EXCLUSIVE
AS THE presenter of DIY SOS, Nick Knowles likes a challenge. He is no stranger to pulling off the impossible; transforming a family home in 10 days and creating a village for veterans in Manchester in just over a fortnight are among the television show’s recent credits.
But nothing could prepare Nick for his biggest project ever: rebuilding for Grenfell.
Nick was working late on another DIY SOS programme on the night of June 14, 2017, when the deadliest fire in modern British history broke out in Grenfell Tower, killing 72 people and seriously injuring many more.
“We sat there in disbelief as we watched it unfold,” says Nick. “Our executive producer was in Grenfell three days after the fire. I was there a week later. We wanted to help.”
Nick and the team spent a year meeting families who lived in the tower and community leaders, hearing from them what they wanted built, how, when and where. The consensus was that DIY SOS should attempt to build a new home for the Dale Youth Boxing Club, which had its gym and ring on the second floor of the tower and is currently in a temporary home in a car park. The club has been training youngsters in the area for more than 50 years and spawned the careers of James DeGale, who won an Olympic gold medal in Beijing, and George Groves, current WBA super-middleweight champion.
In addition, Grenfell representatives requested a community centre to house, among other services, Child Bereavement UK, a national charity that helps children come to terms with the loss of a loved one.
The results of this epic challenge can be seen on BBC One tonight, when the new boxing gym is unveiled for the first time. In next week’s episode, viewers will see the completion of the community centre project.
“It is the most important build we have ever done,” says Nick.
The project would have cost more than £2million had it been publicly funded and the huge site – under the A40 Westway – presented unique challenges. For the first time, the DIY SOS crew were working with steel. This, combined with the location, meant they could not rely on volunteers.
DIGGING deep into their contact books, Nick and the crew pulled together a specialist team – including the future King of England.
“Prince William came in on the week leading up to his brother’s wedding, so he was a very busy man!” Nick says. “He has been engaged in Grenfell from the start; he visited three days after the fire. He met a lot of the families and he was interested in what had happened to them.”
The Prince is seen painting a wall as he chats to Nick: “It has been one of the worst disasters in modern times in this country,” William says. “I think everyone has been shocked by how brutal and horrendous it all was.
“But for the community they’re reliving it all the time, so progress needs to happen and the community coming together is the first important part of fixing that.”
The boxing club was nine months in the planning and took nine weeks to build. A computergenerated image reveals a stateof-the-art gym, a competition-