Moving day. Hundreds make the mournful procession out of the tower block onto the street below. Blankets and piles of clothes, boxes of toiletries and food, and any valuable electrics they can carry, are bundled into their arms. The children sag under the weight of their family’s possessions. All that they can carry from their lives. They’re escorted by Adamant, the security firm hired by the block’s owners. Armoured in riot gear and armed with everything from tasers and pepper spray to ballistic pistols and auto rifles, they watch over the evicted with a twitchy authority that begs to be challenged. The people of the block line up to be counted, checked, and moved along.
They can’t say they didn’t know this was happening. The block’s owners have sold it to a retail firm that is going to turn the whole building into a space for hospitality chains and start-ups. The residents were given six months notice. And despite the expected flurry of complaints, threats, and pleads, the days ticked by, deaf to the anguish in the block, and the owner’s would not budge. They own the plot. They can sell it. That’s how it goes. What are the residents going to do? Call the cops? They're right there with Adamant, making sure the whole thing goes smoothly. Which it doesn’t.
The muffled screams inside the block turn some heads, but outside that, the street at the foot of the block is unperturbed. Resistance and violence is both expected and normal. They’re too busy looking at their own families and thinking, where now? What do we do? Can’t raise kids on the street. The old folks won’t last long in the cold. Everyone’s got their own shit to deal with. Bad luck for them, and God knows it’s hard to find accommodation that doesn’t take up your whole damn budget, but they should’ve planned for this. These things happen.
I watch all this from the block next door. Couldn’t be me.
Paddy Dobson
19th June 2021