Squatting 70s style, BBC4 8 Feb

[Shippou-Sensei]

HAHAHAHAHAH

no (to the gaining posetion)

it all housing co-op now as far as i'm aware and the counsel are refusing to sell ... even though we're still here

 

[TeeJay]

whats your soulseek user name?

Will PM

 

[William of Walworth]

no (to the gaining posetion)

The BBC shouldn't have said he was still squatting. They definitely implied that, at the very least.

it all housing co-op now as far as i'm aware and the counsel are refusing to sell ... even though we're still here

Do some members of the Housing Co-Op want to buy their flats then? Surely Lambeth Council wouldn't have any yay or nay over that?

Terms of most Housing Co-Op membership tend to exclude any right to buy anyway, although this one may be an exception?

 

[Sesquipedalian]

The BBC shouldn't have said he was still squatting. They definitely implied that, at the very least.


Do some members of the Housing Co-Op want to buy their flats then? Surely Lambeth Council wouldn't have any yay or nay over that?

Terms of most Housing Co-Op membership tend to exclude any right to buy anyway, although this one may be an exception?

I watched this last night with great interest.
I loved seeing the footage of Villa Road way back in that hot summer of 1976.

I'm sure that they actually said he was still squatting there,
In a tent in someones back garden.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

i should corect that ... i think it's all housing coop but i don't know any real deatails

and yes some mebers do ... but again i don't know any of the details


and there are no tents in his back garden as of this moment ....

 

[Sir Belchalot]

Maybe the guy squatted a co-op house when he was made to move from his garden dwelling.

 

[William of Walworth]

Maybe the guy squatted a co-op house when he was made to move from his garden dwelling.

Would be interesting to know ...

I'm also interested in why several Villa Road veterans apparantly didn't want to participate in this programme.

 

[newbie]

Because they thought they'd be fitted up.

It's happened before with journalists before and it'll happen again. I'll be surprised if many women heavily involved in 70s feminism would talk to them either, for the same reason.

As it was the impression they gave me and others was of a standalone, sympathetic programme about squatting, not a part of a series called 'lefties'. Funnily enough stuff about 'Marxist reading groups' and 'transitional demands' didn't concern that many people... and I'll bet they had to look long and hard amongst the stories about cracking squats, skips, police, doing up derries, bailiffs, barricades, street meetings and parties to find the few interviews that fitted the agenda of their series.

They painted a picture which left the impression that the whole thing involved ideologues from Oxbridge (& Eton) which has caused raised eyebrows and mild upset. It could have been a whole lot worse than it was, but I'm not at all surprised most people wouldn't talk on camera, and many wouldn't say anything off camera either.

 

[William of Walworth]

Cheers for that newbie. All makes sense.

I think it's about time there was a new and thoroughly updated and expanded edition of Squatting : the real story

Surely there'd be a good niche market ...

 

[Sir Belchalot]

Because they thought they'd be fitted up.
It's happened before with journalists before and it'll happen again.

Too right. I found this out when I was a member of a co-op in Islington in 1982/3. We'd formed a co-op during a brief LBI amnesty for squatters. After the council meeting where they approved our co-op, some members talked to a supposedly friendly journalist from the local paper.
Next day, we were on the front page of the Standard with a 'loony left council gives houses to punk squatters' headline.

 

[William of Walworth]

Too right. I found this out when I was a member of a co-op in Islington in 1982/3. We'd formed a co-op during a brief LBI amnesty for squatters. After the council meeting where they approved our co-op, some members talked to a supposedly friendly journalist from the local paper.
Next day, we were on the front page of the Standard with a 'loony left council gives houses to punk squatters' headline.

The SubStandard : whipping up ignorant populist hatred for anything unconventional since 1861** ...

**made up date, but it's in general true ...

Was Islington's approval for your co-op sustained, or did the Standard succeed in overturning it?

Twats -- Fuckwit readers who believe that kinda shit, and the paper alike ...

 

[Sir Belchalot]

Managed to blag 4 houses from them but we just got in at the end of the co-op era. No Islington co-ops got extra houses after that time so we couldn't expand any more.
The co-op's still going, the last time I was in my old house (about 10 years ago) most of the residents were non-communal yuppies with locks on their bedroom doors and seperate food cupboards.
I left in 1985 as I came back from travelling and couldn't face living with one particular resident who was pissing everyone else living there off but refused to move out.
As we didn't have any more houses, I just started squatting again instead. It was a good experience but I was happy to leave other people deal with the bureaucracy of it all

 

[William of Walworth]

Cheers for that Sir B.

I was interested because in the early eighties ( ) my older brother was in the then (and for all I know still) thriving Deptford Housing Co-Op, not far from the Sanford one (both in Deptford/New Cross area). I think they were established in the very late 70s -- and new build in fact -- not ex squats like so many other co-ops. When I visited there I liked it, good principled and alternative-minded crowd.

When he left in 1984, he was not happy with certain personalities that had more recently become involved, but he was full of praise for the whole concept of housing co-ops.

 

[Bob]

The SubStandard : whipping up ignorant populist hatred for anything unconventional since 1861** ...

**made up date, but it's in general true ...

Was Islington's approval for your co-op sustained, or did the Standard succeed in overturning it?

Twats -- Fuckwit readers who believe that kinda shit, and the paper alike ...

 

[Gramsci]

I havent seen the doc as i havent got Freeview.But sometimes these series are repeated on BBC2.Its easy to poke fun at 70s squatting.It might be better to put it in a historical context-the Diggers,the Romantics(Shelley & Byron) and the "New Life" socialism of Edward Carpenter."Alternative" living and a rejection of Capitalism has a long history.

