S8Ep6| GENTRIFICATION IN HACKNEY: a historical exploration with author Richard Yeboah

Hany was the poorest place in the country throughout the 1990s, even in early 2000s. I recall that, I recall that. You mean we'll call that. At the poorest educational standards, it had poor health outcomes, it had higher unemployment. The problem is that there was a very specific policy in the 1980s to effectively remove the state from developing or regenerating places to strip the public centre of its powers, and its ability to provide even very basic functions like housing for communities, because there was a perception that the private sector could do it better. Hackney Walk is probably the biggest example where after the riots happened, we're going to put a fashion hub in the home of all places. But who is to buy a walk? Jay Z was performing and Jay Z and Hackney, we would have been, it was crazy to think, but they really tried to promote Hackney to the wider world. And I remember thinking, oh well, they're going to really clamp down on that slide. They put a lot of people in prison, puff sentences, felt like, you know, you young people that live here now, were warning you now that this place is Hackney that you once loved, you once enjoyed, it's not going to be yours for long. So what effectively happened is that when I was young, like when that incident happened, I was kind of getting up to the usual delinquency that you do get up to, and Hackney, like, knocking on people's doors running away, throwing eggs and throwing fireworks on one finite night. So when it approached me, but not, when I was about 14, 15, I think in this day and age, I feel like it's a little bit easier to get away from crime, because the schools are so good now. Living in Hackney, and I talk about these stories like people like Idris Elba, Alan Sugar, Trevor Nelson, Julie Love, Barbara Windsor, all these different people. You can tell in their demeanor that growing up in Hackney just gives them that edge. But I really valued like hearing my mum and dad talk about Ghana, coming from a Ghanaian household, hearing Daddy Lumber every day. We always had a trade-off between being from Africa, which was only like kind of distant, versus the British life that you was facing and experiencing. Hello and welcome to Hackney Magazine's Conor Tink communities podcast, where we explore stories through a Ghanaian lens and dive into conversations with Ghanaians. On topics including culture, the arts and history. My name is Kamal, editor of a Kalimagaze, and you have just been listening to excerpts from a conversation with Richard Yeboire, a lifelong Hackney resident in history. Richard is also the author of From Hackney with Love, an intimate history of gentrification, published in May 2025. In our conversation in September 2020, from life, Richard reflects on his experience of living in growing up in Hackney and explores the social, political and economic policies that have shaped the barra into what it is today. Richard also offers insight into his upbringing in the Ghanaian household and how he navigated life's challenges as a young boy growing up in Hackney in the early 2000s. Introduce yourself, please. I'm a writer/historian/pubic servant. Very much interested in the history of Hackney, specifically around gentrification. And I've recently written a book called From Hackney with Love, an intimate history of gentrification. It covers the, I guess, Hackney's journey of gentrification over the last 20, 30, 40 years, but also touches upon very resident issues like race, class, housing, education, crime, the kind of really dig deep into the issues of gentrification. Excellent. Well, I've actually read the book and not been a long-standing Hackney resident. It was quite interesting. And also, as I think I mentioned, you have worked in the Hackney Planning Department for some time as well. So, I was really interested to see what you had. And yeah, it's very good. I like the book. Because those called gentrification from Hackney with Love, about gentrification, it's not just that. You've included things, so all sorts of issues around Hackney, that race and class, economics, housing, regeneration, the industrialisation, employment, education, health, crime, policy, police and gender identity, and so on culture, you've got everything there. So, I thought it was really well researched, at least for my point of view anyway. And also, that way, you included the stories of others. There are lots of personal stories and people who have actually experienced these stories as well. So, I thought I was quite useful and gave it a good perspective. But tell me, I read somewhere recently, you said 10 years of thinking, five years of research, when you're writing, and then you came up with a manuscript. What was the motivation and the drive? And why did you do this? So, I think there's a couple of things. So, my background is in history. In university, I studied the history degree, and then I went back and done a degree in public policy. So, my academic background was around that. So, I've always been interested in the history of places, the history of people, the history of communities. But a lot of my academic work was more around kind of nation-states and international changes and kind of trying to go into the community from a distant