West Hendon, February 1941
At the very end of last night's debate in West Hendon, an elderly man stood up, and took the microphone. He wanted to mention something that was not really a point of debate, but one of local history.
Earlier in the evening a resident of the doomed estate by the Welsh Harp had revealed that the new development will see the destruction of York Park, created, we heard, as a memorial to those killed in the terrible incident in West Hendon in 1941, in which an experimental bomb dropped by the Luftwaffe flattened three roads, killing around eighty people, injuring many others, and making 1,500 people homeless after destroying 366 houses, damaging hundreds more. He had been a boy then, he told us, and cycled from Burnt Oak to see what happened, coming upon a scene of absolute devastation.
He was upset at the prospect of York Park being destroyed in order to facilitate the development. After all, the park, he said, was a sort of war memorial, and there were laws, weren't there, to protect war memorials?
After a rather desultory discussion about the meaning of democracy, it was clear that the 'regeneration' of West Hendon was the only issue that residents wanted to hear about last night.
Why wouldn't they? Their lives are being torn apart by this scheme, having faced an uncertain future for years now, not knowing where they will be living, the estate falling into a state of neglect, many residents having no secure tenancies, and leaseholders being presented with extortionate demands for £10,000 each for maintenance which should have been done years ago, not now that the buildings are due for demolition.
Residents representatives spoke with great anger about the way in which they are being sidelined in the development of this area.
Derrick Chung criticised Barratt Homes, the council, and the Metropolititan Housing Trust for failing ordinary residents, who would not be given any assurance of a home in the area after development, or any real choice as to where they would go.
We're not residents, we're not leaseholders, we're a community! That was the declaration from the splendid Jasmin Parsons of the Residents Regeneration Group, to thunderous applause.
There was real anger in the room from the local community over the council's failure to recognise their needs, and to prefer to support the development of luxury housing, penthouse flats, and property that seems fated, as in schemes like Beaufort Park, to be the target of speculative overseas investment, rather than present accommodation for local buyers or renters, let alone those who cannot afford to invest in non affordable housing.
Jasmin Parsons, from the Regeneration Residents Group
As Jasmin said, working people are being evicted from West Hendon, and it seems clear that many will end up not only far from West Hendon, but out of the borough. The disruption to their lives has already begun with the beginning of the building work, as one resident described, lorries passing their homes constantly, bringing dirt, smoke, grit, the green spaces around them being closed off and ripped apart.
A vicar from the church of St John the Evangelist, next door to the centre where we were gathered, said that the regeneration was in fact the only issue that really mattered to residents. They are not going to worry about recycling bins, when some of them are having to live in damp flats, and do not know where they are going to be living in two years time, he pointed out. He asked all the political representatives a question: do you support having their right to stay in this community?
In fact Labour has pledged to try to renegotiate so that as many residents affected by the scheme can stay: to do this, of course, they must first be elected as an administration.
Veteran local Labour Councillor Agnes Slocombe had reminded the meeting forcefully that all the problems being encountered were as a result of a Conservative administration, and the only way to make changes is to use their votes, and make them count, and remove them from power.
Cllr Agnes Slocombe urges residents to use their vote and remove the Tory administration pic courtesy of Our West Hendon
The debate and appeal for support for Labour was listened to by the equally long serving local commentator Mr Shepherd, who, with his usual display of remarkable ingenuity, managed to divert the discussion to his favourite topic - the level of failings within the corporation of the City of London - and then announced that he might have voted for Bob Crow's party, but indicated, graciously, and with a certain amount of caution, that he was willing to consider endowing Labour with the not inconsiderable honour of his vote.
Mrs Angry imagines that Labour HQ are already drawing up plans to send a campaign bus down his road, and organising a personal visit from Ed Miliband. Turn the mike off, before you leave, Ed.
The power of feeling amongst the residents at this question time was formidable: Labour representatives looked on, not quite able to focus this anger where it should be, behind their policies, and towards the hated Tories, who as they always do, refused to send any members to defend their own policies at a public meeting.
Some of the residents from West Hendon had put questions regarding Barnet Homes and housing policy to the previous night's Contract Monitoring meeting: careful, well informed questions which, in some cases, such as the rights of tenants in place before changes in the localism act, went unanswered as neither councillors nor officers knew how to reply.
There were 77 public questions, in all. There should not have to be 77 public questions, if councillors are able to scrutinise properly the contracts that the authority now manages.
The entire meeting, in fact, showed exactly what is wrong with scrutiny in this borough. Serious failings in the parking contract are being ignored, as Mr Mustard can explain better than me, but all we saw was an agreement to defer the matter to a future date.
No: not good enough - there is an election on the horizon, and councillors of all parties owe it to all residents to do their job, and hold contractors to account, with more of a sense of urgency.
And think about this: if they are so lax with parking, how on earth will they cope with the massive Capita contracts?
The answer is they certainly are not coping yet. They still fail to question, with the notable exception of Labour's Jeff Cooke, not only the satisfaction levels quoted by Capita, but the way in which the data itself is compiled.
How representative is the sample used to base these figures? We do not know.
The Tories do not care. The Labour group is too easily satisfied, and fearful of any robust challenge of officers and Tory colleagues.
