This towering inferno
QUITE the most nightmarish spectacle on our TV screens has been the fire in the Grenfell tower block, near Notting Hill in west London – 25 floors ablaze, the flames rushing up the recently applied exterior cladding.
This is surely the worst since the Blitz. Casualties stood at 58 at press time. The place was an inferno against the pre-dawn sky.
I was working in the East End of London about the time tower blocks were being built by several councils as an answer to housing needs.
Architecturally ghastly as they disfigured the London skyline, they were hated by ordinary folk on the ground.
They destroyed community spirit.
The traditional terrace houses each had their patch of ground. Kids jumped the fences and roamed freely. Housewives nattered over the fences.
It couldn’t happen in the tower blocks. Folk who lived up in the sky changed, they weren’t part of the local community.
Such were the complaints. But nobody dreamed of anything like Grenfell.
Cockney folk
THAT community spirit in the East End of London was very real. People gathered in pubs with names like The Barge Aground, The Ship and Shovel, and The Crooked Billet.
One evening a few of we hacks were in a pub officially called the Britannia – but actually called all kinds of other things because above the doorway was a sailing ship’s carved figurehead of Britannia, a woman with enormous breasts. She was like a twin-hulled catamaran.
We were wondering what we could do for a front page picture in our weekly paper when we were interrupted by a little Cockney named Syd, who had been listening.
“’Ere! If you wants a picture, ’ow’s about me wiv me dukes up, challengin’ any uvver 70-year-old in the East End to go a few rounds wiv me inna ring?”
“’E wuz a good boxer, my Syd,” his wife chimed in. “’E also got the DSO in the war – Doodah Shot Off !”
Shrieks of laughter from her pals. One thing led to another and that week the Barking and Dagenham Advertiser – read in every corner of the globe – had on its front page a shot of our Syd stripped to the waist, dukes up and challenging any other 70-year-old in the East End to a few rounds.
Next morning a deputation of police were round at the office, furious. The thing was irresponsible, inflammatory, they said.
“But it was a bit of fun,” protested the editor. “A joke.”
“A joke? Do you realise the trouble we have every week with pensioners fighting?”
Pensioners fighting? Yes, it turned out there was a pension pay-out point opposite yet another pub in the borough that stocked a drink called Bass’s Barley Wine – sold in nip-sized bottles and very potent.
The old-timers would draw their pension, pop across the road for a nip or two of barley wine, then start punching each others’ heads.
Ah yes, community spirit in the East End of London.
Mexican wave
WHEN last did we see a Mexican wave at Kings Park? The crowd hasn’t been there, the rugby seldom inspiring.
Okay, we were way off a full house on Saturday – will those days ever return? – but the rugger was sensational and the crowd responded with wave after wave.
The match stats tell the story. The Boks put in 158 tackles – the French 52. Our defence was like a wire fence. And those breakthrough tries!
Springbok rugby is back. Olé, olé, olé!
Flying saucers?
MOSES Mabhida stadium on Friday – my first visit. It’s not true that it’s a mother ship for flying saucers. Not one saucer docked while we were there.
It’s a weird layout. A soccer/rugby field, surrounded by an athletics track, then seating that slides back shallow, the whole configuration in an oval.
The French Barbarians and South Africa “A” were playing some thrilling, open Barbarians-style rugby, but they were so distant most of the time you had to look at the Big Screen to try to make out what was actually going on.
Also, being at an angle to the touchline, you lost perspective of the game. Where’s the gain line? Was that a forward pass? Back to the Big Screen.
A rugby stadium this ain’t. Tailpiece DYSLEXICS of the world, untie! Last word
THE avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward – John Maynard Keynes