Putting the front door back after a police raid based on mistaken identity.
Frestonia struggled on throughout the early 80's. The Bramley's Housing Co-Op, formed in the aftermath of the showdown with the GLC, engaged in negotiations with the Notting Hill Housing Trust to secure acceptable redevelopment without evictions. It was a double-edged process : Frestonia had to trade its independence of spirit for security. Some Frestonians, unenamoured of the prospect, drifted away and were often replaced by people with too much affinity for hard drugs. Yuppie values were on the ascendant, and "me first" predation dissipated much of the "we are one family" Frestonian ideal.
By 1982 I had had enough. I had a small son, and was doing well enough to have other options. I had had my cameras stolen twice - not by Frestonians, but by outsiders who treated the place as a law-free opportunity. And there had been an attempted murder outside my front door, a dispute over a £10 drug deal - outsiders again. It had become a nasty place to be.
From time to time I went back. Quite a few Frestonians persevered and became tenants as the planned staged redevelopment slowly cleared away the filthy slums and created new, dry houses, a process that took nearly a decade. The druggies obligingly died or left for pastures worse. Now you wouldn't know it from any other tidy London street, except there is still a communal garden and a small place in history. Something of the spirit of Frestonia still endures.
