little, too late, you might think, but still: this was how we found ourselves, on Saturday morning, the 13th February 2016, standing in the rain, in a semi circle on the grassy mound between Marriotts Close and the margin of the Welsh Harp, perhaps a hundred or so, huddled in the shadow of the monstrous tower, the first of three monoliths that will soon be squatting there, in a place of such natural and rare beauty, punching the skyline triumphantly above the metal shuttered flats now emptied of their tenants. In the crowd, Barratt London's representatives looked on, discreetly, battling with their umbrellas.

As well as residents attending the ceremony, there were some invited local figures - no sign of Hendon's Tory MP Matthew Offord, but then he was probably too scared to enter the mythical 'no-go' area of West Hendon he described so eloquently on the BBC Sunday politics show recently - to the surprise of local police. 

In truth, for Matthew Offord, the West Hendon estate may well be a 'no-go' area now. 

He wasn't missed.

Local Assembly member Andrew Dismore and the three Labour councillors for West Hendon all came to pay their respects: Devra Kay, Adam Langleben, and Agnes Slocombe. 

Two of the film makers who have made a documentary for the BBC, due to be shown this month about the story of West Hendon, came too. Also present was the Guardian's Dave Hill, who writes here about the event.

The Deputy Lieutenant of Barnet, Martin Russell, was there, as was the Deputy Mayor, Alison Cornelius, wife of the Barnet Tory leader. Oh, and two other Tory councillors, not from the area, so rather surprising to see in attendance: John Hart from Mill Hill, and former Mayor Hugh Rayner, both of whom decided to be unnecessarily discourteous, when I arrived - for no apparent reason.

Perhaps they were compensating for the sense of shame that any Tory politician attending should have felt, in the circumstances - especially those present who were responsible for the betrayal, misrepresentations, and broken promises served to the current residents of the estate. Rayner at least had the grace to (sort of) apologise after the ceremony, coming up to offer his hand. What a curious lot they are.

The service began and ended in a downfall of persistent rain: it seemed appropriate to the occasion. Reading out an edited version of the chronicle of events of February 13th, 1941, it was hard not to look up at the sky and think of the sound of the 'The Thing', as it is described by the local newspaper report published at the end of the War, falling towards the streets below, bringing a terrible firestorm of destruction upon the people of West Hendon ...

"a fearful rushing, roaring noise, like the sound of an express train passing high up in the air". 

        

Fr Damien from St Mary's church led the prayers and blessing: 

And the Methodist minister for Hendon read from the Book of Psalms:

You turn us back to dust, and say 'Turn back, you mortals',

For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday, when it is past, or like a watch in the night,

You sweep them away: they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning;

In the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.

For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed ...

Jasmin Parsons, without whom the the memorial service would not have taken place, and the anniversary left in the annals of the forgotten history of West Hendon, read a poem she had written especially for the occasion, paying tribute to the courage of those who had put their own lives at risk and worked to rescue their neighbours from the wreckage of the blast:

Safe homes now the takers of life

Coughing smoke, showered with soot, 

Brick dust and burning embers,

The locals did not flee:

They mustered strength, fuelled by courage, in desperation to find life

They dug with their own bare hands

From a description of the bombing by the Editor of the Hendon & Finchley Times, 1945

Most important of all those attending the service, of course, were family members of some of those who lost their lives in the bombing of 1941, which gave the ceremony a deeply personal, and dark perspective. 

Sally had come with her husband all the way from Norfolk to attend the ceremony, which clearly meant so much to her: as a child she had been brought to York Park, and told why it was a place of memorial. 

She spoke most touchingly of her family's dreadful loss in the bombing: how her father had had to tell his sister, who survived, of the death of her mother, husband and daughter: unimaginable grief for her. Sally commented that as a child, the stories her father told her about his family were about people she had never known, but as she had grown older, she had realised how important it is to remember people, places, and dates. How true, and no less because, as she commented, the people who lost their lives that night, as she observed, were 'just ordinary people, doing ordinary things'. 

Jacqui was a resident displaced by the current development: deeply affected by the service, she struggled to speak the names of her lost relatives, and broke down in tears. Later on, at the gathering in the community centre, she still could not bear to talk about the loss her family had sustained.

Brian was there to represent the Peacock family, members of whom have lived in Hendon for hundreds of years: his grandmother and uncle both lost their lives that night. His grandmother's body, in fact, was never recovered: the fate of at least seven other residents - and yet, he told the gathering, her ten year old son was found several hundreds of yards away, unmarked, delivered by the blast into a tree. At least there was somebody to bury, he observed.

