March 29. About a dozen squad cars, black marias and motor-cycle police surrounded the building just before 9 am, minutes after the invasion squad", otherwise known as the South London Squatters, had got in through a back A detach hment of police headed by an inspector from the nearby Brixton police station and a Pandesand Fence at the clothes man clambered over a 10-foot of the concrete and glas buade and tried to get the squatters to leave quietly. They refused.
A few minutes later large banners appeared over the balconies block.
Brixton Register Office. redding guests watched as police tried to get the squatters out. According to a building -for three years.
expose the housing shortage. A building this One of the most ADVICE TO THE MOB office | size could be converted at only 1,000 a unit to house 80 homeless families. Eight million sq.ft. of office building stands empty in London alone enough to house all the homeless in Britain.
After about half-an-hour the police left, leaving just one PC patrolling outside. In fact, the fuzz was surprisingly tolerant - sympathetic even. Said the inspector in charge: There's nothing can do as no crime has been committed. We're trying to trace the owners, but I should think anyone who owns this block would be playing golf this morning and they're not going to leave the greens for this."
Said another ponceman. This place is an cycsore. It's just a bloody nuisance as far as we are concerned. always smashing the us here today the Owniers are getting better police protection than they would get on a normal day.
The operation, the first carried out by the group, was surprisingly simple. The glass in a door at the back of the building was cut and Hey Presto! The next they heard were the 'sirens.
Said Ray Gibbon, travel agency manager and father of two, of Shakespeare-rd., Herne-hill:
•We intend staying here until 5.30. Then we'll leave quietly after we've made our point.' The squatters, all local people, passed the time listening to the radio, playing football and putting records on a record player they'd brought in with them.
At lunch-time fish and chips and bottles of beer were hoisted up by rope from outside. Rubbish had brought in with them. papers ack teas We want to be as tidy as possible", said Mr. Gibbon.
During the day the squatters gave out over 7,000 leaflets in the Brixton shopping centre One West Indian bus conductor said: "Give me a heap man. I'll give them out to the lads when I get to the garage at Croydon'.
The leaflet stated: 'Some people try to blame immigrants for the housing shortage but we know we had lousy houses in Britain long before we ever saw a black face or heard an Irish accent. The real reason for the housing shortage is that a small group of people make millions of pounds out of our need for a decent home.' Mrs Ann Lindsay, a housewife. of Upper Tulse-hill, Brixton, said: "This was only a token sympathetic than usual (they have been known to totally ignore demonstrations in Edinburgl unless organised by orangemen or tories), and we got 4 minutes on BBC Scottish TV news and a minute's worth of film on ITV. Also all the papers carried fairly undistorted reports. We are hoping that via this publicity we will revive the spirit of squatting in Scotland and that squatters will appear all over the country. Glasgow, for instance has a much worse problem than Edinburgh and we are keen to help a campaign get started there.
The Edinburgh Squatters had hoped to get the physical support of a labour councillor, man people in the labour party said they supported the squat. But he never turned up, and was supplanted by high ranking police officials and lackeys of the corporation official basis. Horace Cutler, chairman of the housing committee, has stuck his bearded neck out and given Mrs Maggie O'Shannon, squatter in an ILEA-owned house in Notting Hill, a rent book.
But just how much of a public relations move this was Cutler, like the rest of the tory administration at County Hall, is very adept in this respect - has been revealed by the way his line has hardened considerably in the past fortnight.
He is now beginning to reveal (as if we didn't already know his true nature. On a TV programme on squatters last week he went so Tar as to say that housing should be taken completely out of the hands of local authorities.
Mr Cutler believes all rent restrictions should be removed and speculators allowed to handle the gone unreported, that the only solution is a return to the free market economy in housing Mr Cutler (this also had gone unreported) owns a property company, in addition to his other finance and investment directorships The other day he wrote a letter to the Mirror in reply to a sympathetic piece on squatters by columnist George Gale. The advice contained therein may be of interest to Dwarf readers. This tory is clearly trying to say something:*George Gale thinks it "right and proper and good" for a man to steal food or steal someone Wrote Cutler. else's satisfy his family needs, If his incitement is followed we may expect to see mobs breaking into th hopping centres to get free food and no on will dare sell his house (or even go away for a in... Squatters are stealing. Please don't chair grabbed...
Squatting is both reformist and revolutionary. it strikes at the very root of private property. Squatting is spreading. Ordinary people said in Brixton other Tm glad to see something has been done. It's about time. Nothing has been done. It remains for the squatters, ordinary people, to do it. Form squatters groups! Take over empty houses! If Y0-6747886 the South London groy, Kremer 01-674 7886.
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Squatters seized an empty five-stoney block in London's Brixton Road on Saturday
leaflet handed out by supporters outside, the - 40,500 sq.ft. of it - has been empty
"Why can't Cathy come home to this?' the leaflet asked. We have occupied this building to
I occupation. We now intend to assist homeless The capitalist-controlled mass media were more | They threatened to arrest us under the terms of
holiday) lest squatters break in during the time when he moves out and the purchaser moves
support Gale's irresponsible line or you may find your car, your house or even the Editor's