Londyn how we doing me alright alright
yeah my name is Ben Bailey Smith I’m an
artist born and bred in West London but
you know before I got into show business
I spent 10 years as a youth worker
working in youth clubs in Edgware Road
in Paddington in Queens Park made a veil
set up my own youth center for the
children of refugees and asylum seekers
in in Queen’s Park so I had quite a
profound shift from working in my
community working with local people and
working with people from overseas living
beneath the poverty line it turn into
show business quite a quite a big shift
to be honest I’ve always kept one eye on
the community that I came from and last
year there was a huge tragedy and I have
to say a travesty that occurred right in
the centre of that my old stomping
grounds essentially in the fire that
engulfed the grenfell tower causing
fascinatingly out of that fire a phoenix
arose in the shape of justice for
Grenfell which is a community layer
non-profit organization fighting for
justice in an area where no one else was
willing to go it’s a tough fight it’s an
incredible fight it’s one I’ve been
privileged enough to see up close and
tonight I want to share with you some of
the stories from white right within that
organization so yeah and what we have
for you is is something unique a real
piece of insight I would say we’re gonna
kick off with the
co-founder of justice for grenfell she’s
somebody who’s lived and worked in the
air fur for over 30 years working on a
community level she’s worked with CPS
fighting a hate crime I mean this is an
incredible woman
she’s an MBE on top of everything else
please make her feel welcome
a cool event ah pleasure
just just kick off by letting us all
know how you got involved in justice for
grenfell I mean it’s my understanding
there wasn’t really a justice for
growing fellow until you became involved
okay so I’m I’m an ordinary woman I’m a
mother I worked for the state for 15
years ago cetera I’m actually called to
the tower that night my friend of mine
who lives in what we call the finger
blocks that one under the town I tested
two more whose faces to me she’s been
evacuated from her flat and if I could
Bob down and pick her up
so I actually awake my 10 year old
daughter who’s in the house with me and
drive down just thinking that I’m just
going to pick her up and bring her back
to our home for a while we’ve had other
fires in the area that had stayed
contained by the time we drove down we
could see the Tama through the trees and
literally we stood there helpless and
watched that building burn until we left
them about 7:30 in the morning so talk
me through those early stages obviously
there’s a lot of panic there’s a lot of
confusion what were your first thoughts
in the immediate aftermath and the
immediate aftermath for me it was
surreal and I felt like that for many
days my coping mechanism was to go and
work in one of the donations stroke
relief centers to try and kind of get my
mind around that once I could kind of
have a feel about the chaos and stuff
that was going on I knew that the issues
leading up to grampa had been huge I’ve
lived in that community for many
so I know a lot of the issues that
happen there and you just come to a
point where my father always used to say
to me stand up for something or you will
fall for anything and I think that’s
where I cross the border because I’ve
worked on community campaigns before but
I was always quite happy to just be a
background person in the scenes and
actually to people said to me this is
your time to step on and it’s that if
not you who yeah right at the start even
within 24 hours you were aware of a
sense of injustice or it reminded you in
some way of those kind of miscarriages
of justice against people who may be
struggling to have a voice within what
we might call the mainstream did you
sense all of that early on or was that
something there we have to answer I’m
the lead up to the fire at Grand Hotel
we had other things happening in our
community that we were complaining about
so a place service was can’t you know
there was a move to close our library
the way that the north of the Burroughs
Street to the south of the borough over
decades was quite clear so it’s brimful
is it’s almost like our community paid
the ultimate price at Grandma’s so there
was already a sense of the residents of
grown film not being heard way before
the tragedy struck yeah and it’s a bit
more than just not being listened to
unequally regardless of whom we were
we’re all ordinary people working-class
community you know doing I think in one
of the richest boroughs in Britain but
there was that it wasn’t only being
heard it was because we lived in a
particular locality in particular types
of house
that we should be treated somehow
differently and that difference was in
an unequal balance right so we talked
off stage a little bit about those very
early stages of justice for Grem fo and
you were telling me about a flat nearby
where operations began just just let
people know a little bit about those
early stages what what you were doing
okay so I talked to another local
community and personally Shmuel a grove
the third I’ve known for many years and
