50 years on, the Grunwick strike is still important

 

Grunwick Factories Strike Mural by Anna Ferrie and the Community, Chapter Road, Willesden*

Pete Firmin explores the ongoing significance of a dispute that began fifty years ago this week. First published by Labour Hub. Reproduced with the permission of the author and publisher.

 

2026 is an important year for the commemoration of significant British class struggles. As well as marking the General Strike of 1926, it is 50 years since the start of the Grunwick strike in NW London.

 

But why did a strike of a few hundred workers at a small firm in Dollis Hill have national importance? Why was it frequently an item on the national television news? Why did it see more arrests in an industrial dispute than at any time since the General Strike of 1926?

 

The Grunwick strike was extraordinary because the strike of mainly women of South Asian heritage received widespread support from the trade union movement. Previous strikes by migrant workers, such as at Imperial Typewriters in Leicester and Mansfield Hosiery in Loughborough got no such support but rather the hostility of other workers and little support from the wider movement.

 

Grunwick was a photographic processing firm in Dollis Hill. In the days before smart phones, cameras contained reels of film which had to be sent away to be turned into photos after taking the pictures, and these were then sent back.

 

Working conditions were dire, overtime was compulsory and often without warning. Pay was lower than the London average.. 

 

There was an attempt in 1973 to unionise Grunwick workers but it failed when they were sacked.

 

On 20th August 1976, Devshi Bhudia was sacked and three other young men walked out in protest. Jayaben Desai and her son Sunil walked out in protest at this unacceptable treatment by management. Within days other workers joined the picket line. The strikers were advised by the TUC to join APEX, the Association of Professional, Executive, Clerical and Computer Staff which declared the strike official.

 

From the start, the strikers had the support of Brent Trades Council, whose headquarters were close to the factory. That building became the strike HQ, and it was there a strike committee was first elected on 24th August.

 

The strikers faced the extreme hostility of Grunwick’s management throughout. They offered to take the strikers back if they dropped the demand for union recognition. When the strikers rejected this, the company sacked them on 1st September. ACAS, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, offered to mediate: management refused.

 

George Ward, the Anglo-Indian owner of Grunwick, got important support from the National Association For Freedom (NAFF, now the Freedom Association),  founded in 1975, and gained public prominence through its anti-trade union campaigns. John Gorst, Tory MP for Hendon North, a pre-Thatcher Thatcherite, also assisted Ward alongside NAFF.

 

The first demonstration in support of the strikers took place on 10th September, and on the same day Jayaben Desai and another woman were injured by a management car.. Arrests of pickets began in the same month.

 

In October 1976, APEX referred the dispute to ACAS; however, Grunwick management refused ACAS access to those still working (many of whom were said to favour unionisation). ACAS recommended union recognition, but Grunwick refused.

 

At the start of November postal workers refused to deliver Grunwick mail, a crucial part of their operation, After court action, the postal workers backed down.

 

From March 1977, picketing was stepped up and got widespread support across the trade union movement. Strikers picketed the TUC General Council for the withdrawal of essential services (gas, electricity, telephone) to Grunwick, but this was refused, other unions arguing they would need to be indemnified against court action. At its conference, APEX, hardly a militant union, called for the cutting of supplies to Grunwick.

 

In mid-June a week of action began with a mass picket and 84 arrests in one day. More Grunwick workers came out on strike and Cricklewood postal workers began an unofficial boycott of Grunwick mail. As mass pickets reached 1,500, printers at the Sunday Telegraph refused to print an article critical of the strike. Labour MP Audrey Wise and Yorkshire miners’ leader Arthur Scargill were arrested on the picket line. Busloads of miners had come to support the picket from around the country.

 

At the end of June, Labour Home Secretary Merlyn Rees praised the police on a visit to the picket line. This was despite widespread support in the Labour Party, both locally and up to the National Executive Committee, for the strike.

 

In July ’77, the postal workers were suspended, which meant no postal deliveries at all in the London NW2 area. The postal workers’ action was called off at the end of the month only after they were instructed to do so by their union leadership and fined by the union for initially disobeying.

 

During the postal blockage, NAFF ran `Operation Pony Express’ to get mail from and to Grunwick out..

 

On 11^th July a mass picket and demonstration were supported by 20,000.