However i wouldnt over romanticise this period.There were plenty of casualities.Second Wave Feminism happened partly in reaction to the behaviour of hippy men-who thought the rejection of bourgeious norms meant that chicks should cater to their needs at all times.

Their was a lot of empty housing due to the Councils emptying it out prior to demolition for "regeneration".At that time the socialist planning was influenced by Corbusier and Modernism.Progressive architects worked for Councils not Foster type private practises.It was London County Council architects who designed the Royal Featival Hall.Great swathes of what the Council regarded as slums were to be demolished to make way for the bright new future.

When the regeneration money ran out in the late 70s the squats became longterm and were formalised into "Short Life" Coops.Some of these became permanent like St Georges Residences in Railton Road.

Communal living didnt last long.Most place started putting locks back on doors and separating living spaces.It was to mad otherwise.What happened was that the strongest personalities(usually male) would dominate a place in quite unpleasant manner.There was a lot of crap about "letting it all hang out" etc which was a cloak for some awful abusive behiavour.Formal meetings were considered "bourgeious" but led often to the "Tyranny of Structurelessness".

 

[Gramsci]

Ive just been reading the Jenny James link on the BBC website.God the politics seem so out of date.Its worth a look for all the really irritating attitudes that went around at that time.She sees homosexuality as weakness whilst-some kind of lack of sexual energy.O dear it would be so easy to satirice this on TV .

Im between the Hippy generation and the awful Thatchers children.So I fall betwen two stools.My parents would a 50s early 60s Beatniks.So i grew up in some of this but kept a sceptical distance.Alternative people dont necessarily make good parents.

Some of these attitudes have been sent up in Absolutely Fabulous.The awful daughter and Edina.

A lot of alternative therapy ended up as a adjunct to individualised consumer capitalism."Self Development"/finding oneself fits in well with modern advanced Capitalism

 

[miss madge]

I know it's all after the fact but as I was one of the Villa road kids (3 years old in 1975, so my folks had had the balls to choose to be there and I was along for the ride), I got a lot out of the 'Lefties' documentary.

It was impossibly short. I wish it had been a series. But my parents (Anda and Jan, wonder if any of you might remember them) were pretty surprised that there was any footage at all, seeing as to video something might have been viewed as more passive than active at the time.

From the people I was with, sitting round the tv with the documentary on, it sounds like has a story on Jenny James and the Screamers.

Someone (William of Walworth?) was wondering why some of the veterans weren't in the documentary. I think some of them couldn't be got hold of, and some of them just didn't want to be in the limelight.

As a non-politicised kid (other than the silver crocheted Karl Marx t-shirt ) I loved community living, though. A walled park as my backyard, about 4 places I called home and 20 parents instead of 2? Brilliant. Seeing the footage really took me back, and I bet the feeling was even stronger for people who had far stronger memories of the place than I did.

 

[William of Walworth]

Nice bump, and interesting post

I think newbie was mainly the one talking about those not participating in the programme ... but he has specialist knowledge

 

[Sir Belchalot]

Repeated on BBC4 at 1a.m. tomorrow if anyone missed it.

 

[peterkro]

Sorry for the mahoovish thread resurrection.

Just been reading through the thread and thought I give an update on Pim (not Pym) after leaving Villa road he lived in a structure on a roof in Peckham then when that fell apart he set of for Seattle he was involved with this lot for a while http://www.americansteelstudios.com (August 2011) and the last I heard (a couple of years ago) and I quote "Now planning to make it to Valparaiso and from there the wilderness to retire and finally opt out of the 'system' ".
He had been a successful business man in Holland and one day had a "fuck this for a game of soldiers" moment and walked away from it (he also had a major brain haemorrhage although the timing of it is lost in the mists).His whole philosophy was based around cheap living structures that anyone could build and live in.The hut in the gardens of Villa road being one example,after he left the hut an American artist lived in it for a couple of years then I lived in it for quite a few.I'd helped him build it originally and when I moved in I installed central heating and generally upgraded
it.Unfortunately eventually because the roof was made of a tarpaulin with carpet underneath it slowly began to rot so I had no alternative than to pull it down.
Pim got fucked over by the "Lefties" program,eerie music whenever he was on screen etc,which is the exact reason myself and many others refused to have anything to do with the program,we'd been fucked over by the media before. Pim is an odd bloke with many unusual ideas but in no way lacked intelligence or knowledge.

The whole program was a load of crap,the Marxist,Oxbridge and Eton and Jenny James stuff was all overplayed,many of those people were relatively short term residents.As for Zander saying he was the squatters leader fuck him.
Over the years hundreds of people lived in Villa road and a lot are now scattered allover the world (one for instance is production head for Weta studios in Wellington and was nominated for a Oscar).Great times with lots of great people.


To finish about Pim before Villa road he lived in a Redwood forest in California where his outdoor kitchen was build between two roots of an ancient tree,I like to think and hope he's somewhere outside Valparaiso in a self built structure and is enjoying his retirement in splendour.


( incidentally I've known Shippy since he was in his ma's womb)

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Yes the stuff with pim leaft a bad taste in my mouth . I don't know him nearly as well as youi or my parents but i did feel that the way everything was edited was done to make him seem like a full on nutter. the guy is excentric no doubt but the show showed him zero respect. they were always angling to find the odd stories.

same thing happened with me and ITV for an addiction to the internet thing.

and yes he has.... well as much as anyone can know a foetus