Welcome to our first Britain’s Got Tenants podcast! This is where we’re documenting our research for Britain’s Got Tenants, our new show about the housing crisis and the history of social housing, which will tour in May and June 2016.
Playwright Che Walker, who will be writing the show with us next year, joins us, in this first episode to discuss “What is a housing crisis?”We talk about
Che’s family history, and his ties to council housing //// Popular theatre and the influence of playwright and director John McGrath //// The Old Nichol Slum and the Boundary Estate //// The industrial revolution and rural exodus //// How homeless families turned to squatting post-WW2 //// Cathy Come Home (we find out that Che’s Mum had a part in it!) //// The failure of the private market to produce adequate amounts of housing //// Differences in housing philosophy between Aneurin Bevan and Harold MacMillan //// How it’s not just about supply and demand //// Right to buy //// Right to buy for housing association tenants //// Political will and the man of the moment, Jeremy Corbyn //// A spoken word piece, written by Che over the course of recording the podcast
Guest artist: Che Walker
Sound technician and editor: Jon McLeod
Presented and produced by Sophie Winter and Ben Hadley
A massive thank you to everyone we interviewed during our research: Glyn Robbins, Paul Watt, Geraldine Dening, John Allan, Olly Wainwright, Beattie Orwell, Gerlinde Gniewosz, Doreen Massey, Mary van der Water, Aruna Ganesan, Harold Greatwood, Frank Foster, Jonathan Rosenberg, Diana Belshaw, Sally Taylor, Paul Burnham, Ayesha Taylor, Robin Grey, Kristian Scrace, Marc Francis, Katharine Sacks-Jones, Esmaa and Kawther Gvernaoui, Jennifer, Zlatka Doynova, Rejane Barbosa, Anna Kasperek, Liam, Cat Denby, Tom Cordell
We would also like to thank: Jen Kavanagh and Bill Lowry at the Museum of London, Pilgrim Tucker at Unite the Union, and all the campaigns and groups who shared their experience with us: Architects for Social Housing, Focus E15 Mums, Save Cressingham Gardens, Sweets Way Resists, Hands Off Knights Walk, West Ken and Gibbs Green, Westway23, the Radical Housing Network and Different Skies
Other sources used during our research:
Books
Cotters and Squatters, by Colin Ward
Estates, by Lynsey Hanley
Family and Kinship in East London, by Michael Young and Peter Wilmott
Ground Control, by Anna Minton
Private Island, by James Meek
The Blackest Streets by Sarah Wise
Websites
History of tenants rights
Tenants histories and struggles
The Radical Housing Network
Municipal Dreams
Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth report on social cleansing
Online Documentary Films
Behind the 1970s Rent Strike
Highbury Quadrant
I wouldn’t need a mansion (Islington and Shoreditch Housing Association film, made by Digital Works)
Market to Parkside
Not a Penny on the Rent
Rowley Way (made by Digital Works)
Squatters town – a short film about people squatting an army barracks after the war
St Hilda’s East (Digital Works)
The Great Estate
The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces
Their world, this time
Radio / podcasts
Cry Freehold: how land values / ownership are connected to the housing crisis
Archives
The Museum of London