perspective. Obviously, Hackney, Born and Bread, I always wanted to kind of go into the very personal stories of our history, of our experience in Hackney. And 10 years ago, when gentrification was really starting to ramp up in Hackney, we just had the Olympics. The Yacht Perfects of the Olympics were quite evident. Dorsden had been transformed. Stafford had been transformed. Hackney Wick had been transformed. And I was just finished in uni, but at the same time, I had the birth of my first son. I was really thinking about, well, we need to capture this experience. We need to capture where. What has happened to Hackney? How has it gone from what it was back in the 90s and 2000s when I was growing up? And what is it going to be in the future? And obviously, since that plan 10 years later, it was actually transformed way more than I would have expected. So, to document that history has really been the motivation to understand what is gentrification, why has that happened, and how is it impacting communities, and what's going to happen next for the birth? Okay. Thank you, Vanessa. Also, tell me, what was the right in process like? I mean, did you have a publisher in mind before you started? Did you just think, let me just do this and I'm going to put it on the shelf or what are you thinking before? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, because I've been writing for like 10 to 12 years. So, I've got a blog where I was writing pieces around economics and social policy and sometimes domestic policy around Brexit and stuff like that. And I actually done a piece on Hackney in 2014, 10 years ago where I was talking about gentrification and the redeveloped Hackney. And so, the writing process was very difficult. So, my initial idea was just to write kind of, well, my initial idea was just to do some blogs, some articles around gentrification. And then I've done a picture of, you know, there's a picture of me way back in 2003 with two of my friends. You have two mates? Yeah. Who you know as well, I put a coffee at all lived in in in the round Wall Street when I was younger, and I took a picture of that same spot 20 years later, and I put some pictures on Twitter and it just blew up. And I've got a contact from a publisher who will like think about writing a book. They knew I was writing before. So, then I started writing the book, and it was difficult because the first year of writing, I was getting, there was like 10 different drops that was like coming from like a different perspective, coming from a very social economic perspective, coming from a region perspective. So, trying to connect that was very difficult. And my background had been from an academic perspective. The writing process was very difficult, and I suffered a lot of rejections from a number of publishers. And they felt the book was in some ways quite niche. No one had really done a book on gentrification from a very social perspective, from a personal perspective. What I found typically, you know, with black people at that right books, I mean, first and foremost there's very few black writers in this country, and the person's white writers. And there's very few black writers I actually talking about, the experience of communities in the city, but not from that atypical lens of, oh yeah, I got shot when I was 15 or went to prison or whatever it is. So I think publishers are kind of, they don't really know what to do with the book. And I just continue writing out a great agent and own it, Crystal and Jason. And they really believed in the book. And eventually I got a great publisher and a backpack who believed in the book, they sort of visioned the book. And then yeah, I got to work and complete the book, which was, again, another arduous process, interviews, research, surveys, my own personal stories, all of that kind of insight into finding that was, was difficult, but got there and the, yes, and I can tell I've been read a little receipts of there at the research, you know, and the evidence is actually all in the book. That's what made me really appreciate it. But let me just change the topic for a moment. What is gentrification? The gentrification in the nutshell is the, well, first of all, it's the regeneration of spaces. So land, housing, that is typically deprived, or typically in a city deprived areas that are subsequently redeveloped and regenerated. And then, There's a shift in the price of the value of the properties in those areas. So those existing communities that once lived there, when it once was deprived, can no longer afford to live there. As a consequence, richer people with significantly more wealth are attracted to those areas and grownly transform those areas. So it's kind of like a physical process, but also a cultural process where land values change, property values change, and then people change. And that's what I've tried to kind of examine in the book. OK. OK. But I mean, wouldn't someone say that this is something that happens everywhere? And it is part of progress. You know, we can't have areas that fall apart. And therefore in the regeneration is something that happens. And of course, with regeneration often comes gentrification. Yeah. So I mean, there's a lot of people that spoke about this, but there's a very specific thing that I kind of talk about a lot in one