Barnsbury Housing Association celebrates ‘veteran’ tenants

Islington’s tiniest family housing association last week celebrated at the town hall with a group of you, most now in your 80s and 90s, who moved into our first homes over 50 years ago.

We were set up in 1967 by a group of Islington locals whose protest had scuppered a Greater London Council plan to demolish early Victorian homes on Barnsbury Street and four other Barnsbury roads and build in their place a tower block.

‘The original committee opposed the concept of building a tower block, sharing the view that people are much more likely to be happy living in something more like a typical London street in a decent modern home,’ said first board chair David Baker in a message read out by current chair Richard Hill.

‘I take 50 years as a very great compliment, that you have found living in what we built agreeable enough to stay for so long,’ Baker added.

Referencing Barnsbury Mews, our first and only newly built estate, he added: ‘The result was praised at the time and, looking back, it seems we may have pioneered a trend away from high rise housing, not only in Britain but on the continent as well.’

David Baker, now 95, also apologised for failing to turn up in person, having earlier generously offered to fly over from his home in Germany.

The event was attended by Islington mayor Councillor Jason Jackson, who said: ‘Some of your community are now more like extended family. I want everyone to fight for that Islington. There is so much diversity, so many stories and so much history here. That makes me proud to serve as mayor.’

The event rounded off with our guests sharing memories from the early years, including ‘Fred the Bread, whose shop on the corner of Barnsbury Street and Thornhill Road ‘sold everything’.

Fred, some of you recalled, was rehoused by Barnsbury Housing Association after some of his customers found he had to pop into his shop to wash having no bathroom in his tiny basement home at No 30.