At the question time in West Hendon, Libdem leader Jack Cohen warned again that if the Tories get back into power, on the first morning back in power, they will call in the senior officers, and ask how they can do more of the same, develop and expand all the policies they have begun in the last four years. God help us.
Think you have seen everything that could be privatised, privatised? Think again.
Think you have seen everything that could be sold off, sold off? Think again.
At the Contract meeting, Deputy Leader Daniel Thomas and his cabinet cohorts, Robert Rams and Tom Davey, presented a lovely slideshow of how marvellous everything has been in the last four years, and how even more marvellous it will be in the future.
'Good news all round', he explained. It was early days, but the 'start of a relationship'. Customer satisfaction was at an all time high.
Julian Silverman, behind him in the public seats, pointed out that we are not their customers, we are your employers.
The fact that these councillors sat with their backs to the public, their employers, electors, and taxpayers, said it all really.
We are irrelevant. They are not accountable to us. Only our heckling made any inroads into their complacency and arrogance. Thomas made remarks about 'socialists' - as if we would not be pleased by being recognised as such - and their awful behaviour. 'A noisy minority'.
The Chair told Mrs Angry, aged 12, to go and stand in the corridor. Mrs Angry did not go and stand in the corridor.
Councillor Thomas' interesting view of the Capita contracts was that, even though it is 'early days', it is already a resounding success. His collegue Tom Davey thought the Labour councillors were very disappointing in their questions now that it had been shown that their predictions about an immediate failure had proved wrong.
Oh, but then Labour's Barry Rawlings pointed out that the in house services had deliberately been left to 'wither' before outsourcing, so as to make the case for privatisation and present an apparent level of savings.
And of course nowhere could that be more true than in procurement, which was effectively abandoned - to the point of catastrophic failure in management, making it easy pickings for Capita to come in and take shedloads of profit, with only a minimum of savings for us.
One of the admissions of this presentation was that a report on a list of council assets would now not be forthcoming until later in the year. Wonder why that is?
The contract performance summaries were dismissed with no real debate.
But Jeff Cooke queried the surprisingly high customer satisfaction levels for Barnet Homes. For Barnet Homes, Derek Rust admitted the process for gauging satisfaction was not 'an exact science'.
It's not a science at all, remarked Mrs Angry, who was somewhat distracted, at this point, by Councillor Rayner, sneaking into the seat behind her, and whispering in her ear another invitation to Scratchwood. With or without her wellies.
And Councillor Harper, don't think Mrs Angry didn't spot your nodding at her, and the elaborate build up to the reference to 'fingering individuals' in reports, in the regrettable absence of more portfolio jokes.
You are too aware, now, of your legendary status in my blog. Time to call it a day.
Oh: you have called it a day: standing down, disappointingly.
Shame.
But yes. There are lies, damned lies, statistics, and Barnet council customer satisfaction surveys.
We live in a world of inexactitude, and inequality, here in Broken Barnet, where councillors sit with their backs to their voters, and refuse to enter into a dialogue with the residents who pay their allowances, and rely on them to represent their interests.
Back in West Hendon, the interests of residents who most need representation are ignored by the Tory administration. This administration does not want them to remain in their own homes, in their own community, in this borough. They are surplus to electoral requirements, and are not affluent enough to merit the fawning attention given to the residents of Totteridge of Lane and Bishops Avenue.
The elderly man who cycled down to see what devastation had been wrought on this area in the war is now witnessing the demolition of a community in an attack more destructive than anything launched by the Luftwaffe.
On that night in 1941, 1,500 people were made homeless, by one act of war. But their homes were rebuilt, homes for working people, and the community revived.
In 2014, we are seeing perhaps as many people made homeless by the ideology of profit, a cynical war against the poor: the gerrymandering tactics of a political administration determined to cleanse the least advantaged areas of this borough of those in need and replant them with those with means.
It might be an idea for the Tory councillors to consider the example of history, and reflect on what happened when the second world war was over, and the first election was held, and the people who wanted their voices heard made sure that they put in power a party that would listen.
Mike Freer, MP, and his reception at Westminster for representatives of the evangelical Jesus House church
Poor Mike
Freer. It must have come as a long, slow descent into the valley of
disappointment, once elected as MP for Finchley and Golders Green, for
our Vital Visionary genius to find that his brilliant easycouncil type
concepts, and his grave concerns, expressed over and over again, in
hundreds of written questions
on such arcane subjects as government mobile phone
contracts, electronic payment methods, etcetera, his stalwart support
for the break up of the NHS, bedroom tax and every other merciless
aspect of Coalition policy, were failing to win universal admiration
from senior Tory
parliamentarians, and to encourage them to reward him with fast track
promotion in his new career.
The
battle to win approval for equal marriage proved to be a turning point
for him, however, and at last he was able to earn respect at least for
his efforts in what was, for him, a personal issue, as a gay man with a
long term partner, a detail which, sadly, caused him some unease on arriving at Westminster, as he describes here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mike-freer-a-gay-tory-mp-on-why-he-went-public-8484017.html
As expressed in
his speech, he has put any hesitation aside, and confronted the
prejudices and assumptions that MPs - and some voters - make about their colleagues'
sexuality- a bold move, and, sadly, not without risk of electoral impact, even in this day and age.