of the chapters, generation gentrification. Yeah. And what I talk about is gentrification is a very specific policy choice, or at least it was underpinned by very specific policy choice in neoliberalism. And the policies of good and conservative government under fact are the major and subsequently on the new label where there was an incentive to deprive working class areas like hackney, like tower hamlets, like in pottenham, to then in my opinion, redevelop those areas or wealthier people in the future. So you can have examples of regeneration, which we did in hackney in the early 2000s, where you had the redevelopment of ocean, you had new libraries, you had newer states through the comprehensive estate initiative, where regeneration is done for local people, where you build homes for local people. I think gentrification is an off-shoot of that where you're specifically trying to transform an area with a specific intent to get those existing communities out. So there are many instances across England where you can regenerate spaces, you can regenerate areas for local people that doesn't mean that, you know, there's an incentive to attract wealthier people. You're trying to specifically enable those existing communities to have better facilities, better homes and better outcomes. And I think that's a really good point made by all what in his book. I can't remember the title of the book is, but a really important book that he wrote, probably years ago. He referred to it in the book actually. Yeah. And Paul, what's the big influence on the book as well, where he talks about some of the early regeneration programs, where the early regeneration programs in hackney were very much about local communities. The comprehensive estate initiative was about replacing some of those really terrible homes in Holly Street, Captain Parker State, Night and Gold State, etc. The regeneration programs now feel very much like we're taking parcels of land or dilapidated homes that have been, I think, purposely dilapidated because of national policy and then replacing them with homes that can't be afforded by local communities. That is a very, very different kind of regeneration. I mean, that's what the book tries to tackle that. The regeneration doesn't mean identification. Regeneration can mean identification, but they are two separate processes. Absolutely. Absolutely. But I mean, obviously, one would say that is, we're living a capitalistic world. And many governments will claim that they don't have the resources. And therefore, there's that public private partnership, which drives these regenerations. And of course, you do talk about it in the book. Then there's that imbalance of how much of it is for the local people. Now, much of it is to drawing capital from outside. And it isn't, isn't that, but this is something that happens. I mean, I look at New York, are you here about, oh, in the U.S. they talk about the projects and that kind of people always want to get out from where they are. And, you know, and so I recall also around the 80s, I noticed that a lot of people were leaving Hackney to go to Laiton and then still is sort of moving further out. And that also creates that decline. And what are governments to do if they don't have the resources? So I think, so the one thing I'll say is, you know, people are open to live in any area they so wish to. But one of the specific things I want to really emphasize in Hackney is, Hackney was a place for all kinds of communities. And that's what made it so special. Which in large education is so important in Hackney because Hackney was that working class multicultural area. Typically for people who were facing racism when they came from other parts of the world or who were refugees or being persecuted like the Jews in the 19th century, Hackney was that place of solace. So then to be pushed out by gentrification is why it's such a difficult issue. But going back to your point, that you mentioned around the public sector and the the Neve private investment, I'm not necessarily against the private sector. And I tried to express that in the book. There are instances where private wealth is important and the role of the private sector is important. And in developments now, the private sector very much the driving force of developments because they often have the capital to invest. The problem is is that there was a very specific policy in the 1980s to effectively remove the public or the state from developing or regenerating places. And the mention is in the context of rate caps, the removal of the GRC, the Great London Council in the 1980s, right to buy and then subsequently austerity in 2010s where there's a specific attempt by governments, in my opinion, to strip the public sector of its powers and its ability to provide even very basic functions like housing for communities because there was a there was a perception that the private sector could do it better. Now the two points I will end this point on is of course you can say as evidence that the private sector had provided a huge investment in housing because in the comprehensive estate initiative in Hackney, they did. The private sector did provide a lot of wealth or capital in those developments. But if you look now, there's a huge shortage of housing and there was an expectation that the