Summer on the Farm
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Summer on the Farm On Britain’s most notorious estate, children dread having to spend the school holidays shut away inside these blocks of flats.Sharon Hendry meets the families living in poverty and fear in north London’s Broadwater Farm PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREW TESTA hen you ask a classroom Community leaders say Ferdinand was raised on social security full of kids what they’re benefits by her single mother on the Castle doing in the summer families are too poor to Vale estate in Birmingham and quickly saw holidays, you are usually education as a transformative force. It took knocked back by a wave take their children off her from the local comprehensive through Wof excitement and anticipation. But for one night school to a psychology degree at the estate and too terrified group of year 3 primary school children in Nottingham University and on to a series of north London, that is not the case at all. to let them play on it successful headships. “I might be going to the park one day,” “I came here 11 years ago to make a offers an eight-year-old boy flatly. “I would families are being fed on as little as £35 a difference to the lives of this community and love to go swimming,” adds a bright-eyed week. Some of our children will rarely change the outcomes,” she says. “When I girl with cornrow plaits. A few other pupils venture outside this summer.” got the headship, people asked if I was going offer suggestions, all quite muted. As their holiday dreams demonstrate, the to wear a bulletproof vest. But for a girl who “OK, so where would you go if you could aspirations of children living on “the Farm” grew up on a tough estate where ‘Get out make a wish to go anywhere or do anything?” are far removed from those living off it and wogs’ was graffitied on the walls, it felt like asks their head teacher. A boy’s hand shoots fall a long way short of the architects’ coming home. In reality, once you are up first: “I would ride a bike outside.” “I’d original vision for the housing project. known here, you are pretty safe. The most like to try a trampoline,” says another girl, On its completion in 1973, Broadwater important thing is the teaching and learning “or a water park — and meet Beyoncé.” Farm was the jewel in the crown of the — it has to be outstanding all the time.” There is no talk of holidays in France or planning department at the London She takes pride in her record of having Italy, or of heading for the Cornish Riviera, Borough of Haringey. It was a modern-day never permanently excluded any pupils. because these children live on Broadwater utopia cast in reinforced concrete, offering “Children must leave us with the expected Farm, the most notorious estate in Britain. a new way of living. Interconnecting academic levels if they are to have a chance Instead, their summer holidays will be walkways were intended to be “streets in of finding their way out of poverty, but cuts spent in dilapidated flats, with only the sky” and the entire project was built on to school budgets make this even more menacing stairwells for scenery. Families stilts to combat drainage problems caused challenging. Our children start school way here, say community leaders, are too poor by the marshy ground and to provide easy below expected standards, therefore they to take their children off the estate and too parking for residents’ cars. But the 12 tower require interventions and additional terrified to let them play on it. While others blocks, containing more than 1,000 support to make the accelerated progress look forward to the summer holidays, these dwellings, soon began to decay. that is needed. They also need the kids dread them. These days, visiting the Farm is a emotional support of learning mentors, For them, Willow Primary School, rated haunting experience for outsiders. The counsellors and other support staff. outstanding in 2017 by Ofsted, is a safe architecture is no longer new or welcoming; “We strive to keep the children within haven. About 500 kids under 11 attend the instead, its shadowy corners are home to the school gates for as long as possible. So school and the Broadwaters Children’s drug trading and gang activity. “Road” we open at 7.45am, offer free bagels at Centre nursery on the estate, also rated business, as gang dealings are known, is 8.20am for the whole family and run a wide outstanding, in 2016. More than a third of conducted openly along a 50-yard strip on range of after-school activities until 6pm. them qualify for “pupil premium” funding the estate known as the front line. We aim to give children experiences they for disadvantaged children; and 16 have Following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, would have if they were from more affluent high levels of special needs requiring safety tests carried out on some housing backgrounds, like ballet, music lessons, education, health and care plans. blocks at Broadwater showed they would be gymnastics and swimming. The alternative “My team and I are already dreading the vulnerable to collapse if there were a gas is that some of our older children will start moment we have to shut the school gates explosion or if a vehicle struck their base. hanging out on Tottenham High Road, for the six-week summer holiday,” says As a result, the 18-storey Northolt building where there is gang activity.” Dawn Ferdinand, the school’s head teacher. is set to be evacuated and only a handful of Resentments first exploded on the estate “For so many children living in these residents remain in six-storey Tangmere in October 1985, after police raided the conditions, school is their anchor. Alongside House. Both blocks are slated to be home of Cynthia Jarrett, a 49-year-old learning, it is the place where they are fed demolished. Throughout the estate, Tottenham resident, searching for stolen and can play safely while their parents work. poverty is ingrained. goods. She died from a heart attack during “We have tried desperately to find a way “For some of our children, just getting to the raid, and the next day riots broke out as to stay open, but, even with the lowest school and having breakfast is a challenge,” tension on the estate boiled over. About subsidised day rate, it adds up to more than Ferdinand says. “We are dealing with 250 police officers were injured and one, PC many Broadwater Farm parents could families who are living in extreme poverty Keith Blakelock, died from more than 40 dream of affording,” she says. “Many of our in overcrowded homes.” knife wounds during a frenzied mob attack. After the riots, tens of millions of pounds Left: single mum were spent on regeneration and crime rates Damilola Falodi lives on the estate fell dramatically. But in 2011 with her five children riots erupted again in the area after police on Broadwater Farm shot dead Mark Duggan, a suspected gang estate. She says member believed to be in possession of a her two youngest firearm. Duggan, who lived on Broadwater will spend most of Farm, turned out to have been unarmed. the summer indoors A gun was found nearby. How it got there remains disputed. Eight years on, residents fear that the Farm is becoming dangerously restless once again. Some families face severe pressures from poor housing. Chinelo Lemeh, 35, lives on the edge of the estate with her husband, MAGAZINE TIMES THE SUNDAY FOR ANDREW TESTA Chinelo Lemeh with sleep together in this pest-control issues you have raised are the her four sons, from cramped room in responsibility of the leaseholder [the left, Ike, Chibeife, a dilapidated house private landlord] and not Homes for Chima and Kinechi. on the edge of Haringey [a non-profit organisation that The family live and Broadwater Farm runs housing for the borough]. After the council was made aware of these issues, playground and everywhere young people Homes for Haringey has gone the extra are smoking weed. The older kids take over mile to look at these urgently to get them the children’s spaces playing football, so resolved and ensure the safety and what choice do I have but to keep my boys wellbeing of the family.” inside? We are not living — just existing.” Despite the manifest problems, Joseph When The Sunday Times Magazine Ejiofor, the leader of Haringey council, takes informed Willow Primary School of a positive view, saying the local authority Chinelo’s circumstances, the head teacher will invest £16m in the estate over the next referred the matter to the children’s 18 months. “We are committed to providing services department at Haringey council. at least as many council homes at council Arrangements are being made to rehouse rents in the reprovision part of the estate as the family. exists at the moment.” Damilola Falodi and her five children face Still, a feeling of abandonment by outside a similar scenario. They are council tenants agencies abounds at Broadwater Farm, so living in a three-bedroom home owned by residents do their best to look after each a security guard. The couple have four boys: a private landlord in Broadwater Farm’s other. Clasford Stirling watched the estate Kinechi, 9, who has Down’s syndrome, Ike, Rochford block. Damilola, 40, a single mum, being built as a boy and has remained loyal to 7, Chima, 5, and Chibeife, 2.