 

Recourse to the law had mixed results for the strikers. A court of enquiry under Lord Scarman was set up at the end of June ‘77, and called in August for union recognition and reinstatement of the strikers. In mid-July the High Court supported the ACAS report calling for recognition, but at the end of July the Appeal Court overturned the High Court decision and declared the ACAS report invalid. In December, the House of Lords, at the time Britain’s highest judicial body, confirmed the decision against ACAS. Throughout, when decisions went against them, Grunwick refused to comply.

 

Mass pickets of up to 3,000 continued, but at the end of September Roy Grantham, APEX General Secretary, attacked the call for a resumption of mass pickets, and the strike committee were threatened with disciplinary action if they supported them.

 

Despite this, further mass pickets took place in October and November. On 7^th November there were 113 arrests and 243 pickets were injured.

 

On 21^st November ’77, strikers held a hunger strike outside the TUC HQ calling for support.

With Grunwick management adamant they would not allow recognition, the law apparently against them, and a lack of official union support, the strike committee announced the end of the strike on 14^th July 1978.

 

The timeline alone does not give the full flavour of the dispute: the resilience of the strikers, the magnificent solidarity shown by the wider movement, up against police brutality and the obstinacy of a company determined to deny its workers their basic rights, backed up by a ruling class determined to beat down the workers’ movement.

 

When Thatcher came to power in 1979, she quickly moved to restrict the rights of unions even further, something our leaders have refused to seriously challenge over the intervening decades.

 

The Grunwick strike showed the immense ability of workers to resist and the power of solidarity across sectoral and, importantly, racial divides. But it also showed how when it comes to the crunch, we can’t rarely rely on our union leaders – or the law – to back us in that fight. We have to be prepared to fight on – and break the law – when they refuse.

 

Learning more:

 

There are a wealth of resources about the Grunwick strike available:

Books: 

Grunwick: The Workers’ Story, by Jack Dromey and Graham Taylor (Lawrence & Wishart).

Films:

The Great Grunwick Strike 1976-78, Brent Trades Union Council

The Year of the Beaver https://youtu.be/RBJZ9hkHmxo

This year, the 50th anniversary of the start of the strike, there are several commemorative exhibitions, including at the Working Class Museum and Library and at London Metropolitan University.

Over the weekend 17/18 October, Brent Trades Council is organising an event commemorating both the General Strike and the Grunwick Strike and discussing issues facing trades unionists today. For more details contact petefirmin@btinternet.com

 

Pete Firmin is Vice Chair of Brent Trades Council.

 

*Image: https://openverse.org/image/e51b2bd3-c06c-4bcd-9e01-1107f9cface3?q=grunwick+strike&p=2 “Grunwick Factories Strike Mural by Anna Ferrie and the Community, Chapter Road, Willesden” by Loz Flowers is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Landlords who rent out properties in Dollis Hill, Harlesden & Kensal Green and Willesden Green, will legally be required to have a licence from 1 August - Cost £540 before August 1st, £640 after

 Press release from Brent Council

Landlords called to get licence to rent A new law requiring landlords in three Brent wards to pay for a selective licence will come into force on 1 August 2023. Landlords who rent out properties in Dollis Hill, Harlesden & Kensal Green and Willesden Green, will legally be required to have a licence from 1 August. A licence will cost £640 for up to five years. Anyone who applied in the next few weeks before 1 August will be able to purchase a licence at the current rate of £540. Dollis Hill, Harlesden & Kensal Green and Willesden Green were selected for licensing following a borough-wide consultation that began in autumn 2022. A report to cabinet members showed that a selective licensing scheme would have a positive impact on poor property conditions and high levels of antisocial behaviour in the three areas. Cllr Promise Knight, Cabinet Member for Housing, Homelessness and Renters’ Security, said:  The landlords who work with us take pride in renting out properties that offer decent facilities and living conditions to tenants. The licensing scheme supports landlords in offering the best they can to tenants, ensuring that tenants’ safety and security are protected. We encourage landlords and agents with properties in Dollis Hill, Harlesden & Kensal Green and Willesden Green to apply for a licence as soon as possible. You can find out whether the property you are renting needs a licence by checking out:https://www.brent.gov.uk/prslicensing

The Welsh Harp Reservoir Story – Part 3

Thank you for joining me again, on this third stage of our journey through the history of “the Welsh Harp” (our local reservoir – not the musical instrument!). In Part 2, we saw how the enterprise of W.P. Warner had made the name of his tavern synonymous with the reservoir beside it. This time we’ll explore changes, on and around the reservoir, into the 20^th century.