It was of course from a tree damaged in the bombing that the original memorial cross had been made, before another memorial, now lost, was placed somewhere on the site.

Cllr Alison Cornelius, the deputy Mayor of Barnet, lays a wreath

Wreaths were now laid in front of the simple memorial plaque, and then, very poignantly, an elderly man, a local resident, came to leave a little wooden cross, placing it carefully upright in the wet grass. His name was Ron Cripps, and his father had been the local milkman, one of the first to come across one of those injured by the blast, returning home, covered in blood, to find his own house damaged, but his family luckily unhurt. 

After the bombing, Mr Cripps and his wife started up a youth group, to help the community recover from the terrible losses it had endured. He had met his wife there, as had several other local couples. After the memorial ceremony, at the estate's community centre, Ron laid out sepia tinged photographs of his family, and local neighbours inWest Hendon, off on a charabanc trip to Margate, or taking part in a pageant to celebrate the coronation.

As we stood against the backdrop of the water's edge, and the wide expanse of the Welsh Harp, circling seagulls cried, as they moved around the reservoir - and the words of the ceremony were punctuated by the sound of workmen on the new development. Nothing stops the machinery of profit: even the memory of loss, and an act of mourning.

In truth, it was a sombre moment: much more so than I had expected - most of us dressed in black, by chance, rather than agreement, and the depth of emotion, and sense of loss palpable, and deeply moving.

But the sense of loss, and mourning, was not just for those lost in 1941, to some residents, but for their grandchildren, and those who survived, who rebuilt Hendon, and London, and who must leave the homes they have had here, for so long. 

It was for what has been lost, or destroyed: not just by enemy action in wartime, but by elected representatives, in the twenty first century: in indifference to any sense of community, or belonging, and the common bond of generations growing up together, helping each other, in times of trouble.

The People's Mayor, and local resident Mr Shepherd, in attendance

Margaret Thatcher famously claimed there is no such thing as society: and her heirs in Hendon Town Hall continue to create a world in which tenure of property, and the right to a home, belong only to those with private wealth. The creation of stability, and a sense of belonging, a shared history: necessarily of inconsequence now, in Broken Barnet - representing as these things do the enemy of progress, and yes, profit. 

But still: in the words of the wartime Dean of Hendon:

"The last word shall not be with the destroyer. That is the meaning of our service, and of the simple Cross under which we stand ... Such scenes of desolation as this form a terrible monument to the wickedness of those who pursue brute force without reference to the God of Righteousness, and Justice and Love, before Whom they must one day render account for their deeds.

The 'Little People' of London's suburbs, whom they sought to smash, live on, bearing the unquenchable torch of Freedom, and the rough wooden Cross at West Hendon remains as a symbol of the spirit that prevailed against the greatest peril of oppression humanity has ever had to face".

West Hendon Cllr Devra Kay

I came across this poem, just the other week, by chance, courtesy of 'Spitalfields Life', whose 'Gentle Author' writes so eloquently in defence of our built heritage and communities under threat from development, now, rather than from the depredations of the Blitz. This is by Lilian Bowes Lyon, the radical 'rebel' cousin of the Queen Mother, who lived in the East End throughout the war, and the worst of the bombing there: perhaps you will agree these words hold a certain resonance for the history of West Hendon, the story of Broken Barnet - and the future of our capital city.

Evening in Stepney

The circle of greensward evening-lit,

And each house taciturn to its neighbour.

The destruction of a city is not caused by fire;

What many have lost begets a ghostlier heritage

Or hails the unknown horizon; workaday street

A travel-ordained encounter, the breakable family

Fortified in defeat by the soldering air.

The destruction is in the rejection of a common weal;

Agony's open abyss or the fate of an orphanage,

Mass-festering, mass-freezing or mass-burial,

Crime's worm is in ourselves

Who crumble and are the destroyer. 

West Hendon, February 13th, 2016

The Last Betrayal, or - the breaking of West Hendon, and the making of a latter day myth: 'sink estates' ...

Left by a resident of West Hendon, on moving out of a compulsorily purchased home

I've lost count, now, of the number of posts I've written about West Hendon, and the eviction of a community from the place they call home, down there, by the waterfront, on the edge of the Welsh Harp.

The residents of West Hendon call it home: or they did, but the local Tory councillors see the place where they live as not a community, but a business opportunity, and under the pretext of 'regeneration', and despite a promise to residents of a better housing on the same site, handed the publicly owned land to Barratt London for a private, luxury high rise property development.

