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Life with the punks
• I FOUND the article by Roisin Gadelrab, Anarchy in Islington… the 1980s punk family (January 4), and the video on the website very interesting.
The house the squatters were living in is No 4 Mitchison Road. The corrugated iron next to it was there because No 2 had collapsed. I am not sure when the video was filmed, but we moved into No 4 in the summer of 1981 and moved out in October, 1984.
Some of the houses in Mitchison Road had been renovated and converted – two houses made into three flats. No 4 and No 6 were one of these conversions.
We lived in the lower ground and ground floors of No 4. Someone else had the same in No 6 and the top floors of No 4 and No 6 had another family (Mon and Leddy, who had two small children).
Shortly after we moved in, the church behind us burnt down and we had to be evacuated for two to three days until the fire service said we could go back in.
In September, 1981, a tree beside the house fell onto our kitchen conversion. I had just had a new baby and was standing in the kitchen cooking dinner and all of a sudden I heard a bang and had branches around me! None of us was hurt much, to the surprise of the fire brigade and ambulance service.
Just before we moved out in 1984 they knocked down the church spire, which had been rendered unsafe, and because of redevelopment. We captured that on cine film, which we later put on video.
We had to move out because the house was declared unsafe and in danger of collapsing like No 2. There were several stories in the local paper at the time about the houses in the road that had been renovated or converted into flats by the council.
Many of them were unsafe or had major problems. In No 4 the main joists had become detached; my children were running around indoors and the whole house was wobbling.
When we were there Mitchison Road was a lovely community. We had lovely neighbours who looked out for each other.
I am sure some are still there, and will know more of the story around the punks.
It was strange seeing my flat in such a state!
TONI PARKER
Rocliffe Street, N1
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