private sector would be able to fill that gap and they haven't been and one of the reasons why is because the private sector is driven by profit and where there's a situation where house prices or prices are not meeting supply, there's going to be a fluctuation in demand. So what we need is the public sector to get huge investment to provide housing or communities because they did it in the 1950s and the 1960s without private sector involvement. Yes, of course, of course. I agree with you. And I actually believe, I mean, I'll take it purely from the perspective of such a time and the right to buy initiative. And even when you've alluded to this in your book, when players party came into government, I mean, there was never an intention of providing for the local poor people. It was a focus as always on bringing in private money and private money definitely is going to result in, as you say, in properties which local people can never afford. So I do agree with you now. And I also find it interesting when you talk about the second website, I recall, I kind of observed some of this in the 80s that there was some kind of gentrification going on. And that was by a certain left wing maybe, let me say middle class people who were moving into the area where there was activists and doing up little properties that were falling apart and they'll do them up and so on. And then of course, there's a distinction of now to 20,000s, which is the history group, which because of, I don't know whether they're going for the sort of properties that would be down the state. I was shocked when I saw that. That kind of development and even around our local area, well street, you see little, you know, what used to be a pub and that becomes a housing project, which no one can afford. I also recall opposite little, I don't know if you know that little, it used to be. Yeah, yeah, used to be. I recall standing outside on across the road and looking at the advert and it said, I can't remember how long ago this is. It started from 499,000. That was a one bedroom flat in well street. I can't go, as you said, my camera, my year. And I thought, who the hell is going to afford this? Bats. And so yeah, I agree. And it's kind of, I've observed it, but not kind of saw in the same context. Also, when we're reading your book, I was saying, I realized that though we lived in the same place, I saw things, let me say I was blind to a lot of things that was going on in the area and not seeing it because you're, I was driving. I was driving. And therefore when you're driving, is it, you have a completely different perspective to someone on, you know, young people on a bike or on a bus and you know, walking around the area and so on. So it's quite interesting. The condition of that stay again, what's the call? New things all the stay. The condition of new things all the stay. I think that as our bad, it was, I watched a documentary that all, I think, six of them, the one you mentioned. Yeah, I was in shock, you know, that it was that bad. And I was around the corner. Yes. And literally just behind me. I kind of think, I've heard of, I think I kind of vaguely remember hearing these things. But when you don't live within it, you don't appreciate, you know, yeah. And of course, then they, what literally do that they knock it down, they can't summon any of them and a few of people are able to get into it. You know, and what happens, well, I don't know if you would know, but what would happen to the others who have got the content. Yeah, let me see. It's an important point, but you know, New Kings are a good example where the story that I'll talk about, you know, when going through the tunnel, the New Kings are all the stays. That's a really-- Absolutely. That's a really-- But you know, that was with Jamani. That experience was with Jamani when I was younger, right? So going to school-- Did you say Jamani? Yeah. Yes, different. For listeners, just to say, "Jamani is my son," and Richard and Jamani were friends and went to school together. So that specific experience was with him when I was about six, seven, and I remember going through the tunnel to get to primary school. And the reason why I have very vivid images is because there used to be-- there used to be a mechanics like right off of Louristan. And right next to it was a couple of houses that were being decanted, and they were squots. Doors have been boarded up, and they were like-- there was rubbish, all that kind of stuff. And the demolition was happening at the same time as basically going to primary school. And I remember thinking, wow, what is this place? And then kind of for about a decade, I didn't really think about it. Because I remember, you know, you're going to New Kingshold and it's completely different. It's flat, there's low rise. And then I stumbled across somewhere on this state, and I was like, wow, the memories just came back instantly. This just came back to me straight away. And I spoke to my mom about it, and she got off of the house in the 18s, when she first came to Hackney in Newcomune. And she was all the state. And you think about the people that lived in that state. For many of those people, they loved that state. So many interviews I've done with people that lived in the estate. They said, you know, they loved living in the amazing