Nearly 60 years ago photographer Adam Ritchie returned to North Kensington from New York – and moved from recording Velvet Underground to picturing children playing in the streets. Adam reports on his website:
“I found the Greater London Council (GLC) had just demolished 700 houses across North Kensington to build the longest elevated motorway in Europe. Some friends from the London Free School had got permission to open an adventure playground by Acklam Road (out of the rubble from the demolished houses). The kids had built some amazing structures there, so I bought a saw, hammer, and a kilo of big nails and left them hidden under the rubble. I went again a few days later and the structures the kids had built were gone and other bigger, even more imaginative structures were there”.
Adam followed up with two years organising play schemes in North Kensington, and campaigning with others for community use of the 23 acres under the motorway. That story is here, in an article by Adam, and in my earlier blog post about Adam’s playspace photos.
More here about the Westway Trust, which manages a wide variety of community and commercial uses, sports facilities and green spaces on the 23 acres.
Adam has now created an exhibition of his photos on a stretch of wall under the Westway motorway, at Maxilla Gardens.
He is inviting anyone pictured there to get in touch for a copy, and a picture taken now.
Adam – pictured below – also celebrates the achievements of community action in North Kensington of the past 60 years.
The poster photo below asks, rhetorically: What have the people of North Kensington ever done for themselves?
And offers this list::
- Fought fascism and Oswald Mosley and marched for Kelso Cochrane.
- Started one of the first Adventure Playgrounds in Britain
- Secured 23 acres under Westway for the community
- Started Westway Trust and later secured it for the community
- Started the Notting Hill Carnival
- Started the first Law Centre in the country
- Started the first Community Printing Press
- Supported the exiled Spanish children fleeing Franco
- Supported the Mangrove Nine
- Have an active gay support community
- Invented Meanwhile Gardens.
- Liberated the Tabernacle for community use.
- Did a Housing Survey which changed Council policy (a little)
- Ran the Summer Play Programme for three years
- Liberated Powis Square
- Created Frestonia
- Started a public laundry
- Eddie Adams created an Oral History, Mike Braybrook a Graphics Archive, Saved our Library and College, Ran information Centre
- Opened a women’s refuge, a women’s centre and a well-woman centre
- Started a Free Shop
- Started a national drugs support charity
- Fought for Grenfell bereaved and survivors
- Created their own Community Transport service
- Built their own network of Supplementary schools
- Created their own network of community gardens
These are extraordinary achievements, and as mentioned in my earlier post, a group of activists from the 60s and 70s, including Adam, are bringing together their stories about campaigns of the time. These include childcare, community media and print, gay liberation, housing, legal rights, play space, as well as the use of land under Westway. I’m helping, initially focussing on a map of key campaign locations.
I think that the stories of achievements could provide a powerful set of narratives for individuals and groups to contribute their recollections, with insights of lessons for today.
Following proposals from community groups, Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council have committed substantial funding for development of a Social Justice Archive. More later about the scope that’s now emerging for collaboration on that between community groups and council.
Local decorator Lorenz provided free help in mounting the poster photos
You can find the exhibition in Maxilla Gardens, a delightful green space of wildflowers and seating created by the Westway Trust, which says:
“The innovative garden design features an abundance of undulating, meandering and swathing greenery for wildlife, with bespoke furniture and repurposed materials used to create the pathways and features, inspired by the industrial development of the past. The main feature of the garden is its dual helix, which threads through the space, with interweaving pathways embedding the DNA of the community throughout. One path represents society, and the other represents the environment, symbolising the intersection of socio-environmental challenges and solutions”.
The gardens are by 71 St Marks Road W10 6JG. If you are coming by public transport, walk westwards for a block from Ladbroke Grove Tube station.
Update 1
BBC London featured Adam’s wall of photos in a news item on July 11. Presenter Asad Ahmad explained how Adam took the photos in the 1960s, and Adam was able to recall the lack of playspace and how local people got together to create playgrounds.
“There were no parks, there were loads of private squares, like Powis Square, all locked up and no one went there. So we made, I think, 12 temporary playgrounds for the children”.
Companies donated scaffolding, equipment and paint.
Alphonso Santana was there at the time, and said on the news item: “I was around so much as a kid on those playgrounds and always ready to help out and stuff. Brilliant really , knowing that they were actually trying to improve our lot”.
Adam explained that he would give a copy of the original photo and another one taken now to anyone who’s identified in the pictures.
Here’s a set of screenshots from the item, thanks to Dan Wilcox.
Update 2
Portobello Radio have done a great interview with Adam, which you can listen to here.