1. The Kingsbury dam and its overflow, c.1900. (Brent Archives online image 1341)

At first, not much changed. The area of water was mainly surrounded by the meadows of local farms, and attracted visitors to the countryside just beyond the expanding urban sprawl of London. Water flowing over the dam to feed the River Brent was a popular sight, across the fields of Gravel Pit Farm at Neasden. West Hendon had developed slightly, but there was still lots of open space nearby.

2. Cool Oak Lane, with its causeway and bridge across the reservoir's northern arm, c.1900.
   (Barnet Local Studies Centre image 3284)

The Metropolitan Railway’s Neasden Works expanded, with a new power station to supply its electric trains, which were introduced from 1905. The Canal Company, which still owned the reservoir, refused to let the Metropolitan use water from its Feeder for cooling purposes, so they had to sink two wells for that purpose. It was the First World War that finally brought more industry to the area.

The airfield at Hendon already had a small aircraft factory, run by the Grahame-White company, when the war broke out in 1914. Other companies making planes for the rapidly developing aerial warfare were soon active in the area, such as the Aircraft Manufacturing Company (“Airco”) in Colindale and Kingsbury, Handley Page in Cricklewood and later Hooper & Co in North Wembley. In 1917, Handley Page designed a prototype seaplane, hoping to sell it to the Royal Navy, and their R200 was test-flown from the Welsh Harp. They did not receive an order, so the seaplane never went into production.

3. Scale drawings of the Handley Page R200 seaplane. (Courtesy of the R.A.F. Museum, Hendon)

By 1917, the slopes of Dollis Hill down to the reservoir were also the home of the Mechanical Warfare Department. Its role was to design and test tanks, for use to try and break the trench warfare stalemate on the war’s western front. By 1918, one of the designs it was working on was a modified version of the Mark IX tank, and on a misty morning in November 1918 the world’s first amphibious tank was tested on the Welsh Harp reservoir. 

4. A Mark IX amphibious tank entering the Welsh Harp, November 1918. (Image from the Tank Museum)

Earlier this year, a friend interested in military history sent me a link to a short film that includes (at the end) footage of this test. It had been used as part of a French article on First World War tanks, and was described as a ‘Duck Tank being tested on the pond of Dolly Hill’! This “top secret” Department remained at Dollis Hill until 1921, before being moved to Hampshire. Its main buildings, surrounded by a high wall, were in the Humber Road area. It is remembered in the street name, Tankridge Road, and a section of the wall remains at Walton Close.

5. Remaining section of Mechanical Warfare Department wall, Walton Close,     Dollis Hill, c.2010.

 6. Aerial view of the reservoir in 1919, with West Hendon beneath the plane’s wing, and Dollis Hill beyond.

The local aircraft industry was badly hit when the Government scrapped its contracts for planes once the war had ended. One company at Hendon made use of the unwanted aircraft to offer pleasure flights to paying customers. The photograph above appeared with an article on the subject in “Flight” magazine, in June 1919, and shows a view across the reservoir to Dollis Hill.

 7. The railway viaduct, seen from the Edgware Road bridge, 1921. (Barnet Local Studies Centre image 871)

The 19^th century had seen first canals, then railways, develop as important methods of transport. This scene from 1921, of the Midland Railway viaduct crossing the eastern arm of the reservoir, was soon to change dramatically as the rise of motor vehicles meant a need for better roads. The North Circular Road was constructed during the 1920s to help heavy commercial traffic avoid having to drive through Central London. Its proposed route would take it just south of the Welsh Harp, and by 1926 this section of the reservoir was filled in, and the River Brent put into a culvert, so that the road could pass under the brick arches of the viaduct.

8. New housing at Dollis Hill, and over the reservoir at Kingsbury, late 1920s. (Brent Archives image 570)

The construction of the North Circular Road opened up the northern slopes of Dollis Hill for development, and by the late 1920s new streets were appearing between Brook Road and Links Road. These can be seen in the photograph above, together with what must be the start of the Post Office Research Centre at the top of the hill. Across the reservoir, new suburban homes were also being built in the Church Lane and Wood Lane areas of Kingsbury. In 1928, Willesden Urban District Council bought 40 acres of land on the Kingsbury side of the Welsh Harp, planning to use it as a cemetery, which would lead to disputes that lasted until 1965!

