This video is a half-hour film I was commissioned to make in 2011 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the New Cross Fire. It centres around the unveiling of the plaque that was erected by the Nubian Jak Community Trust in January 2011, which was to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the tragedy. The day itself was tense and emotional, as you can see from the film. People who survived the fire and those who lost loved ones in it spoke passionately. I tried to interview those I met sensitively, while still aiming to get a good sense of what the story was. What I didn’t realise is that I would witness the grief of so many scarred human beings who are testament to way that societal change actually happens, very real protagonists in the story of Great Britain post 1980 who lost so much to give us all something.
Of course, since 2020 and the events that followed the death of George Floyd, Britain has reckoned with its actual black history more. Great programmes such as Steve Macqueen’s Small Axe and others have dealt with these topics and brought them to a wider audience. Organisations like Black History Walks, The Black Curriculum and more are having an effect. In fact, someone from a major TV network contacted me in 2020, asking to meet about entering into a remake of this documentary. At the time, still ankle deep in nappies and trying to get through the lock downs, I did not have the capacity or desire to engage with the culture industry. I didn’t have personal contacts with the survivors and their families, so I passed the contact on to someone who might be able to help. These stories have had a moment in the sun but it is important that we don’t let them die.
My personal connection is a little bit abstract and somewhat distant since I was a baby when this fire occurred. In 1981, I was still being breast-fed many miles outside of London in the town of Reading. Growing up over the coming few years, I became precocious and obsessed over non-fiction books, to such an extent that when my cousins from east London hired a nightclub for a birthday party and invited me, I read a list of the worlds capital cities, oblivious as the DJ played dancehall. By the time I was seven, one of my prized possessions was a huge volume called “The History of the Twentieth Century”. The title of that book was a piece of cheek really since the twentieth century still had fifteen years to run when it was published but, nevertheless, I loved the book, reading it daily. One event that struck me, which barely had a few lines written about it in the book, was The New Cross Fire. The fire in January 1981 in which thirteen young people died. An event which was attributed to the open and hostile racism of far-right groups that were then active in South London and beyond. Racism was something which a child was viscerally aware of at those times, at least where I grew up, because my father, my big brother, my uncles, had all had to do battle to protect themselves, their friends and their family against racist violence. This was the black experience for many people in the 1970s and 80s. At that time, South London, which was a site of fierce contestation between marchers touting white supremacy and the local black community, seemed like a far off dream except for the times when I would visit my aunt who lived in Catford then. Now, there are generations who grew up without so much overt hostility, aware of the generational memory of racism but not necessarily affected as deeply in a personal sense. Wherever you were from, being anti-racist was once a clear and obvious call to people of colour and allies to resist oppression,
But times change. When I moved to London in the two thousands as a student and aspiring musician, living with my aunt now between New Cross and Lewisham, I remembered this tragedy and, when I was asked to help put this film together, I jumped at the chance. I was ignorant about the significance it held in a story I barely knew from a history book I only subconsciously remembered but, most importantly, I was ignorant about the pain, struggles and heartbreak people that were affected. When the fire happened, they wanted acknowledgement. They did not get it.
Mrs. Thatcher chose not to pay tribute to those who died. This hurts me much more than her comments about people feeling ‘swamped’. As the years went by, the survivors and their loved ones wanted answers, calling for an inquiry which never came regardless of the colour of the government. Looking back at this film, I’m glad I had the sense to keep my mouth shut and listen to these people who were still then caught up in a tragedy that took everything from them but gave the country so much. If history shifts seismically, with events rippling like earthquake’s waves, then the New Cross Fire was the centre of an 1980s rebellion that shaped much of the experience of life in this country for people of colour. Many of the gains our society made in understanding each other, cooperating and developing race relations happened as a result of a chain which started with this tragedy.
I chose this to be premiered after all these years at the Cinema in Loughborough Junction because I see parallels between the worst divisive activity and sentiment attacking people of colour today and the rhetoric and terrorism that existed at the time of the New Cross Fire. I wanted to communicate some of this in my choice of film. I hope it shines through my most recent album: “Knowledge Keeps You Blessed” and the follow up “Post-colonial and Brutish”. The issues that preoccupied the country at that period seem to resonate today.
This was filmed by my esteemed colleague Joe Grahame and edited by me, Jonny Virgo. It was my first foray into editing really and I am still proud of how it stands up despite the poor grading and inconsistent audio. The story itself and the importance I believed it merited even at that stage, made me complete this project event when many others fell by the wayside. I have become a rapper and historian, a rapper and social commentator. You can find more of what I do on a podcast called Black in The City of London, an examination of the contributions of black people in the Square Mile (under my government name – I got a grant) and on my YouTube channel.