City joins together to remember Grenfell
One by one, the great and the good at the Grenfell Tower anniversary memorial service yesterday gave up their VIP seats in favour of grieving survivors and families of the 72 victims of the west London blaze.
Even the Duke and Duchess of Kent vacated their places in a ceremony that focused less on protocol and more on those still suffering because of the fire.
At 12.54am on June 14, 2017, (local time), the emergency services received their first call telling them of a kitchen fire in flat 16 on the fourth floor of the tower. Those who witnessed that morning, as the blaze ripped apart the building and the lives inside, will never forget it.
At 12.54am yesterday Grenfell Tower, now wrapped in a funereal white shroud, was illuminated in green light, as was Downing Street and the London Eye. It is the colour that has come to symbolise the community response to the tragedy.
Children at Avondale Park Primary School sang songs and read poems to remember the friends they lost in the tower, which they can see from their classrooms.
Also remembered was Nadia Choucair, 29, a nursery assistant who died on the 22nd floor alongside her husband, Bassem, 38, and three daughters Mierna, 13, Fatima, 11, and Zainab, 3. Nadia’s mother, Sirria, 60, left her flat on the same floor and died alongside them.
The patchwork of survivor and community groups that sprung up after the fire held a range of religious and community memorial services across north Kensington, where green ribbons were tied to lamp posts and zebra crossings. The wall of handwritten tributes – last year a desperate mesh of missing-person posters – is now home to carefully organised shrines to the victims, lined by plant beds.
At the main ceremony, held near the bottom of the tower, survivors and bereaved families and friends wore green scarfs.
A banner on top of the tower bears the message: ‘‘Grenfell: Forever in our hearts.’’ After the names of the 72 dead were read out at the memorial, the crowd repeated: ‘‘Forever in our hearts.’’
Tears were wiped away in the crowd as a gospel choir sang Lean on Me, before Abdurahman Sayed, chief executive of al-Manaar Muslim cultural heritage centre, unveiled a mosaic of intertwined hearts.
‘‘When friends, strangers and neighbours come from near and far together in a spirit of love and generosity, beautiful things can come from the most terrible circumstances,’’ he said. ‘‘It was this outpouring of love [following the fire] which inspired this piece.’’
A haunting recitation of the opening verses of the Koran was performed before 72 seconds of silence were marked by the crowd.
As well as the official dignitaries from politics, the emergency services, and royalty, there were celebrities who have supported the community in its calls for justice after the fire.
The grime artist Stormzy was mobbed for selfies after the ceremony finished. Less visible were the singer Adele and the musician Marcus Mumford, who remained out of sight during the memorial. Souad Loureddine, 49, has worked in the nursery at the bottom of Grenfell Tower for the past 20 years, seeing many of the children of the tower become adults before they perished in the blaze.
‘‘It means a lot to us to be here,’’ she said. ‘‘It brings it even more to light that it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. All the children came through our nursery and that is why we’re so devastated, hurt and angry.’’
Clarita Ghavimi, 67, was rescued from the tower by a neighbour, Luca Branislav, who put her over his shoulder and carried her out of her 11th-floor flat and down through the smoke-clogged stairwell. Ghavimi, who lived in the tower for 34 years, said: ‘‘I am remembering my friends who didn’t survive. It still feels temporary and that we will be going back but this makes you realise. I want to go back but there is nothing left to go back to. That sadness will be there as long as there is breath and life, it is never going to disappear.’’
In the afternoon, grieving families from a separate church service led a hushed crowd through the streets carrying green hearts emblazoned with the words ‘‘love’’, ‘‘unity’’ and ‘‘grace’’. An anguished mourner collapsed to the floor weeping as the march reached the base of the site. –