If anything can be perfect on a day like today, the conditions are right to remember and grieve for all those affected by the Grenfell fire just one year ago. Overnight, then, an ordinary night in a rich city became one of horror and incredulity as people struggled to survive and help. Inadequacy and irresponsibility became tangled with heroism and fear: it was too soon for the blame that was to follow. However far away from the fire we were, all of us in these islands and around the world were affected as we saw the images, smelled the acridity, heard the tears and spoke our prayers. It was a vivid, sensory event as we witnessed and imagined what had happened, and how it must have been.
In the year that has passed since that night, attitudes to the poor and the often forgotten have changed. The Grenfell occupants have been proven to be or to have been people of talent and intelligence, people with humour and personality, hard-workers and good neighbours, individuals who did their best in a hard, judgmental world where colour, religion and residence could have an impact for some people even then, even now. The fire revealed much about attitudes and social responsibility, and now, at last, the voices of the forgotten or ignored are being heard, with respect. The Grenfell inhabitants pleaded and warned of the potential dangers, but they were disregarded by the arrogant and the complacent: it will not happen again.
Today, nature mourns too that our uncaring came to this. Behind the dark clouds, though, I see a shaft of sunlight, a reminder that the Grenfell residents, all of them, have given a great gift through their suffering, and that it will never be forgotten.
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G'day, Claire!
As *The Independent* has reported upon extensively this week, not only are the majority of the affected Grenfell former residents still not in new digs but most of the accommodations are what the residents, themselves, consider to be substandard. Some are even still living in hotel rooms, being forced to move when the hotel they're staying in needs additional guest occupancy space. Moreover, children and adults alike are still having to deal with considerable post-traumatic stress.
It is good to know, however, that the children affected are getting help in the schools they attend from both teachers and school administrators. Given how HMG under PM Theresa May have dealt with funding public schools in particular (read: poorly at best), it is encouraging to see how courageous improvisation has occurred to help badly traumatised children in this instance. Where bugger all, it seems, in reality HMG have really done to help the former tenants of Grenfell Tower in terms of such a basic physiological need as decent and permanent housing, it is quite encouraging indeed that at least the children attending their local public schools are getting a leg up instead of a kick in the teeth.
Best,
William
Thank you for your comments once again, William. I am working with people directly involved with helping the residents of Grenfell, and while there is some truth in what you have read in the press, there is another side to what is being done to help them which goes largely unreported. A lot of people are doing their best in an unprecedented situation.