The land was worth £12 million, but was given to developers for £3, so as to allow them to maximise profits on their investment, conservatively estimated last year at a mere £92 million.

And now the monstrous new towers are growing higher, and higher, in West Hendon, violating the skyline of north London for miles around, while residents must watch their estate demolished, piece by piece, as they remain, trapped in the middle of a building site, waiting to be removed, 'decanted' and dispossessed of their homes, driven out of West Hendon, probably out of Barnet, and very possibly out of London. 

Is that 'regeneration'? 

Only if you see a piece of land as a commodity, an empty space; bereft of social value, and history, inconveniently occupied by people whose lives are to you nothing more than a matter of indifference, and worse: a barrier to the possibilities of profit.

And this is, after all, then, the story of West Hendon, and now the story of Tory London, and a housing crisis created by arrant greed, in the face of real and desperate need, by too many, for access to truly affordable, decent housing.

Tory housing policy in London, a subject to be fought over by aspiring GLA members, and mayoral candidates, is made manifest, here in West Hendon. 

The promise of 'regeneration' is a lie. It means redevelopment, and new homes for the rich. It means: the people who live there now will not live there in the future. 

But Londoners are beginning to understand that this lie is indeed just that: that numerous former estates are being cleared, demolished and redeveloped, and overseas buyers flocking to buy up the housing that ordinary residents of the capital can only dream about. High profile examples like Heygate loom large in public consciousness now, and yes: the game is up, but nothing must come before the enormous profit still to be had for the big time players involved and on the look out for more and more potential sources of speculative development. 

So there is now a need for a change in tactics: a gearing up of the political engineering that drives, or at least enables, this massively profitable business. As always, what is tried in Tory Broken Barnet is proof enough for the rest: what worked in West Hendon will do for the rest of London, and elsewhere: the demonisation of social housing, and the destruction of council estates, on the pretext of problems that do not exist, or at least not on the scale some would have you believe.

Yes: we are talking about 'sink estates', a term readopted with such glee by David Cameron, in his recent declarations about housing, in the new Tory war on the very idea of social housing; an approach which sits comfortably with mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith's pronouncements in a revealing interview  with the Camden New Journal:

And when asked about the potential loss of social housing, Mr Goldsmith said London’s percentage of social housing is unusually high, and that the balance needed to be “rejigged” in order to increase the amount of homes available for “those in the middle”.

So 'sink estates', then: knock them down, and the social deprivation which Tories think are synonymous with such developments, will just disappear, will it? Well: of course it is progress, perhaps, that they at least seem to acknowledge that there is significant social deprivation to address, but: no. It won't. Buildings don't create poverty. Ah: well then, what about things like ... crime? We all know that all council estates are rife with criminal behaviour, and, yes, that should scare the rest of us into thinking a Tory government is quite right to knock them down, with no further delay: ghettoes to be cleared, and sanitised: socially cleansed.

This issue was the subject of some reporting and debate on the London section of the last but one episode of the BBC Sunday Politics show. And guess which Tory MP was invited along to speak in defence of the new Tory housing proposals, and answer the question - is it the architecture, the building, or the people who live in it that is the 'problem' ? (You can see the programme here, the London section about 38 minutes in ...)

Local MP, member for Hendon, Matthew Offord. 

Offord explained in a seamless flow of virtually unchallenged assertions that in his constituency he has not one but two 'sink estates', that is to say, West Hendon, and Grahame Park. 

He spoke of West Hendon in particular, 'we're rebuilding that', regenerating it: it had become 'a success story in itself', thanks to Barnet Council, the Mayor and the government - only later did he make a general reference to Barnet working with the private sector, such as Barratts.

He referred to Grahame Park, which he said had been built 'just after the war'. He boasted of taking Iain Duncan Smith and George Osborne there, and thought this might have influenced their policy making. Really? Did you take them to West Hendon?

In fact Grahame Park was not built 'just after the war', but in the 1970s, by a Tory council - but still, who needs to quibble about the facts, on the BBC, these days? And now followed some really outrageous claims by Offord, that really did demand a robust challenge, but one which unfortunately was not forthcoming:

These estates, he claimed now, are 'very much no-go places at night ...', offering in evidence of this that local police say it is 'very difficult there to maintain and enforce the law ...'

An extraordinary remark, and indeed a pretty extraordinary sequence of assertions, made smoothly, as if irrefutable fact, and accepted without question. 