Freer
made an admirable, strong and passionate contribution in debates in defence of the
equal marriage, famously clashing with his local colleague, Hendon MP
Matthew Offord, who maintained a preposterous objection to the
legislation on the grounds that marriage must be for 'procreation', and
that to allow same sex marriage was comparable to polygamy, or even
incest.
In
recognition of his support for the campaign, Pink News and the
Spectator gave Mike Freer an award for Parliamentary Speech of the Year,
and since then he has raised other important issues relating to the
rights of civil partners and pensions, and the use of 'conversion
therapy' for gay people. All very good. And then, at last his chugging
away in obscurity on the back benches appeared to be rewarded with the
offer of a position as a parliamentary private secretary to Mrs Angry's
no 1 fan, Eric Pickles.
But let's look a little closer at the new teaboy's activities closer to home, shall we?
Being
a constituent of Mr Freer, Mrs Angry receives his email newsletter, and
looks forward with great interest to each one, stuffed full, as it is,
with exciting stories of her MPs ventures into the community. One item
in the latest letter, however, was particularly interesting.
Mike Freer Hosts Event to Thank Jesus House Volunteers
On Monday the
20th of January, Mike Freer MP held an event in Parliament to pay
tribute to volunteers from Brent Cross based Jesus House. Over 50 local
volunteers based across Barnet and North London were invited to attend
the event, where a reception was held. Attendees were also provided with
a tour of the House of Commons by Mike Freer.
The organisation’s Christmas on Jesus event, which takes place annually,
provides a network of volunteers to distribute hampers to some of the
poorest families in the UK.
Speaking after the event, Mike Freer said “I am delighted to welcome
volunteers from Jesus House to the House of Commons for a thank you
reception. The Christmas Hamper initiative helps so many local people
and it is only right that the excellent work of the church and the
volunteers is recognised”.
Jesus House, lead by Pastor Agu Irukwu, are an evangelical church who
are renowned for their local community work. Further information can be
found at www.jesushouse.org.uk.
Jesus
House for All Nations is an evangelical Christian organisation, part of
the international 'Redeemed Christian Church of God', founded in
Nigeria, and in this borough it has a large and very well resourced
centre in Brent Cross.
Very
well resourced: according to the Charity Commission accounts, with an
annual income, in the year ending 2012, of more than £4,666,000, most of
it from tithes, 'offerings' and 'thanksgivings', of which a large amount went on salaries,
one lucky employee earning between £90-£100K, another receiving more
than £60k, and the Chief Operating Officer rewarded handsomely with
'emoluments' worth £85,610, and an unspecified amount as a loan, the
balance of which was at the time of declaration was £2,500.
The Church undoubtedly does good work in the community, and clearly has a large and faithful congregation.
Like many other evangelical churches, of course, it has seen the
opportunities for spreading the Good News via ministry that steps into
the vacuum created by a withdrawal of support by government funding,
offering services to the community in a way which seems like practical
christianity, but, as in the case of bodies like Christians Against
Poverty, now hosted by Jesus House, can raise concerns about the risk of such activities being exploited in order to proselytise, and bring unbelievers to their fundamentalist interpretation of the bible, in which God's word is literal, and those who do not believe and become born again in Christ will face eternal damnation.
Also
condemned to eternal damnation, according to the evangelical movement,
are those who commit the sin of 'homoerotic practice', without resorting
to 'repentence'.
The
man who leads Jesus House, Pastor Agu Irukwu, is a controversial
figure, who has taken a firm position of opposition to equal marriage
and legislation designed to prevent discrimination on the grounds of
sexual orientation, as you will read.
You
might think that a close association with such a body, therefore, with
such unflinchingly condemnatory views on gay sexuality, would be
unwelcome to a man who has won universal praise for his advocacy for
equal marriage, and opposition to homophobic views. Mrs Angry, genuinely
curious about Freer's apparent betrayal of his parliamentary stance,
thought she might write and ask him about it:
Dear Mr Freer
I hope that you are well.
I have been reading your latest newsletter with, I have to tell you, a certain amount of astonishment.
You
tell your constituents that in January you held a reception at
parliament for members of Jesus House, which, as you explain, is an
evangelical church run by Pastor Agu Irukwu.
You have gained a
fair amount of publicity and praise last year - including awards from
Pink News and the Spectator - for your efforts in support of the
successful campaign for equal marriage, expressing your disgust at those
who oppose this legislation on the grounds of unfounded prejudice -
such as your Conservative colleague in Hendon, Matthew Offord, with his
offensive comparisons to 'incest' and 'polygamy'.
You have also
spoken out in parliament against 'so-called conversion therapy'
practised by some counsellors, describing it as 'voodoo medicine'.
I
cannot believe that you do not know that Jesus House belongs to the
Evangelical Alliance, which preaches that equal marriage is wrong: see
here - http://www.eauk.org/church/resources/theological-articles/faith-hope-and-homosexuality.cfm
We affirm that monogamous heterosexual marriage is the form of
partnership uniquely intended by God for full sexual relations between
people.
