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1050425 - Photo shows: Miss Evyline Nichol and her ATS friend Audrey Towend wheeling a pram load of bedding to their new home in Duchess of Bedford Walk, West Kensington.
September 8th 1946.
Story: In heavy rain, 1500 Londoners converged on Kensington High Street in a well-planned operation to take over a block of flats in Duchess of Bedford Walk, West Kensington. The block housed refugees from Gibraltar during the war and was next a hostel for a local building trades school. After being repaired and decorated the building was to be handed back to the owners by the Ministry of Works and luxury flats were to be let at a minimum rent of ten guineas a week. More people arrived seeking homes than could be accommodated. The police arranged for hot drinks to be served and among those present at the invasion were a number of Councillors for Kensington and other boroughs including Stepney, from where a party of squatters had come seeking homes. Mr. Denis Goodwin of the London District of the Communist Party hoped the action taken by 1500 Londoners would call attention to the existence of places such as these.
©TopFoto
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