No-go areas? Mrs Angry made a note, in red, and thought this was something that really did need investigating. When had the mean streets of Broken Barnet become so dangerous that our police officers were struggling to exercise the rule of law, in certain areas of the borough?

Offord continued blithely with his litany of woe, delivered deadpan, still unchecked: yes, the 'walkways' and the 'physical attributes' of these places are the problem.

Walkways? What 'physical attributes'? No one asked him to elaborate. 

Neil Coyle, the Labour MP for Bermondsey & Southwark, tried to bring some sort of human perspective to the discussion by reminding us the debate was about people's homes. 

West Hendon resident Leigh, who has lived on a sink estate, without realising it, for more than 40 years

This is never a good line to follow with Conservatives, of course. A house, for a Tory politician, in 2016, is not a home, if it is defined as social housing.

And so we saw, as the debate turned to the question of 'tenancies for life'. Offord had strong views on this.

The big issue here, he said is just that, 'people living in properties (or livin', as he says, in that curiously archaic accent he has - to match the curiously archaic nature of his black and white political vision - talking out of the side of his mouth, like a chippy, but aspirational costermonger in a 1950s Ealing comedy, ... some sayin' well, they should be able to live there for life ... '

Now he went further: stating he was indeed happy with the five year limit on tenancies, he then declared, absurdly:

'No one has a right, even in the private sector, those of us that own our own properties ... we cannot guarantee, even ourselves who have mortgages, that we are going to live in that property for the rest of our lives ...'

Tim Donovan asked Offord now if he accepted that if you knock down these estates, what you put in its place, both in its nature of tenure, and the number of properties, will never be matched, which means people will be displaced. 

Offord thought that you never can, because using private sector capital 'means you are going to have to sell some of those properties privately ...'

Some of these properties. All of these properties, in effect, with at best a token offer from the profiteering developers of a minimal amount of (non) affordable housing.

Look at the history of West Hendon: a 'regeneration' sold to residents on the basis of doing exactly what is looked on now as out of the question - improving the quality of life, for their families, giving them new homes, in their own community. Now they find themselves evicted, and in some cases, homeless, in order to make way for luxury accommodation, the majority of which, so far is reported to have been sold to wealthy overseas investors.

Let's ask the question again: is this regeneration?

Or is it, yes: social cleansing? 

Offord was asked about that.  He said he found the term 'quite offensive'.

'We're actually trying to socially improve people's lives, not only through the quality of their housin', but also through their ability to access transport, to engage in the work process - maybe to live in parts of London they'd not considered before ...'

No: really. That is what he said. 

The feckless, ungrateful residents of West Hendon, you see, are having their lives 'socially improved', by their Tory council, which gave away the land they live on to private developers, and then informed tenants and leaseholders alike to clear off out of it, and don't come back: you can't come back. 

No right to return, no compulsory purchase offer to owner occupiers adequate enough to enable them to buy shared equity on the new luxury development. A few lucky secure tenants shoved into a grim building outside the footprint of the new development, with no view of the waterside, looking onto the grimy backyards of shut up shops on the Edgware Road, the rest kicked out into more temporary accommodation on other 'regeneration' estates, refusal of which made them homeless. A community destroyed, displaced, eradicated. Kerrching.

And it was a community. And it was not some 'sink estate', or any sort of high rise, dystopian, Brutalist monster, creating a latter day Dickensian style rookery of crime and social deprivation. If only the Tory council had maintained the estate, and not allowed it to fall into disrepair, it would be a perfectly nice place to live, even now. 

Local Labour Cllr Devra Kay and residents' representative Jasmin Parsons

Who wouldn't want to live in such a beautiful spot, overlooking the waters edge of the Welsh Harp? But beauty of location is now reserved for those who can pay a premium for it: and deliver profit into the hands of developers.

The West Hendon estate was built on a human scale, with low rise buildings, looking onto each other, with green spaces in and around it. The 'physical attributes' which their MP said had created a 'sink estate' had in fact done nothing of the sort. 

The beauty of the surrounding landscape, and the simple architecture of West Hendon created a community, rooted in generations of local families rehoused, in the sixties and seventies, in homes which afforded dignity, decent housing, and hope for a better future.

The green spaces that surrounded this estate included York Memorial Park, a place of totemic significance to the residents there - a mark of ownership, central to the local history: the idea of continuity, and community - an area left in commemoration of the many civilians who lost their lives, some of them still buried there, under the earth, below the wreckage of the war time bombing of 1941, and now annexed by the developers for maximum profits from their investment.