This movement has even more extreme views, holding gay relationships to be inherently sinful:
We believe habitual homoerotic sexual activity without repentance to be
inconsistent with faithful church membership. Where someone is publicly
promoting homoerotic sexual practice within a congregation, there may be
a case for more stringent disciplinary action.
It also overtly supports the move to 'convert' gay people to heterosexuality:
We commend the work of those organisations which seek to help homosexual
Christians live a celibate life, and also commend those groups which
responsibly assist homosexuals who wish to reorient to a heterosexual
lifestyle.
Pastor Agu Irukwu, whom you mention in your
newsletter, is famous for his outspoken opposition to equal marriage,
and has actively campaigned against it in the past. His stance has been
frequently criticised by gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, and other
campaigning groups, after Boris Johnson attended one of his events: http://www.petertatchell.net/religion/mayor-boris-embraces-anti-gay-pastor.htm
Pink
News, whose award you accepted last year, has pointed to his objection
to the sexual orientation regulations which became law in 2007, signing
a letter to the Telegraph claiming: "the laws would force churches to “accept and even promote” homosexuality,
claiming they were an affront to Christian freedom, and
“Christianophobic”.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/10/31/divisive-cleric-voted-britains-most-inspirational-black-figure/
Furthermore,
according to 'Ekklesia', the Redeemed Christian Church of God, to
which Jesus House belongs, has reportedly engaged in 'exorcisms' of gay
members - see http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10788 - supposedly 'with the calm consent of the person concerned'.
Now
please tell me why you, as a gay man, and a member of parliament who
has lobbied for equal rights in law, can possibly support a movement
that maintains such offensive views as a fundamental principle of their
beliefs, without being accused of rank hypocrisy?
On a lesser
note, rather than supporting the well publicised one off charitable
gesture - and photo opportunities - supplied by the packing up of Jesus
House hampers at Christmas, should you not have supported the motion in
the house regarding the massive increase in the use of foodbanks, a
third of users being children dependent on such support, and bearing in
mind that many of your constituents are now being driven to use such
services, as the motion reported, and as noted by the Trussell Trust,
due to:
"rising living costs and stagnant wages, as well as problems including
delays to social security payments and the impact of the under-occupancy
penalty"?
I look forward to your response.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Angry
As usual, there came a swift, if somewhat terse and limited response:
Dear Mrs Angry
Your continued interest in my work is most gratifying.
I have a very constructive relationship with Jesus House even if
we disagree on some topics.
Mike Freer MP
Hmm.
Well. Wonder how all those who nominated Freer for his awards in Pink
News and elsewhere will view this 'constructive relationship'?
Mrs Angry replied:
No, my mistake: whatever political differences we have, I thought at
least you had demonstrated some courage and integrity in appearing to
stand upon a point of principle, in regard to your position on
equal marriage and homophobia.
Clearly I was wrong.
Extraordinary.
So
back to the Adelphi Hotel, and the teddy bears' picnic, and why the
infant Mrs Angry was in Liverpool, aged four, waiting for a ship to take
the family across to Ireland. (And terrified of this prospect, having
been told that the family car would be winched by crane up in the air,
from the quayside onto the ship, in a giant net, and so it was:
unfortunately my father had omitted to explain that we would not be in
the car at the time, which was a cause of no little anxiety to me, as
you might imagine).
The
reason we were off to Ireland was that my mother had a fancy to go and
see the place where her grandmother Mary Ann was from, a formidable
woman whose own mother's life began in the shadow of the Famine years,
somewhere on the Mayo/Sligo borders. Mary Ann and had been a central
part of my mother's young life, throughout the hardest of times, caught
in the continual fight to survive on what was then a miner's pittance,
then through the depression, the miners' strike and general strike, and worst of all, the loss of a brother and sister in one of several
epidemics that hovered, as my aunt once put it, like the angel of death
over every slum terrace in the village, taking young victims from
almost every family. Two generations on, and the family driven from
Ireland by poverty and famine were still on the borderline between life
and death.
They
survived, supported by the bonds of family, and good neighbours: if one
family in the street was struggling, the other women would help them
with food, and housework, and look after their children, as a matter of
course. How odd that we should have to explain what was once a normal
way of life, for working class communities everywhere. And they survived
because they were genetically programmed, like all refugees, to be
pioneers in a foreign land, and adapt to a new way of life. And that, in
truth, is the real luck of the Irish.
Arriving
in Mayo, all those years ago, we ended up in the small market town of
Louisburgh, in a rough and ready hotel looking onto a street where, in
the early hours, bachelor farmers would come in from their farms, way
out in the wilds, to buy and sell their livestock, and then be off to
the bars for a drink, and the craic.
I
sat one morning in the bar cum shop at the front of the hotel, and
watched with fascination one of these old boys singing tunelessly, and
playing a terrible version of It's a long way to Tipperary with
spoons on his knees. As I did so, my mother was talking to the woman
behind the bar, who told her about her sister, Mary, who had more
children than you could imagine, and lived out in the middle of nowhere,
on a small farm, at the bottom of Croagh Patrick. My mother, who had
grown up in want, and understood the challenge of managing a large
family, asked if she perhaps needed any spare clothing for them, and
wondered if her sister might be able to use the clothes my brother and I
grew out of, rather than see them go to waste.
