Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
some of them are legally a 2-man lift these daysMaybe, but when was the last time you lifted 9 inch concrete blocks?
or bollock busters as my b/f calls them
has brixton 'lost it'?
- Thread starter fuzzy felt
- Start date
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
Yep, b/f told me that yearsssssssssssssssss ago and yet he was still on jobs carrying them himself.
Ended up turning down concrete block work and only taking breeze blocks because he kept twisting his testicles
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
When I was a kid (from Hackney) brixon was somewhere you simply didn't go.
hipipol
Peckham Wry
I used to follow Saxon Studio Soundsystem when Papa Levi ruled and went to soundclashes in Hackney. It was being on some kind of raid into enemy territory - you were nervous about what the hackney boys would be up to - like smashing Saxons control tower and decks - which they did on one memorable occasion cos Levi had wiped the floor with their MCs and made em like the shitboy NorfLunnun crap they were
Mostly though we hated Untiy Hi Fi, still do actually
Mostly though we hated Untiy Hi Fi, still do actually
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
I don't disagree with this but the squatting, parties etc wasn't always a feature of the area. When it started up it quite often made things hellish for residents, particularly the poorer ones in council accommodation. The political and creative stuff quite often oppressed the vulnerable just as much as anything else.Brainaddict said:
Cooltan's mentioned a few times on these boards. It was a building used by some gov't agency _or_ the Voice newspaper in the past. Became unoccupied and some crusties occuppied it. It was a place of major squat party coolness.
Excellent vibes, great music and this air of "Mummy shouldn't know that I'm here" sort of atmosphere. As much as I love house, hip hop and the like, there's nothing better than hearing all kinds of music in one place. That was CT. Also it was very cheap, I think that one made a "donation" on the door, rather than a hefty night club fee.
newbie
undisambiguated
When the mass squats started they were because of the vast swathes of empty council houses as tenants were decanted prior to clearance. In each area that process took months or years because of the shortage of decent places for the tenants to move into- although many wanted to go to places like Bracknell not everyone wanted to leave London and neither Lambeth nor the GLC had a lot of good homes to let.
So gradually the streets emptied and the remaining tenants were surrounded by rat infested derries, which were broken in to by kids, who set fire to them, and by the winos. Squatters who wanted to turn empty houses into homes were often welcomed, and some tenants would help with water supplies or hand over keys when they left (to thwart the council wrecking crews).
Later, after the mass clearance policy was overturned, and the bigger areas were demolished and new flats built, the squats tended to be dotted around the council estates and streets, which caused much more resentment, even though the squats were often in hard-to-lets which no tenant with choices would accept. When the GLC gave the hard-to-lets away the mood turned much more against squatters, because they were seen as occupying homes that other people wanted.
What's prefabricated about it?
Editor has covered what i meant.
But if you watch any block of flats go up these days most of the outers are prefabbed of site and just craned on.
A good example of this is the blocks of flats on the left as you approach Victoria station from the south. It looks like brick outers but it wasn't, it was all slotted in to place and just looks like brick.
I'm no structural engineer but i'd wager these kind of builds will need pulling down in 30 years or so.
Give me a good solid structure like wot the victorians dun any day
eta - just read your further posts, you know more than me i think
editor
hiraethified
Have you forgotten the deal you had with the mods about not posting in the Brixton forum?
I assumed my ban had ebbed away with the sands of time.
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
There's a lot of that that's true as well. What what oppressive was the imbalance. I was one of only two tenants on the top four floors of a council tower block. I had young children and the other tenant was elderly. Slowly the block filled up (legit tenancies) with young single people, single people with problems (mental illness, alcohol or drug problems) and squatters (mostly good and considerate but a few who were complete nightmares). I can remember times when I didn't get a decent nights sleep for weeks because of parties.
Winot
I wholeheartedley agree with your viewpoint
Give me a good solid structure like wot the victorians dun any day
A lot of the Victorian housing stock has virtually no foundations and is prone to subsidence. Of course, it is also over a hundred years old.
PacificOcean
Unhinged User
Surely the banks wouldn't give a mortgate on it?
newbie
undisambiguated
Families and the elderly at the top of towers
The planning/housing policies of the time were a complete disaster, although- charitably- ostensibly with the best of motives, clearing the slums. We're still living with the social consequences.Once the initial flush of 50s/60s enthusiasm for them had waned the towers became an unpopular option for anyone with a choice. The people with the best choice were those being decanted from the stupidly large scale developments- building estates or towers needed big spaces, so the clearances meant decanting thousands of people who, while often glad to get out of the slums were scared by Ronan Point and knew that the towers wouldn't provide as good quality of life as a ground floor place with a garden. Their reluctance or outright refusal to budge created delays in the clearances- and hence to the huge amount of housing sitting empty for months or years and ripe for squatting. Meanwhile because the great schemes were sucking up all the money perfectly good housing was left to rot, so that it wasn't only the towers that were hard-to-let.
Anyone not being decanted had far less choice, and so was more or less forced into unsuitable places. By the 80s highrise was widely considered socially unsuited to families or the elderly but the pressure on housing departments was such that they were still being allocated to those without choices, eg those whose offer came after months in a homeless families hostel.
So the squatters in your block were symptom not cause, which doesn't excuse their bad behaviour or seek to minimise the misery they caused to you and countless others.
Those cheap Victorian houses- the slums- may have had no foundations, no indoor plumbing, walls too thin to provide any insulation and so on, but they were at least human scale homes.
/rant
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
Many of the elderly had been there since they were young. I wouldn't have had a home at all without being in a high-rise. It's a difficult one. My choice was high-rise or homeless.
I was never around Brixton when there was lots of squatting and stuff. Now having left Brixton, my over riding feeling about the place is that it's very religious . It was amazing when we lived on Brixton hill, the crowds for the church were huge. Weddings caused a road block! I've never seen congregations like that anywhere else I've lived, up north or London.
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
People still feel like that. Some of my friends and family from the East can't believe i live in such a dangerous shithole! Including ones who used to live on rough estates in southwark. I've just started a new job and my three office co-workers were all surprised to find out that i live in Brixton because they hav the impression it's completely lawless!
That is so typical of people from South London - "oh yeah I'm from Bermondsey's but Rotherhithe's ruff as fuck" "Yeah where we live, Kennington, that's safe but I don't like the people in Lambeth Walk"
in fact everyone in London's like that - proper village mentality, makes me laugh a lot, but then I catch myself doing it as well !
People from East london slagging Brixton.........sorry but you have got to be kidding.
having said that, Brixton did carve out its own special niche in the shithole stakes & old reps die hard.