There was a low crime rate, in fact, on this estate, until the council moved in so called property guardians into vacant flats, according to the remaining long term residents, and as for 'no-go' areas ...?

Well, then: Mrs Angry thought she would check this with the local police, who were more than happy to put the record straight.

A representative of the borough commander immediately refuted the idea that there were 'no go' areas in Barnet. 

And then the senior officer in charge of policing for this part of the borough contacted her to say that in all the years he has served in Barnet, he has not known of anywhere in the borough that is 'no-go' ... day or night.

And he has kindly invited Mrs Angry on a 'ride along' tour with the police in West Hendon, to see for herself how they fulfil their duties on the estate and elsewhere (plus a visit to the station to meet him, and inspect the custody suite in Colindale, although hopefully not for an overnight stay, like one of our former Tory councillors ...)

Couldn't be clearer, could it? Offord's allegations were apparently ... without any basis. Got that?

No no-go areas.

Quelle surprise.

In fact, in Mrs Angry's view, for an MP to make such a remark is utterly unfair to the local police, who work so hard to do such a difficult job, and maintain peaceful community relations, in the context of increasing budget restraints.  

And it is insulting to the residents of the West Hendon estate, the vast majority of whom are not in need of Matthew Offord's programme of 'social improvement', but are already perfectly familiar with the work process, and keen to remain in their own community, rather than be introduced to the impossible task of finding any alternative accommodation in 'parts of London they hadn't considered before' - in a capital city gripped by a rapidly increasing housing crisis.

Offord's remarks have caused fury amongst many residents who saw the programme: but he has nothing much to lose politically in his own backyard, by what he said. There are few Tory voters, on that estate now. 

There were some once, amongst the tenants who were taken in by another version of mythology, that is to say, the 'aspiration' encouraged by Margaret Thatcher, to join the property ladder, and buy their own council homes: the leaseholders, who were handed a £10,000 bill for work the council needed doing before they knocked down their homes, and which the leaseholders furiously rejected, saying if any work was necessary, it was clearly the responsibility of Barnet Council ...

These people were betrayed by Thatcher's heirs in Barnet, on the council, and in Parliament, not just over the demands for money, but at the point of compulsory purchase of their hard earned properties.

 When the council's valuers rated their properties, subject to CPO, at less than a level that would help them reach the shared equity point, who helped them? Who spoke for them, at the Housing Inquiry? Did their MP even attend the Inquiry? No.

The appointed representative from Sawyer Fielding, Dan Knowles, not only put their case but acted as an unpaid advocate for tenants on the estate, to defend residents interests: an honourable thing to do, and absolutely necessary in this case, when the council and developers were able to promote their arguments with the help of a highly experienced - and expensive - QC, and legal team.

There is no doubt that the belatedly improved offers for leaseholders, and better offers of rehousing for tenants, were achieved only by the efforts of people like Dan Knowles, the local Labour councillors, and, let us not forget, the limitless determination, courage and strength of residents' representatives like Jasmin Parsons. 

Oh, and all the attention generated by this story, locally, here and elsewhere and nationally, and all the negative PR blown back in the faces of the developers.

It should also be remembered that residents did ask their MP for help, and in desperation, even tried to lobby him at a constituents' meeting in a church hall, in their own ward: he hid from them, refused to speak to representatives, and then demanded a police escort home. 

Luckily, it seems, the forecourt of St Matthias' church, West Hendon, is not in one of those 'no-go' areas, where policemen fear to tread. 

Some Tory MPs apparently feel differently.

The constituents who had tried to speak to him were, Offord told a local reporter, a 'rag tag bunch' who only wanted to 'cause trouble'.

Next month sees the broadcast of a BBC documentary programme that has been made about the story of West Hendon, from the perspective of these 'rag tag' residents: the real history of West Hendon, in contrast to the mythological version preferred by Tory politicians, and their commercial partners.

The myth of the 'sink estate', and the smear campaign now directed at the very idea of social housing - this is a necessary part of the faux regeneration of London: that is to say, not a regeneration at all, but a commercial exploitation of easily accessible, bargain basement development sites, pimped to the private sector by willing Tory councils like Barnet, and a Conservative government obsessed with the demonisation of the working class, and the creation of a new, powerless underclass, easy to dehumanise, to decant and control, and reduce to nothing more than an unwanted residue, disposable and ... irrelevant.

A useful mythology then.

The truth, as with so many things, in Broken Barnet, is something else.