The rapidly growing population at Neasden and Dollis Hill prompted Willesden Council to open a recreation ground on their side of the Welsh Harp. They also built a Neasden branch library, overlooking it, at the corner of Aboyne Road and the North Circular, which opened in 1931. In keeping with a growing fashion for open air activity, this had a reading terrace at first floor level.

 9. The reading terrace at Neasden Library, 1931. (Brent Archives online image 2926)

One of the open air activities which had grown in popularity at the Welsh Harp during the 1920s was “sunbathing”, although it was not popular with everyone. By 1930, there was growing opposition among local residents to the visitors who came to the reservoir’s banks to bathe in the nude. One man complained to the Council that, while walking home to the Edgware Road from Old Kingsbury Church on a Sunday evening, they had come across ‘a bunch of stark naked men…. Hardly a pleasant sight for a man to have to pass with his wife!’

Matters came to a head one weekend in June 1930, when 40 men and women of the Sun-Ray Club (‘some wore no clothes, others wore slips or bathing drawers’) were confronted by a crowd of around 200 local people. Despite the presence of four policemen, who told them that the sunbathers were on private land, with permission from the owner, and that they had no right to interfere, the crowd attacked the bathers and drove them away. Kingsbury Council dealt with the issue in a more dignified way, when they received a deputation (not a new idea) from the National Sun and Air Association in May 1931, although they also decided against sunbathing!

10. Extract from the minutes of a Kingsbury Urban District Council meeting on 6 May 1931. (Brent Archives)

On the reservoir itself, the Brent Sailing Club was formed at the Old Welsh Harp Inn in 1930. A less tranquil use of the water also began the same year, when the London Motor Boat Club held its first speedboat racing event at the Welsh Harp. Larger speedboats were also used to give thrill rides for paying customers, as shown in this newsreel film from 1932.

 11. A motor boat race on the Welsh Harp reservoir in 1937. (From the collection of the late Geoffrey Hewlett)

The 1931 speedboat racing season had celebrity guests at its opening, the aviator Amy Johnson and actress Anna Neagle. Amy had lived at Roe Green for nine months, before the solo flight to Australia that made her famous, and then had a flat at Vernon Court in Hendon Way. By coincidence, it was Anna Neagle who starred as Amy Johnson in a film about her life, after her tragic death in 1941, while flying as a wartime pilot in the Air Transport Auxiliary.

12. Anna Neagle and Amy Johnson at the Welsh Harp, April 1931. (From: ‘Amy Johnson – Queen of the Air’)

The south-east corner of the reservoir saw rapid industrial development along its main roads, and on the reclaimed land, in the late 1920s and through the 1930s. One of the factories by the junction of the North Circular and Edgware Roads made mattresses. The company was Staples, and the busy corner was soon known by that name. The traffic lights here became well-known for the jams that built up, as seen below in 1937.

13. Staples Corner in 1937, with the mattress factory bottom left. (Barnet Local Studies Centre image 4920)

When war came again in 1939, Dollis Hill again had a part to play. Secret underground bunkers were built for the Admiralty at its Citadel office building, on the corner of the Edgware Road and Oxgate Lane, and for the Cabinet at “Paddock”, beneath the Post Office Research Station in Brook Road. It was rumoured that a flying boat was moored on the Welsh Harp, ready to fly Churchill and other key leaders to safety from their reserve War Room if necessary, but I have no proof for that story. It was the research station that developed the first electronic computers, used at Bletchley Park for code-breaking during the war, and Tommy Flowers, who led the team that made them, is remembered by the modern street name, Flowers Close.

14. The aftermath of the West Hendon bombing, February 1941. (Barnet Local Studies Centre image 5105)

It was not those key targets that were hit during the Welsh Harp’s worst bombing raids of the Second World War. Early in 1941, Germany was testing new designs of high-explosive bombs, and dropping a single bomb in a raid, so that its effects could be seen afterwards. One of these exploded above the Ravenstone Road area of West Hendon on the evening of 13 February 1941, flattening 40 homes, killing more than 80 people and making around 1,500 homeless. At the opposite end of the reservoir, a V2 rocket hit one end of Wykeham School in March 1945. Luckily no children were there at the time, but seven people were killed in nearby homes.