we said okay then that’s kind of get an
engine go in and that wasn’t mean mainly
for kind of people come into the area
and getting information so we worked out
of Ishmael’s basement flats and because
there was so much chaos going on on
those first few weeks when people like
the brief families who came into the
area trying to get information about you
know their relatives that lived in the
town that people would just direct them
to the base they’ll know what so for
actually the first parts of the campaign
we’re actually almost case working
people finding them lawyers telling them
where to go in terms of getting
donations telling them where they can
find out additional information and etc
it’s only kind of later on that the
campaign develops into something that
it’s come to now and one year on now as
you say where are we with justice we’re
going to film I think we’ve kept what
happened at Grand thought in the public
eye and I think that’s been important we
don’t want it to be lost from the public
consciousness
we’re also it’s not just about our
community anymore it’s not just about
North Kensington you know there are
hundreds of buildings up and down the
country as we speak where people are
live in where that same thing could
happen that happens at whim fell it
impacts us all and everybody should be
at range outraged at this there’s kind
of you know looking at the response to
the fire in terms of the fire service
and kind of realized in that we’ve sat
back for many years and there are fire
service because you know we’ve taken
responsibility for you know fire safety
regulations the very things that keep us
safe to be housed somewhere else and I
think if you look at the demographic of
the people that lived in the community
in grateful town of itself you start to
see some other issues around inequality
that come to the fore whether that be
disability whether that they’re you know
issues around gender the amount of
children and women that died in the
building is quite high I think it also
for me one of the positives is it shows
kind of what the great British public
can do because people came from far and
wide to volunteer to send donations
gentlemen the internet the world
internationally has looked at this and
feels some kind of equity with that
definitely that sense of injustice hit
us all and it’s it’s vital that that you
keep that awareness going and I think I
can speak for everybody in here when we
when I say that we we wish you the best
moving forward for what is an incredible
years work ladies and gentlemen Yvette
Williams [Applause]
yeah my name is Ben Bailey Smith I’m an
artist born and bred in West London but
you know before I got into show business
I spent 10 years as a youth worker
working in youth clubs in Edgware Road
in Paddington in Queens Park made a veil
set up my own youth center for the
children of refugees and asylum seekers
in in Queen’s Park so I had quite a
profound shift from working in my
community working with local people and
working with people from overseas living
beneath the poverty line it turn into
show business quite a quite a big shift
to be honest I’ve always kept one eye on
the community that I came from and last
year there was a huge tragedy and I have
to say a travesty that occurred right in
the centre of that my old stomping
grounds essentially in the fire that
engulfed the grenfell tower causing
fascinatingly out of that fire a phoenix
arose in the shape of justice for
Grenfell which is a community layer
non-profit organization fighting for
justice in an area where no one else was
willing to go it’s a tough fight it’s an
incredible fight it’s one I’ve been
privileged enough to see up close and
tonight I want to share with you some of
the stories from white right within that
organization so yeah and what we have
for you is is something unique a real
piece of insight I would say we’re gonna
kick off with the
co-founder of justice for grenfell she’s
somebody who’s lived and worked in the
air fur for over 30 years working on a
community level she’s worked with CPS
fighting a hate crime I mean this is an
incredible woman
she’s an MBE on top of everything else
please make her feel welcome
a cool event ah pleasure
just just kick off by letting us all
know how you got involved in justice for
grenfell I mean it’s my understanding
there wasn’t really a justice for
growing fellow until you became involved
okay so I’m I’m an ordinary woman I’m a
mother I worked for the state for 15
years ago cetera I’m actually called to
the tower that night my friend of mine
who lives in what we call the finger
blocks that one under the town I tested
two more whose faces to me she’s been
evacuated from her flat and if I could
Bob down and pick her up
so I actually awake my 10 year old
daughter who’s in the house with me and
drive down just thinking that I’m just
going to pick her up and bring her back
to our home for a while we’ve had other
fires in the area that had stayed
contained by the time we drove down we
could see the Tama through the trees and
literally we stood there helpless and
watched that building burn until we left
them about 7:30 in the morning so talk