That
conversation, with a complete stranger, was the beginning of a
relationship between my mother, and Mary, that lasted for the rest of
their lives.
Several
times a year, clothes would be parcelled up, in a box covered in brown
paper and lashed with string, taken to the post office, its contents
declared to a bureacracy suspicious of packages going to Ireland, and
probably even more suspicious of the ones that returned, full of
unpredictable gifts, including, once, a dead turkey, still with all its
feathers, fresh from the farm, a source of sheer horror to me, glad to
see the thing carried away to the butcher, for plucking and who knows
what else. To my horror, the Thing returned naked, bald, and scrawny,
barely the size of a large sparrow, or so it seemed.
Best
of all, though, were the letters that passed between the two families:
Mary's unpunctuated stream of consciousness, with her tales of life in
rural Ireland, and my mother's prim and proper missives, giving what must
have been a mystifying insight into our stilted suburban English
domesticity.
When I heard Mary had died, just before Christmas, I felt truly bereft, not to receive any more of those letters, from Bouris, near Kilsallagh, near Westport, at the edge of the world.
When
I was a teenager, we went at last to visit her at home, on another
visit to the west of Ireland. This was after I had spent a week with my
godmother in Tipperary (it was a long way), the place of her birth,
which her family had fled because her father had been in the hated Black
and Tans. In the seventies, she had thought it might be safe to come home,
all being forgiven. In that she was misguided, and she returned to
England, eventually.
Time, in Ireland, runs at a different rate to other
places, and what happened sixty years ago, and even a hundred and
sixty years ago, still has the power to cause painful memories, and
even conflict.
Two
of Mary's eleven children came to meet us at our hotel in Westport, to
direct us to the farm, which would otherwise have been impossible to
find, in a patchwork landscape of fields and peat bogs, lying in the
shadow of Patrick's mountain, with no roads other than mud tracks to
follow. When we got there, the whole family came running out to meet us,
dressed with a certain amount of eclectic style, in a collection of familiar garments.
They
lived in a three roomed cottage: eleven children, the parents and a
grandmother, with no electricity, no running water, no bathroom. The
only heat and cooking facilities were from the peat fuelled iron range,
and the only light from oil lamps. There was no bathroom, and the toilet
facilities ... were some sort of mysterious arrangement to the side of
the cow shed, which I decided not to investigate.
Off
we went, the girls and I into the fields, to walk about the lanes, the
boreens, in the spring sunshine, smelling the peach-like, honeyed scent
of the yellow gorse in flower everywhere. We sat on a stone wall,
looking out onto the islands of Clew Bay, talking about Granuaile,
the pirate queen Grace O'Malley, who had her stronghold there, and who
once came to the court of Elizabeth I, and made it clear she was not impressed by her English rival, refusing to bow before her, as she did not recognise her as the Queen of Ireland.
Over
the fields, along another track, in the distance, right on cue, and in
perfect cinematic order, appeared a May procession, led by the local
priest, saying the Rosary, heading past the one roomed village school
towards the church. They stopped when they reached us. The girls greeted
them, introducing me. She is from London, they announced, with
great solemnity, and a dramatic flourish. The procession of parishioners
stared at me with a cool eyed curiosity, as if I were from outer space, or a
sort of mythological creature.
Then
they moved on, and we moved on, in search of a holy well, a spring at
the side of one of the fields, associated with one of the local saints
and the ancient pilgrimage route. I managed to slip into it and get my
feet wet, and we went back then, to dry my socks by the stove, fired by
the peat the father had shown us how to cut, and stack, with a special
spade. We sat drinking strong tea made with sweet, warm milk straight
from one of the cows, and as we sat, me worrying about Louis Pasteur, I
realised I was experiencing a lifestyle from another time, and one that
would not last much longer.
Years
later, when I had children of my own, and we were in Westport, we went
back to visit Mary. Apart from one son living nearby, and working the
farm for her, most of the children were far away, in England, or Dublin.
The Celtic Tiger had not quite retracted its claws. And there were
other changes, of course.
Since
the last visit, subsidies from the EU had made life a little easier.
Electricity, water, some made up roads, at last. A bathroom had been
built on the back of the cottage. Otherwise, little had changed,
surprisingly.
Mary
was keen to show us the wider countryside, and took us on a tour: she
directed us on a drive through the Maumturk, the wilderness at the back
of Croagh Patrick, leading into Galway. A woman of limited education, but great intelligence, and faith, she had a purpose to the route she wanted to take.
On
her instructions we stopped in Doolough Valley, and got out of the car,
to see the mountains gathered around us in a hostile embrace, looking
down on a dark lake: an ominous setting.
Look
up, she said: up into the hills. Do you see those ridges, those lines
running horizontally across, right far up? We looked, and saw the
clearly discernible markings, like scars in the half scrubland area, far above us. That, she said, is where people were living,
during the Famine, moving further and further up, more and more
desperate, crowded out, from over population and continual blighted
harvests. The ridges were the ghostly traces of the potato beds they hacked out of the hillside, a hundred and sixty years ago.
It
was impossible to see how human existence could be sustained at such
extremes, beyond even the reach of the sheep and goats that live still
wander about freely there.