Just as it had during the First World War, the reservoir played its part between 1939 and 1945. A Hendon Sea Training Corps was formed in 1941, and its young volunteers learned some boating skills on the Welsh Harp, as well as on land at a school in Algernon Road. Production at many factories was changed, to produce equipment for the war effort. Hickman’s works on the North Circular Road had been shopfitters, but by 1943 their carpenters were building wooden landing craft, which were tested on the reservoir before being handed over to the Royal Navy. LCAs were “Landing Craft, Assault”, which carried a platoon of up to 36 soldiers, from ships around ten miles offshore, onto the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.

15. The Hickman's workers aboard a completed landing craft, 1943/44. (Image shared by the son of a worker)

Next weekend we’ll visit the Welsh Harp in more peaceful times. I hope you will join me then, for the final part of this series.

Philip Grant

Council tenants' fury as water bills soar after Thames Water take over billing from Brent Council

Reports are reaching me of massive increases in water bills as Thames Water takes billing over from Brent Council. Water bills used to be incorporated into rent paid to Brent Council and then passed on to Thames. Now Thames are billing each dwelling for direct payment and some residents are reporting substantial increases.

The information coming is is from is from CAMS, which is Comber Close, Ainsworth Close, Banting Close and Mackenzie House in Dollis Hill.

One tenant said they were now paying £47 a month to Thames having previously paid Brent Council £6 a week as part of their rent. Local activist Alison Hopkins said that a tenant of a 2 bedroomed flat was paying more than she did for her three bedroomed house and garden.

To add insult to injury another tenant hoping to install a water meter to reduce bills was told that one might not be possible to fit as the flats are old:

I’ve just spoken to [Thames Water], they claim it’s worked out on the chargeable value of my property (which I don’t understand what that is) and waste water charge. I asked why has it almost tripled they said if you have a view etc or a big garden then that’s how it’s worked out???They said they don’t know if a meter can be fitted here either so I’m waiting for someone from Thames Water to call me back, Sod’s law being these blocks are old etc I won’t be able to have one fitted! Then the only option is to continue with the large payments per month! I’m still waiting for my new rent charge letter to come out from Brent, I bet it won’t be any different even without the water charge.

It appears that the problem may be to do with a miscalulation of the chargeable value* of the council properties and tenants have been urged to contact Thames Water to complain and seek a review of their bills. LINK

This is what Thames say about chargeable value:

What is chargeable value?

Bills for unmetered properties, built before 1989, are based on the chargeable value of the property (also known as the rateable value).

The chargeable value was set by the Valuation Office at the Inland Revenue and represents the potential annual rent for your property. This is not related to your council tax banding.

Rateable Values were based on the size, location, access to local facilities and desirability of your property. For example, if your property had double glazing and the identical property next door didn’t your home would have been given a higher rateable value. This charge isn’t calculated from your actual water use.

We apply this value to calculate your water charges. There is one rate for water services and another for wastewater services. The rates you pay depend on where you live. You will also pay a fixed yearly charge.

You can find out more about your rateable charge in our charges leaflet.

Please let me know if your water bill has suddenly soared.

Anger as developer lobs in an extra storey on Dollis Hill proposal pleading viability

Less than a month after Alice Lester, Brent Council Head of Planning, sent formal permission for the development at  4-9 Gladstone Parade, the developer has come in with a new application to add an additional storey and an additional 16 units to the proposal. LINK

Their knowledge of the local area is a little suspect when they can't spell the name of the road correctly!:

In comparison with the previous scheme, the proposal introduces an additional storey to the Edgeware Road frontage as well as a partial additional storey at both the Dollis Hill Avenue and Gladstone Park frontages. The raising of the height of the building by 712mm is minimal in the context of the overall development and will barely be perceptible in the wider street scene. The proposal is of a similar, albeit smaller, height to the Fellows Square development on the opposite side of Edgeware Road and therefore the increase in height is considered accepting  (sic) in terms of the emerging local context.

The increase in the number of units is based on a viability assessment:

The Development Appraisal, prepared by James R Brown and Company Ltd, assess the financial viability of the proposed scheme and the residential market in London. 


 Since the viability review of the previous scheme, dated March 2017, the new homes market in London has increasingly and significantly weakened. Residual land values are therefore reducing due to weaker new homes values and increased build costs. Subsequently, the viability of the 38-residential unit scheme is now substantially challenged (due to the weaker market conditions) and therefore in order to improve the viability and efficiency of the site a larger scheme of 54 units its proposed. 