me through those early stages obviously
there’s a lot of panic there’s a lot of
confusion what were your first thoughts
in the immediate aftermath and the
immediate aftermath for me it was
surreal and I felt like that for many
days my coping mechanism was to go and
work in one of the donations stroke
relief centers to try and kind of get my
mind around that once I could kind of
have a feel about the chaos and stuff
that was going on I knew that the issues
leading up to grampa had been huge I’ve
lived in that community for many
so I know a lot of the issues that
happen there and you just come to a
point where my father always used to say
to me stand up for something or you will
fall for anything and I think that’s
where I cross the border because I’ve
worked on community campaigns before but
I was always quite happy to just be a
background person in the scenes and
actually to people said to me this is
your time to step on and it’s that if
not you who yeah right at the start even
within 24 hours you were aware of a
sense of injustice or it reminded you in
some way of those kind of miscarriages
of justice against people who may be
struggling to have a voice within what
we might call the mainstream did you
sense all of that early on or was that
something there we have to answer I’m
the lead up to the fire at Grand Hotel
we had other things happening in our
community that we were complaining about
so a place service was can’t you know
there was a move to close our library
the way that the north of the Burroughs
Street to the south of the borough over
decades was quite clear so it’s brimful
is it’s almost like our community paid
the ultimate price at Grandma’s so there
was already a sense of the residents of
grown film not being heard way before
the tragedy struck yeah and it’s a bit
more than just not being listened to
unequally regardless of whom we were
we’re all ordinary people working-class
community you know doing I think in one
of the richest boroughs in Britain but
there was that it wasn’t only being
heard it was because we lived in a
particular locality in particular types
of house
that we should be treated somehow
differently and that difference was in
an unequal balance right so we talked
off stage a little bit about those very
early stages of justice for Grem fo and
you were telling me about a flat nearby
where operations began just just let
people know a little bit about those
early stages what what you were doing
okay so I talked to another local
community and personally Shmuel a grove
the third I’ve known for many years and
we said okay then that’s kind of get an
engine go in and that wasn’t mean mainly
for kind of people come into the area
and getting information so we worked out
of Ishmael’s basement flats and because
there was so much chaos going on on
those first few weeks when people like
the brief families who came into the
area trying to get information about you
know their relatives that lived in the
town that people would just direct them
to the base they’ll know what so for
actually the first parts of the campaign
we’re actually almost case working
people finding them lawyers telling them
where to go in terms of getting
donations telling them where they can
find out additional information and etc
it’s only kind of later on that the
campaign develops into something that
it’s come to now and one year on now as
you say where are we with justice we’re
going to film I think we’ve kept what
happened at Grand thought in the public
eye and I think that’s been important we
don’t want it to be lost from the public
consciousness
we’re also it’s not just about our
community anymore it’s not just about
North Kensington you know there are
hundreds of buildings up and down the
country as we speak where people are
live in where that same thing could
happen that happens at whim fell it
impacts us all and everybody should be
at range outraged at this there’s kind
of you know looking at the response to
the fire in terms of the fire service
and kind of realized in that we’ve sat
back for many years and there are fire
service because you know we’ve taken
responsibility for you know fire safety
regulations the very things that keep us
safe to be housed somewhere else and I
think if you look at the demographic of
the people that lived in the community
in grateful town of itself you start to
see some other issues around inequality
that come to the fore whether that be
disability whether that they’re you know
issues around gender the amount of
children and women that died in the
building is quite high I think it also
for me one of the positives is it shows
kind of what the great British public
can do because people came from far and
wide to volunteer to send donations
gentlemen the internet the world
internationally has looked at this and
feels some kind of equity with that
definitely that sense of injustice hit
us all and it’s it’s vital that that you
keep that awareness going and I think I
can speak for everybody in here when we
when I say that we we wish you the best
moving forward for what is an incredible
years work ladies and gentlemen Yvette
Williams [Applause]
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