And then she pointed to something else. A stone marker in the valley, a monument commemorating the Doolough tragedy of 1849.
This
terrible incident occurred during the long years of famine in Mayo,
when two local officials, Colonel Hogrove and Captain Primrose, from the
Westport Poor Law Union, compelled a group of hundreds of starving
applicants asking for relief to walk twelve miles overnight, in dreadful
weather, from Louisburgh to Delphi Lodge in order to be seen at 7 am
the next morning, and granted some help. When they got there, the
officials kept them waiting outside while they lunched, and then refused them any
further assistance.
By
the time the wretched group of people returned to Louisburgh, many of them, including
women and children, had died, their bodies left lying by the side of the
road, some, it is said, with their mouths still stuffed with grass, in a
futile attempt to stay alive.
They were expendable: the dependent poor, and Catholic poor at that: such a fate was the judgement of God - the Anglican God, and the God of the British government.
Every
year there is a walk through the valley to remember the victims of
Famine, past and present. People come from all over the world to take
part: Desmond Tutu, she told us, had been one year. Mary would complete the
walk, even in her later years, just as she did the annual pilgrimage to
the summit of Croagh Patrick.
On the monument there is a quotation from Mahatma Ghandi:
"How can men feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings?"
This
is a question which increasingly becomes relevant once again, does it
not, as we witness the impact of the iniquitous policies adopted by our
present government?
It
is of course ironic that the Cabinet is stuffed full of the descendants
of those in power during so many previous eras of injustice, directed
at punishing the poor for being poor - amongst the ranks of Etonians and inherited privilege sits our local Barnet MP, now Northern Ireland Secretary, Theresa Villiers, whose forebear Lord Clarendon was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland during the famine years, when government policy, by design or default, instigated a virtual act of genocide on the Irish people.
And humiliating the poor, and punishing them for their moral weakness, and starving them into submission - that's all back in fashion, of course,
through the medium of agents like ATOS, and the degrading treatment of
disabled citizens; the terror of job centre sanctions handed out without
mercy in order to meet targets, and the burden of financial hardship,
via the imposition of taxes on those unable to leave their homes when
someone decides they may not have the luxury of one bedroom too many.
The Poor Law that guided the merciless hands of the commissioners dining in Delphi Lodge was an English law, introduced in the 1830s, which created a new system of social 'care', meant to terrify the lower orders into self-reliance, by means such as the infamous workhouses, all part of a move
to stigmatise those in need, and enshrine the idea of the deserving and
undeserving poor. Whereas support for the elderly, infirm and paupers
had been the responsibility of the charitable organisation of parishes,
the state now took control. The compassion of christian values no longer
applied: the assumption now was that if you were poor, it was your
fault, a moral failing.
Who
would have thought, that in the era of the new Coalition poor law, that
the politics of hunger would be revived as a way of controlling the
masses?
In one
family's journey, over generations, from the indigestible pap handed out
to famine victims, earned by pointless labour, building roads leading to
nowhere, by men and women half dead from starvation, to the soup
kitchens of the striking miners - and after the reforms of the post war
welfare state, would any of us have thought to see a time when a woman
has to do without food in order to feed her child, or depend upon the
generosity of a foodbank to keep from hunger when she cannot afford to
buy enough to eat? Yet here we are again, at the mercy of the
authorities, dictating who deserves to be housed, and when, and where, and who
may eat, and when, and why.
There are now at least three foodbanks in Barnet.
On Saturday
I went to visit the Finchley foodbank, which opened last month, and
deals mostly with the needs of residents of the Strawberry Vale estate,
in the borough's worst pocket of social deprivation, just ten minutes
away from Bishops Avenue, Billionaires Row, the second most affluent
stretch of properties in the country.
Finchley
Foodbank was started by Father Terry, the Catholic priest of St Mary's,
East Finchley, and the parish volunteers run it in conjunction with
other local churches in the area. It is the only foodbank in the borough
that does not operate on a voucher system, in which users must be
referred by a job centre, or social services, preferring to follow the
ideals of compassion and christian charity, rather than bureacracy.
As
I arrived, a young man was leaving, furtively, the hood of his gilet
drawn over his face, carrying two bags of supplies. Another man, older,
confused, was trying to find the door. Pushing it open, we entered and
were immediately greeted by helpers. There were a dozen or so people
sitting at tables, having a coffee, provided by volunteers: it was a
place to sit and be treated not as some sort of nuisance, but as a human
being, with a right to dignity, and support.
One of the organisers, Helen, a vicar whose duties are not based at one parish, but focused mainly on Strawberry Vale,
showed me the range of supplies that come in from local people, and
leave with local people, supply and demand being fairly well matched at
the moment, but uptake will inevitably increase as the enterprise
becomes better known.
At
the moment they are particularly short of tinned meat, tinned fruit,
UHT or powdered milk, sugar, coffee, shampoo, deodorant, shaving foam,
razors, washing up liquid and washing powder. The opening hours are 12.30 to 2pm on Saturdays, in the Church hall.