estate. They loved the sense of community. They loved that real old school Hackney feeling, you know. Even though the houses weren't in a good condition, you had cockroaches, you had a spestosh, you had crime. It was the Hackney of old. And when it was redeveloped, there was a number of significant issues at the redevelopment process, even though for many people did lack any homes. One is, obviously, tendencies changed. They went from council tenants to housing association tenants, where they could be changes to rents. Obviously, housing association tenants is less secure. Secondly, the price or the housing market in that area changed. So obviously, through right to buy and through the fact that as part of redevelopment process, there was new private housing on the estate. And I don't know if you know new things like this gated communities in it, which many people don't really recognize, but there's actually gated communities in, I was just behind, yeah, where you live and also on the corner where the new people's home, old people's home is. So they actually created private housing on what was a council estate. And those houses were going for 200 grand way back in 2001. So there was a real shift in trying to make the area more attractive. But the big point about the decant and process, as you mentioned, coffee is about, on the estate, I can't remember what the exact numbers were, but I think it was important about 20% of people did not return to the estate. So every people went to other council estates and had to leave or they got moved outside of London. But what happens with the decant and processes, you get decanted and you move to another estate, but the nature of having these estates is that many of them are 40, 50, 60, 70 years old and many are getting the monest over the next 10, 20, 40 years. So you're only going to get decanted again to get decanted again to move elsewhere until you get a better housing. And then lastly, probably the biggest issue is right to buy, you would be able to purchase a home when you can install a state which some people did. The redevelopment process means that the council has the opportunity to buy back your home compulsory. So they will purchase back your property out what they deem is the market rate. And you have to leave. There's no kind of, obviously you can contest it in I Corb. If the redevelopment is set, the redevelopment is set, they will pay you a price and you have to move elsewhere. So there's a whole process around the regeneration and thinking of what you can say about the six. It's quite interesting. I mean, I'll read a Colors book. Is it native? Native, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It refers to it as a middle class takeover, actually. And this is something that comes out in your book because you can talk about the class issue. And I don't know how much you agree with the Colors. But also was, as they've been in the, what do you call it, push back in terms of what you're saying in the book, one other people or classes? So, to a Colors point, I've had a couple of years back, years back. When I first started writing, I did see it as that because obviously I was much younger, I was going through it, right. And I knew I wouldn't be able to buy a home, etc. I'm still not able to buy a home and at me. But when we talk about middle class takeover, we talk about these spaces like their hours, particularly as like working class, working at minority communities. And what I try and touch upon in the book is that one, obviously middle class has actually lived in Hackney 300 years ago. Absolutely. And secondly, Hackney, before multiculturalism, it was a white place. England is a white country, right. So these spaces, when we talk about ownership and takeover, it's kind of subjective because from a perspective of, you know, we've built our existence in Hackney. We've built the culture in Hackney and it does feel like a takeover. They need to work in class, effort minority. But if you're white working class, you might see ethnic minorities have taken over Hackney way back in the 60s and 50s. If you're, I don't know, someone who was a landowner in Hackney 300 years ago and has got some heritage here, you might argue, well, you know, my ancestors were here 300 years ago. Places changed. But I think what I'm trying to emphasize is the impact on working class communities. So not so much as we necessarily own Hackney. I'm not trying to detail that point. What I'm trying to say is that I think there's been neglect of the impact of those communities who have existed in those areas because I don't think that sufficient attention has been paid to that impact because I have, you know, middle class people can exist here. You know, it's not Hackney's not mine to give or take. Of course. What I would say is that middle class people do come here. Let's create a culture, create a community that and not remove the existing communities that have been created for so long. Okay. Planet level's advocate here. Has there been any good art of all of this development? Let me call it regeneration for now. Has there been any good art come out because I think you mentioned, maybe I misunderstood it, the splintrain of gangs due to demolitions where the postcode, I don't know if you meant the postcode scene, but the, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of pulling down the states and so on. Of course, what would mean a lot of people, young people would then be displaced and so on. Why I could argue that's a good thing. But what else? Is there something that you think that was anything that could have come from it? I believe overall, it's a negative. I would accept that. I think, yeah. And I think it's important to make a separate case because I think regeneration happening has been very good personally. And I'll talk about the new labor years being when I was growing up was a good time because we went from the mid to late 90s of like, hadn't you been very poor, like very, very poor. I remember like, certain people that lived in and around church crescent, like I didn't, I mean, we was very, my friend was relatively okay, like, you know, my, my, my moment that work. But you had some people who their parents didn't work and they were poor. They were like very poor. And that's that level of poverty was like almost normal back then. And I think as things change in Hackney, you know, there's the new schools that I didn't get to go to, but it's good for the younger people in Hackney, the newer states, you know, some of the regeneration program in New Crinsold is beneficial for children growing up in those areas you don't have to suffer from asbestos, crime, all that kind of stuff. Ganges, obviously regeneration has had an impact on, you know, in some respects, you know, there was a state of kind of a navel as a crime because they were very close in. You look at, say, Holly Street. Holly Street was like a very closed in a state. Not a wall. No, touristy closed in. And now it's like streets, you know, you can walk in it now. So definitely there are some positives. I think that, and this is why I'm, some people kind of said, well, new labor, you're quite positive about it. And because I am, I remember those times, I think about, you know, that felt like regeneration would do regeneration state, we're trying to help local people because don't forget Tony Blair lived in Hackney. Yeah. Could see Holly Street from his house. So he understood that, you know, these people in Hackney are living in very terrible conditions. Places like in the city need to need to be revamped. I think it's the coalition that then subsequently didn't really pay enough attention to that. And no, the evidence was there after the riots where they basically just went and built Hackney walk and, you know, closed the youth clubs in the rest of it. Yeah, and it didn't work. Yes, I used to attend some Matthias boxing club in that close down, yeah. Close down as well, yeah, yeah. So I mean, but basically, yeah, I think in London, or I'm perhaps in the country, I don't know, a lot of the boys clubs that I think are they all disappeared? I think they all have a name. Well, when I was younger, I remember like going to youth club stores one on Wall Street. I mean, Hackney Crest is still around. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. But, you know, there was like my, when I remember being 14, 15, what the biggest memory I have is that there was like local centers where you could just walk in, like you could play with your friends. Obviously, a lot of kids were on the streets back then. There was a lot of kids. Obviously, the kind of, but the birth rate is reduced massively. But I just remember Hackney being full of kids every area that he went. And maybe, you know, like, I don't know what the best way of saying this, but, you know, there's been a wide range and change in communities, not only in Hackney, but across the country that is impacted by austerity, impacted by general changes in demographics, impacted by international issues like, you know, people from African-Mondin to go back home, all kinds of different things. So I think the period that I talk about a lot in the book was just the time where everything was just hitting each other, race, class, housing, region, crime. It was like a melting pot of so many different issues and we can. came out of it with lack of identification. So it was really critical to write this book at this time about these issues. I don't think it happened like, no other area like hackney suffered from it as drastic as Hattney did. - Okay, by which measure, I don't know how you come to that conclusion. Is it based on your personal experience with some stats or? - Yeah, there's a bit of both. So from a kind of specific academic perspective, or not even just academic, but kind of a statistical perspective, Hattney was the poorest place in the country throughout the 1990s, even in early 2000s. - I recall that, I recall that. - You mean we'll call that. At the poorest educational standards, had poor health outcomes, it had higher unemployment. So if you compare that to now, and one of the significant measures is house prices, house prices were like 30,000 pounds in 1992. You can pair that to now to 600,000 pounds. We have one of the highest growth in house prices in the country, in only a 20 year, 25 years span. You can pair that to places like Beckham, Tottenham, Kandan, who are all so patient, ventrification. The drasticness of that change is not as significant. Hattney has one of the highest house prices in the country and particularly in London, and it's higher in places like Tottenham. Tottenham