An enduring legacy

Alan Johnson

As a child in early 1950s North Kensington I was unaware of the enormous political and social challenges facing post-war Britain. I certainly didn’t regard the houses we lived in as slums, or feel that we were particularly unfortunate, but the houses on our street were very different to the ones my mother cleaned for a living in South Kensington. During school holidays she’d take my sister and me with her to work. The houses she cleaned were grand and, understandably, many of the occupants were irritated at the prospect of a pair of ragamuffins playing in their elegant drawing rooms. If we were allowed in, we’d watch my mother on a chair stretching high to dust or kneeling to scrub, scrape and polish.

Linda and I didn’t expect to live in such houses. Their occupants were from a different world connected only peripherally to ours. The people whose houses my mother cleaned owned their homes whilst everybody in Southam Street, London W10 rented, so far as we knew. The families who shared our front door would come and go, just as we came and went; from 107 to 149 Southam Street and from there to 6 Walmer Road. Some of our neighbours rented from what I later heard described as slum landlords, the most notorious of whom was Peter Rachman, but we were with the Rowe (later Octavia) Housing Trust, something my mother told us we should be eternally thankful for. Her dream was to live in a house with her own front door; a release from our shared accommodation with no bathroom, no running hot water and a dilapidated outside toilet.

While we waited for my mother’s dream to be fulfilled, the Trust met our needs, moving us from one room to three and then, even after my father had left us, to four rooms. My mother even persuaded them to install a bath and copper boiler in one corner of the decrepit basement with brown formica boards around it – our first bathroom.

My mother may have neglected to tell the Trust that her husband had deserted her for fear of not getting a bigger dwelling – I don’t know. What I do know is that whilst she acquired many debts she always paid the rent on time.

Rowe/Octavia had an office on Portobello Road (known to locals as The Lane). My mother would ‘go up The Lane’ every week to hand the money to a clerk who would initial the rent book. I can still picture that office; cream woodwork, brown lino and a strong smell of disinfectant.

Battered by ill fortune and dogged by poor health, my mother’s basic human need for shelter had at least been met and she wasn’t going to let that slip away. Rowe/Octavia was our source of security – a ‘trust’ in more ways than one. We three were just a few of the many people over the years who have relied on its services and been thankful for its existence.

John Bird

The Victorian era produced some great people – far greater, in my opinion, than those produced today – including, for example, the indomitable traveller Isobel Bird (no relation); John Ruskin, the one man army who sought to bestow a renaissance roundedness upon everyone, whatever their class; and the dogged and passionate Octavia Hill – social campaigner, housing reformer and nature champion.

I discovered Octavia whilst researching social responses to housing and homelessness. I rediscovered her when I looked into the creation of the National Trust and the late Victorian campaigns around the social justice issue of protecting nature so that all of us, irrespective of our social standing, could enjoy its inspiration.

When I started The Big Issue I did it using Octavia as a model. She understood that social justice was as much about the bricks and mortar around you as the education you received and the work that you carried out. She bought land and built houses and began to raise the issue of reform through practical applications of housing justice.

At that time, most housing stock available to the hardworking poor was sub-standard, unhealthy and expensive. So why did Octavia invest in housing for working people and build superior stock when she could have made a fortune stuffing the people into slums? She did so because she was ahead of her time; because she was both entrepreneurial and socially responsible.

It is hard to believe that, back in the 1880s, Marylebone had many slums. Octavia moved in and built superior housing for hardworking poor people; and she did it as a business. She made it wash its own face in the same way that, many decades later, I started The Big Issueand have made it self-sufficient ever since.

Over a decade ago I looked out of the window of my Marylebone flat and saw a blue plaque commemorating Octavia. At that time I lived in a block that backed onto Octavia’s first experiments in the business of social housing. I felt incredibly privileged that I was so close to her social experiment, to her entrepreneurial social endeavour.

I am not a historian but I am a passionate believer in a world that people like Octavia Hill fought for: a world where all of us have the opportunity to share nature and society; where all of us – whether we use a hammer or a pen – can feel included.

I only wish she was around for us today, for housing and social inclusion is, once more, at a premium.

Octavia cannot and will not be forgotten, so long as there is someone whose life is narrowed by the housing in which they live. As long as there is injustice in housing, the spirit of Octavia will remind us that it could – and should – be done better and that we need not accept less for those who deserve more.

David Orr

It is fair to say that we think of ourselves as a civilised and caring nation. Most of us, when we think about it, would say that a key political priority is to ensure that everyone has a decent home. Indeed, so embedded is this idea that we don’t think it even needs to be said. And until quite recently, although there were always some who were not properly housed, we could assert, as a nation, that we had come pretty close to meeting that objective.