From
Louisburgh, and Doolough, to East Finchley. A long journey, but a
common theme, social injustice and the abuse of law to secure your hold
on power, and subjugate the people who might seek to challenge it, by humiliation, by exploitation - or by starvation: the tactics of class war by a government of the privileged, for the privileged, and a desperate flirtation with the politics of hunger.
Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhaoibh.
The National Famine Monument near Westport, with Croagh Patrick in the background
Labour councillors canvassing in Tyrrel Way, with the new Barratt Homes development in the background.
At the last general election, many Tory candidates used a carefully crafted template of phrases to create their electoral literature. One favourite phrase of 2010, you might recall, was a boast that your Conservative candidate had strong feelings of sympathy for 'the great ignored'.
Finchley and Golders Green MP Mike Freer was rather keen on this line of approach, and so was our now deputy leader here in Barnet, Daniel Thomas, standing, rather forlornly, in Neil Kinnock's old seat of Islwyn. Thomas was also concerned, incidentally, about setting a limit on immigration, which he said had got 'out of control' (in South Wales?), and promised that a Tory government would make sure that 7 out of 10 people would be better off. That went well, Councillor Thomas, didn't it?
The 'great ignored', though, in Broken Barnet: who are they? I think you know, don't you, if you have been reading this blog? By Tory definition, they are the silent but disproportionately influential minority, the comfortably off residents, whom Richard Cornelius and his friends imagine will be thrilled at the pre-election 'gesture' of a 23 pence a week cut in council tax. They are the people he really cares about, who must be protected from the terrifying prospect of a fair level of council tax, according to their means, regardless of their ability to pay, even if they live in the deserted mansions of Bishops Avenue, or, he, feared, their lives would be 'ruined'.
Well, then. Come with Mrs Angry now, and see the people who really are the 'great ignored', in our borough: the less privileged residents, who live in some of the worst areas of social deprivation, abandoned, forgotten, and about to be unceremonioulsy moved on, to who knows where, representing, as they do, an obstruction to the gentrification and gerrymandering development of West Hendon.
Yes: this is Broken Barnet, remember? We don't want poor people here, as Tom Davey, the Tory member responsible for housing, reminded us at the full council meeting last week: we want only 'well off' people.
In West Hendon, he hopes for a resettlement of Russian oligarchs, in the new Barratt homes development, overlooking the Welsh Harp. This is because the young Councillor Davey has firm views on the undeserving poor. We do not want people here who are too dependent on council services. And in Broken Barnet, everything has a material value, and only wealthy people should be allowed access to a view of such rare beauty, in the midst of an otherwise urban landscape, access paid for by virtue of the price of a penthouse flat, and not seen through the rotting window frame of a home in a forgotten estate that is part of a social housing scheme.
Mrs Angry has been out canvassing a couple of times in the last week in this area of West Hendon, right on the edge of the Welsh Harp reservoir, in Tyrrell Way and Marsh Drive, an area of social housing run by 'Barnet Homes', the council's ALMO, with a mixture of tenants and private leaseholders, a scandalously neglected estate, due for demolition at some point in the very near future, while the residents' lives are left on hold.
Councillor Julie Johnson, standing down at the election, and new candidate Dr Devra Kay
At the last election this Labour stronghold returned three councillors: Julie Johnson, Agnes Slocombe, and Ansuya Sodha. Ah, Ansuya Sodha.
Mrs Sodha was not selected to stand this time, competing as she was with a particularly strong panel of new candidates, and now she has rather peculiarly decided that in order to try to retain a position as councillor, she must defect to the Tories, who promised to nominate her if she switched sides (being rather embarrassingly short of real Tory candidates in the Hendon constituency ....)
After fifteen years as a Labour councillor, castigating the Tory government, describing them as a bunch of spoilt Etonians, (yes, Cllr Sodha, you really should have removed those embarrassing tweets rather sooner than you did) and castigating local Conservatives in Barnet for the iniquitous effects of the bedroom tax on the residents of West Hendon , she has now thrown in her lot with her former opponents, the same crowing councillors who used to laugh at her every time she spoke in the chamber.
Good luck to her - and good riddance, says Mrs Angry.
The new candidates, Devra Kay and Adam Langleben will make outstandingly good representives for West Hendon, and are extremely bright, hardworking, compassionate. and deeply committed to the principles of social justice, following in the example of Agnes Slocombe, the formidable, long serving councillor, and her colleague Julie Johnson, who is standing down.
Watching Julie in action on the doorstepping trail is something of a humbling experience, in truth. She really does know every one, and who lives where, and every one we passed seemed to know her, greeting her warmly. Her detailed knowledge of her constituents, and their particular circumstances, was quite extraordinary.
Most residents, it must be said, were out at work, thus proving the lie to Tory prejudices about tenants in social housing being lazy scroungers who make no contribution to society: most in receipt of benefit being in work, and struggling on low wages is of no interest to someone like Tom Davey who likes to consider his own employment for a tobacco company as somehow morally superior to those who eke out a living on the margins of Broken Barnet, and who dare to rely on the support of council services.
Our Tory councillors' views on the undeserving poor and this is no simplification of the way in which they view such residents - means that Barnet's housing policy is deliberately directed in order to punish those who they feel are not worthy of their approval. Like the English plantation of Ireland, with Protestant settlers being granted lands and rights over the native Irish people, in order to correct their moral failings, their tendency to rebellion and heretic faith, Conservative social engineering in this borough is transforming the landscape, both literally and symbolically.