still, in my opinion, hasn't gone through that rapid regeneration like Hattney did. Ricksden has only gone through it now, Hattney went through it 20 years ago. So it's like, there was evidence to back it up, and I tried to do that, particularly in the second chapter where there was quite a difference to Hattney of the 1990s to Hattney in the 2010. - Yeah, yeah. I mean, from my perspective, particularly when I was in planning, I saw, like it's such as change from industrialization to, you know, the city. And I felt that the focus on the city meant that there were more greater activity there and people needed somewhere to stay. And Hattney became a popular, well, not popular. It became a reasonable place in terms of proximity. - Of course. - And therefore these people started moving in, initially very slowly, 'cause it was still under my air quality, it was still a dump. - Exactly, yeah. - Slowly slowly. And then the train station that was, was it refurbished? Yeah, it was refurbished. Wasn't it, those in junction? - Yeah, those in junction were refurbished. - Yeah. - It's been closed down for some time. And that gave easy access into shortage. And that was it. And eventually we got what we've got. - And it's something that Peter George, who's actually a director at Eland, who's done major regeneration programs, including Murdy and Morton in Enfield, he asked me about, you know, transport and how transport influence is gentrification. And I did do the research. I just didn't, I kind of probably anecdotally mention it in the second chapter. But it can't be underestimated how, you know, the opening up, I think it's the, I don't know what the line specifically is called now, but it's the line between Dorston Junction, the shortage, and then that line also goes to new products. I used to go uni, I used to use that line to go uni. And that, - Is that the Weaver Mount May, or one of those, - One of those things as well, yes. - One of those names, yeah. - It was in the overground anyway. - Overground, yeah. And I remember, I remember, if people who live in Wall Street, they throw it by that area, they were in the 425, remember we only had one bus that came through our house, 277. - 277, yes. - And when the 425 came, I remember thinking, well, I can get distracted in like 15 minutes now. And before that, you had to go my lens, - Go and change. - Get trains, yeah, and get a different line. So it's like, that made Hackney so much more accessible, because remember, we don't have an underground, except for Man of House. Man of House is right on the edge of Harrengate. So it's like, they definitely thought I'd particularly be Olympics, we need to open up Hackney, we need to give it a new overground, we need to give it more bus routes in the 425, the 488, we need to do the redevelopment of its housing, like look at Dawston in particular, we need to develop, culturally, by, I don't know, doing events like there was the Hackney, what was it called again? It was the radio one part in the park, which they gave tickets to Devon for £1. - Was it Hackney's festival, so I mean? - It was something like that, yeah. I remember going in 25, I remember thinking Jay Z was performing in, Jay Z and Hackney, we would have been, it was crazy to think, but they really tried to promote Hackney to the wider world. And one of the most significant things was that, it was almost like they drew on the working class mindset by saying, you know, we're gonna give you some pitches in the marshes and Maddie Green, and we're gonna give you these new bus routes, all at the same time, kind of not under our apprehension, is we're gonna develop these really lavish new builds that you're not gonna be able to buy in five years. Hackney Walk is probably the biggest example where, and I'm talking about this in my talk today, but I don't know what they were thinking when they decided that after the riots happened, we're gonna put a fashion hug in the home of all places. But who's to buy a walk? You know, like, I remember walking past a bit of burberry factories, I think in California, they're stuff. - Exactly. - So it's just crazy. - But it wasn't fast in Hackney, obviously. And the type of people who could afford it, we're not gonna come to Hackney. - Yeah, come to Hackney. - So I used to know the Chinese, well I say Chinese, I don't know the stereotype all about, people from the Orient, you know, coming there, occasionally you see them scattering into these, what you call them, designer warehouses. And there's only one that remains. And I assume burberry's still there. - Burberry is still there, yeah. And that's the only one. - Yeah, I guess burberry was there beforehand, but you know, there's a burberry had to function there. - And I don't know if there's still manufacture there, but at least they outlet is still there. - Outlet is still there, yeah. But I think it was just, it was just short-sighted. And I think everyone just got caught up in a Olympic bar, and sure politicians did as well. But yeah, again, like, what I try to emphasize in the book is not necessarily about, you know, political ideologies. I'm not really kind of focusing on that. What I am focusing on is policy decisions. And it's almost like, what was the thinking behind some of these decisions, you know, and getting to the bottom of that is