Grenfell stories: living in the shadow of the tower
As the first anniversary of the fire at London's Grenfell Tower approaches, local people talk to the FT about that night and what it has been like to live in the tower's shadow since.
Produced by Daniel Garrahan, Joshua Chaffin and Charlie Bibby. Filmed by Charlie Bibby
Transcript
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Look at that. Look at that. Poof. That has been going in since 1.15.
I took the phone and I tried to alleviate his pain. But how can you do that? How can you do that? You know what's going to happen, and it takes you apart knowing that you stood there and there's nothing you could really do now. For me it was numbing. He just told me that he couldn't get out of his bathroom. The door handle was too hot through the flames rising through the building.
The ground he was standing on was burning under his feet. And you know that you can't get there, the firemen can't get in. No one can get there. So the only outcome for Tony was for him to have lost his life, or his life being taken away from him. After speaking to him, the phone just went dead. And that was it. You know? That was his life. Yeah.
I just jumped out of my bed. Because I can see the tower if I just sit up on my bed, from the window. I got onto the balcony and I started shouting. How could this happen? How could this happen? This is not real. It was like a war zone. I never thought I could be looking at something like that from my window. It reminded me of "Dystopia". And then, I wasn't just looking at it. I could see it. I could hear it-- all these little explosions every now and again. I could smell it.
As I sat up in my room and I saw an orange reflection on that window there, I knew before I arrived at the window to look, that I was seeing a reflection of flames on the window that was tilted towards the tower-- the east side. And I knew that it was Grenfell that I was going to see when I arrived that window. I was going to see that tower. And then when I got there I just couldn't believe it.
For a long time I've not wanted to look at it, because it is so hard. I definitely can't look at it easily when I'm out. Because, you know it's even that difficult that sometimes I can't look safely to cross the road if it's in my eye line. I find it safer to look at the tower when I'm at home-- usually from the window there. I've been looking at it more recently and it's being covered. As the covering inches and inches up, I feel like I want to remember it.
For me, actually covering it up makes it even worse. To me it is like, they are covering it up. Yeah. Cover everything up. But you can't cover something like that and expect people to forget about it. I'm only about 100 metres or so away from the tower. And I can see it from every room. And it's just there-- right in the middle of the window. You can't avoid it. I've been looking at it ever since, every day.
There will have to be massive changes in legislation for the future of housing. And that tower and the people-- the people that are gone will never know that.
Me, myself, I try to stay away. Because reflections-- every time I look at it before it was covered up, I'd look and I'd see-- I knew exactly where I saw those people, and it would come back to me. And I've got a chance to live, where they never, you know, they never had a chance. Yeah.