People in Tyrrel Way and Marsh Drive are living, through no fault of their own, in often pretty squalid conditions, in buildings where the very fabric of the structure is breaking down, or subject to damp, or flooding, or infestation by rats - and in some cases still harbouring asbestos. It is as a result of years of uncertainty and neglect and lack of investment by Barnet's housing service.
One of the many rat traps lying about the estate, in areas where children play
The whole estate is clearly in urgent need of maintenance: peeling paint, rotting woodwork, including firedoors, evidence of persistent damp: this is prevalent throughout the blocks of flats:
The effect of living in such an environment is hard to escape: dehumanising, a constant challenge.
Many of the tenants have small children, and it is worrying to think of the impact on their health and well being.
One tenant we spoke to has an eight year old child, has lived on the estate for many years, and is still without a secure tenancy. In the meanwhile, her flat was blighted by damp from constant leaks, and when asbestos was moved from a neighbouring flat, she says she was left unprotected and at risk of exposure.
She had tried to interest her local Tory MP, Matthew Offord, in her plight, and he said he would help, but ... nothing happened. She wanted to know if we knew why the little garden she had made at the back of her flat had just been ripped up by council workmen. We guessed it was to do with the new development: she was very upset. Her daughter will now have to cross over to the other side of the Welsh Harp to find a green space in which to play: this side is earmarked for those who can afford to pay fro the privilege.
Many tenants here are in the same dilemma: the council does not want too many secure tenants, and to be weighed down with the responsibilities that might bring. So children are growing up in these flats, with no security, no assurance that they will be able to continue their education at the same schools, or even remain in their own homes. That will be decided on the suitable timing for redevelopment.
It's called regeneration, but in Barnet, that is no promise of new life for a community, only a promise of social cleansing, and making way for a better class of resident. Gerrymandering, in effect, moving the poor Labour voters out of the borough, and welcoming in the middle classes, who may just still be stupid enough to vote Tory.
The new Welsh Harp development, so warmly supported by our Tory council, along with its 29 floor storey blocks, is now underway, despite protests from campaigners objecting to the impact on a site of such ecological sensitivity.
There will be limited provision for a few lucky secure tenants - but from further afield, and decanted into the rather less well placed, Edgware Road side of the development. None of the tenants in Tyrrel Way or Marsh Drive will be able to move there. They have no idea if they will even be allowed to stay in the borough.
In the meanwhile, therefore, those living on the estate remain in uncertainty, and rapidly deteriorating conditions, while a Berlin Wall separates them from the luxurious new homes being built on the other side. 'Hendon Waterside', it is called: look and admire , and try not to laugh at the sales pitch, encouraging would be buyers to think they will be socialising in Hampstead and Belsize Park, rather than walking home past possibly one of the most depressed areas in the borough, marked by the terminal decline of this part of the Edgware Road.
On the other side of the divide: an exciting new Barratt Homes development: exciting, if you can afford to live there, and backed, as it says, by Mayor for (carefully chosen parts of) London
Several tenants we saw spoke of the difficulty in getting Barnet Homes to deal with problems, and for those residents who are not tenants, but leaseholders, there is an even more pressing concern.
Despite the fact that Tyrrel Way and Marsh Drive are due for demolition, as reported
here
in the local Times, Barnet Homes have sent residents each a bill for a staggering £10,000 for 'renovations', even though their homes are under a compulsory purchase order, and they could be continuing to pay off these demands long after the buildings have been bulldozed.
Much of the work for which this money is being demanded is for dealing with matters such as asbestos removal, and electrical improvements, which should have been carried out by the landlords years ago: it really is nothing short of outrageous to try to extort this money from residents now, and at a point where they have such a short time remaining in their homes.
Just before leaving the estate, Councillor Julie Johnson took us into the Hanuman centre, to meet members of the Tamil community who worship there. Slipping off our shoes, we went inside the unprepossessing building to find the most amazing, surprising sight: a tiny Hindu temple, dedicated to the monkey faced god Hanuman.
Around the room were several small shrines, lovingly decorated with offerings of fruit and flowers, and accompanied by the flickering light of tiny votive oil lamps - to a sometime Catholic like Mrs Angry, a curiously familiar practice. A woman wandered from shrine to shrine, hands clasped in prayer, and then a bare chested priest, with painted markings on his body chanted in front of Hanuman, the god who is the embodiment of courage, and selfless service.
It was perhaps after all a fitting place to end the day, and a reminder that those qualities,courage, and selflessness, in the best of people, who really do care about their community, just might make a difference to the lives who most need their support.
Will the temple, a spiritual centre, in an awkward spot, right next to the development, survive the 'regeneration' of this area?
Sadly, Mrs Angry rather doubts that it will. Spiritual regeneration is of no significance in Broken Barnet, when in the way of the pursuit of profit, as we know. But while it remains, and while there are still local residents still in occupation in Tyrrel Way, and Marsh Drive, there is still hope that West Hendon can retain some claim to a diverse community, and not an artifically planted development for wealthy outsiders.