The residential content of the new proposed scheme contains a 34.4% affordable housing provision by habitable room, detail in paragraph 9.2 of the viability report. The appraisal demonstrates that the proposed scheme drives a negative residual deficit and falls marginally short of being viable with 16 affordable housing units in comparison to the consented scheme which is significantly unviable with 10 affordable housing units. 


The revised proposal is already garnering opposition on social media:

Fascist graffiti removed from railway footbridge at Gladstone Park

The fascist graffiti that was painted on the railway footbridge bridge linking Kendall Road and Gladstone Park has been painted out ahead of the community 'paint out' that had been planned for 5pm this evening.  LINK

As I understand it Network Rail had also undertaken to remove it but a local resident beat them to it.

A clear message to  fascist individuals or groups that they are not welcome here.


UPDATE FROM  A READER November 14th:  A resident had done the initial paint-out and then Network Rail followed overpainitng not just the area of fascist graffiti but all the other graffiti too, in regulation green. Yesterday evening  a number of Brent residents and councillors gathered at the bridge in a gesture of solidarity with the people of Dollis Hill.

Fascist graffiti reappears near Gladstone Park - help community paint it out!

Graffiti on the railway bridge linking Kendal Road and Gladstone Park

Ariel view of the bridge

Local residents spotted fascist graffiti today on the Kendal Road railway bridge that crosses over into Gladstone Park.

This follows an earlier episode when racist and fascist graffiti was found near Jewish homes in the area. LINK

That graffiti was removed by loacl people in a clean up and similar action will be taken regarding the swastika above.  On Tuesday evening at 5pm local people and anti-racist actvists will don rubber gloves and bring paint and brushes to get rid of this unwelcome sign of the presence of fascist sympathisers in our midst. Meet at the bridge.

An organiser of the 'paint out' said:

Our community is saddened and angered that fascist graffiti has again appeared in our happy multicultural area. We are going to paint it out in a show of our strength. We won’t be divided by hate!

These stickers have also appeared in the area:

The NSZ (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne - National Armed Forces)  was an anti-Nazi and Anti-Soviet Polish resistance movement often accused of anti-Semitism although that has been challenged as Soviet propaganda. After a split in the organisation in 1944 NSZ-ZJ (the Lizard Union) was formed which appeares to have been a more extremist wing.  LINK

Standing together against racism and Islamophobia in Dollis Hill

The T-shirt says: There are two types: they are either your brothers in faith or your equals in humanity

Standing together in solidarity

Local people, including members of North West London Stand Up To Racism, received a warm welcome tonight at the Al-Majlis and Al- Hussaini Centre in Dollis Hill when they visited to express support and solidarity after the previous night's attack. The Chair and Secretary of Brent Trades Council were amongst the visitors.

The group were invited in to share in the celebrations and the atmosphere was positive with clear determination that such episodes would not be allowed to divide the community.

I was struck particularly by a very articulate lower secondary boy who was keen to explain his faith and at the same time emphasise his respect for all religions by explaining the meaning of the slogan on his T-shirt.

Women visitors were welcomed with  food and sweets and speeches were made thanking them for their support.

There was a low-key police presence at the Centre in Edgware Road as well as effective stewarding by the Centre itself.

Earlier Brent Council had issued this statement from Cllr Muhammed Butt, leader of the council:

Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been injured and all those affected by the serious act of violence which took place outside the Al-majlis Al-Hussaini Center last night.

We are in close contact with the police who are looking into this as a possible hate crime. However, we are reassured that the police do not believe there is an ongoing threat to Brent's Muslim community. There is absolutely no place for hate in our borough. Violence like this will not be tolerated.

We visited representatives at the centre this afternoon and will give them all the help they need.

Brent has one of the most diverse communities in the UK and we are extremely proud of this. We will not allow cowardly acts like this to spread fear and hate amongst our residents.

We Are Dollis Hill; No Nazis Here Vigil Against Racism and Anti-semitism

There was a good turn-out at tonight's vigil in Hamilton Road, Dollis Hill, after the discovery of Nazi graffiti at the weekend.

The vigil was addressed by Rabbi Baruch Levin and Muahmmed Butt, leader of Brent Council as well as members of the local community.

The message was clear that we were united against such attempts to divide the community and had learnt from history what happened if such ideas and movements were not opposed.

The hearts on the bus stop and messages on the pavement were reclaiming our streets.

Rabbi Baruch Levin and Muhammed Butt