The perils of complacency. What Octavia Hill was part of starting is now fraying at the edges and is, for many people, in danger of being a distant dream. Her great vision of noble, happy, family life in safe and decent homes has driven so much of our housing thinking in the past 150 years. It has been at the centre of the values and social mission of the housing associations that now provide homes to more than five million people. It is what drove the post-war governments when building millions of homes for ordinary working people. But that recognition of the primary importance of the home to the success of our lives has been eroded. For far too many people, the prospect of a secure, affordable home is out of reach.

How on earth has it come to this? We have the resources, the land, the knowledge and the expertise to build the new homes we need and regenerate those which need new investment. What we have lacked is both political and public will. We prioritise great views and green belt over building the homes people so desperately need. We deny the facts of the housing crisis. We seem to be prepared to allow housing for future generations to be worse than what we have at present. Do we really want to be the first generation to accept a future for our children that is worse than our own present? Could anything be less noble  than that?

Octavia Hill saw the problems around her and the terrible conditions people lived in, and made a fuss. She did something about it. She galvanised activity and, as a result, created change that has resonated for 150 years. Those of us who follow in her footsteps have an obligation to think afresh about what changes we want to make – to imagine a future that is better than the present and take steps to deliver that future. To do this means that everyone involved in housing provision must accept the obligation to move beyond service delivery, important though that is. We have to be advocates for those who are voiceless, campaigners against present and future injustice and creators of a better future. That is, indeed, a noble ambition. Our nation’s social and economic future depends on us getting this right. Octavia’s clarion call to action rings as clearly now as it did 150 years ago.

Jean Roch, tenant

My dad was born in the East End and my mum was born in Kilburn. They were both moved to the Cuckoo Estate in Hanwell which was on the grounds of the orphanage where Charlie Chaplin went. It was very forward thinking – beautifully built and everybody had a garden. They were both brought up there – moved there from the slums – and they met at the Hammersmith Palais. My grandfather – my dad’s father – was the youngest of eight and he didn’t sleep in a bed until he went into the army in the First World War. Before that, he slept on a chair. That was 100 years ago. No so long ago really is it? In my work as a nurse and health visitor I’ve made many home visits over the years and I’ve seen some pretty horrendous things in terms of housing. I once saw a woman and a baby in a property who were sleeping in a cardboard box.

For me, the opposite of being noble is to be ashamed, and I think that people who are poor or homeless often feel ashamed. If you haven’t got somewhere to live, how can you feel noble? If you’ve got a decent place to live, you don’t need to feel ashamed. That’s what living a noble life is all about – decency.

Conceição Melo, tenant and Octavia Hill care home employee

I worked in care but I was on a zero-hours contract, which was very unpredictable. I never knew what my income would be and, sometimes, the cost of getting to a job made it impossible – I couldn’t afford the bus fares. I ran up huge debts despite working long hours. It was so stressful.

I have four children – three boys aged 22, 24 and 29 and a daughter, Bruna, who passed away at the age of 19 in 2011. She never walked or talked but she was beautiful. We cared for her at home and Octavia helped us to put equipment in the house so I could look after her.

When she died it was very hard. I was depressed and things got on top of me – I had rent arrears and a £2,000 water bill. When I couldn’t pay the rent, Octavia contacted me – it made me realise that I had to speak to someone. I used to be really close to Mr Osei, my neighbourhood officer. I told him everything and he was fantastic but at the time my daughter died I had a different neighbourhood officer and I couldn’t open up to someone new. However, when the arrears letter came, I knew I had to get some help.

I met with Niki, a financial inclusion officer at Octavia. She went through my outgoings and told me that, on my current income, I would never be able to afford my rent. Niki saved my life.

I had no money for food. She offered me some food vouchers but you feel shame. I didn’t want to use vouchers.

First, she put me in touch with the Citizens Advice debt advice service at Octavia’s offices. Then she arranged for a grant for my water bill; now, instead of £2,000, I owe £400 and I am paying it in manageable instalments.

We also talked about my care experience and Niki recommended me to one of her colleagues who helps people to find jobs and training. Shortly after I was contacted about a job opportunity in one of Octavia’s care homes.

I was invited to come in for an interview. But on the day, I got to the office then turned around and left. I was too nervous. I just stood outside and cried. What could I do – go home and tell my kids I had run away?

Thank goodness I went back in for the interview. I didn’t have a lot of confidence and I had to ask the interviewer to repeat things… but I got the job!

Soon, a permanent position came up and my manager suggested I apply. The confidence I had gained in the previous few months was enormous. The second interview was much easier – and, again, I got the job!

So much stress has been lifted from my shoulders and I am so grateful.

When I think back to how scared I was at the first interview, I wanted to turn and run. But I needed my kids to know that life does get better and you have to stick at things. My eldest son is studying to be a nurse – I think that’s because he helped me to care of his sister. For the first time since my daughter passed away I feel a sense of achievement and that things are finally going in the right direction.