difficult. I tried to service that a little bit, but there's a number of great theorists that have done that. - I would have thought the Hackney Walk was probably some vanity, you know, to kind of hackney on the map. And I think that's maybe the local politicians who looked at it, which completely backfired in the end. Because every single one of those outlets is gone. - It's gone. And when you think about that time, 2011, like I was in union, I remember the riots happening, and I remember a couple of my friends going out being involved in the riots. And I remember thinking, oh, wow, they're gonna really clamp down on us, like, they put a lot of people in prison, puff sentences. And I felt like there was a real mismatch in terms of, like, they just saw young people as the culprits. There was no perception of, you know, we've just had austerity, you've just taken away earmate, you've just put up tuition fees. Young people are angry, no, we're gonna punish you even more. And I think that was like a real sign for me when I started writing or started researching probably a couple of years after that. That gentrification did feel intentional. It felt like, you know, you young people are living here now, we're making, we're warning you now that this place, hackney that you once loved, you once enjoyed, it's not gonna be yours for long. And you just try to destroy it. So, you know, we will want you out. The way we're gonna do that is by these house prices or these houses, they're gonna be affordable for you. These schools, we're gonna make sure that only a few of you can go to these new academies. We're gonna make sure that there's employment opportunities, but those employment opportunities or those businesses are gonna be these lavish businesses and hackney walk. And it was just a perception that, you know, it wasn't porousening. - The executive anyway, and moving out, they're not the local people. But tell me, again, I wanted to say as well, I recall in early '90s, the government came out with the city challenge and they were giving money to deprived areas. I think it might have been national, but selling within hackney as well. And I was actually responsible for doing a monitoring of the progress of the work that was going on. And it started from shortage, from Kingsland Road all the way to Stutt, New England, put it in green, ballads, green railings, green everything, green lumpes, and so on. I left the country in '94, came back in 2001, I was in shock, that hackney shortage area, which was considered to be, again, I use a word damp, nobody had any respect for it. And you can't go more than 100 meters without a restaurant, a pub, a club, and it's become so busy, and it's become a hub now, you know, it's all the way up to Stutt, New England. And I find it's an incredibly developed, but this has been the hits the more, that the hits the group, the rather than the, and it's, again, I think it's not for us. - No. - You know, I recall what your, the gentleman who wrote the, the preface on it in the book, and when he explained about coffee's man, what his mum gave to her, I got a cup of coffee, and he was like, "I'm just type of coffee, do you want me?" (laughing) - And it's a bit of a, it's a bit of a, it's a bit of a rebellion for me, 'cause I don't set foot in prep, I don't go gales, and there's always a little bit of me that's like, you know, well, this transformation has been ridiculous, you know, like you talk about in terms of the city challenge, Again, as I said before, those programs are. I suppose to reduce raw regeneration. And I think it did, since I'm saying it did. You know, Dorsden was in a really bad state in the '80s, but in '90s it felt a little bit better. And then one of the good examples is where the jazz clubs are, their square. And places in, like, Oceans is a really good example where that was public money to invest in a venue that young people can use to-- I was there when I was younger. Really? Yeah, I went out of there when I was about 18. Making music, using a facility for free. OK. That's real regeneration. OK. But then, you know, you look now. But Oceans is still there, but it's now a pitch house. It's a cinema. And then the bank, Barca's bank, is now turned into Peter Express. You know, it's really about-- it feels like it's really-- and now the web of screens is going. And it's like it feels really about-- Which web of screen? The one in-- Messry. It's a voice-off for cell. Oh, Messry. It's really, yeah. Bucks, so-- Is it Bucks, that's a court, yeah? Bucks are court-right. Oh, really? Yeah, it's a shame. And it's a shame, because I was there when I was 18 every weekend. And it's like, it's interesting. But then I say to that, one of the really concluding points in the book is, you know, places change. And the purpose of the book is just to record that history. The book will always be there now. So when in 20, 30 years time, Atty is completely jonchy-fired. In a similar way to maybe Islington has become in certain areas. We can look back and say, well, you know, this is how happened was. And it's recorded. And people's experiences have recorded as well. Yeah, really. Listen, another interesting part of the book is really when you're personal side of it, talking about you and your friends playing around in the area. And the one scene that I keep seeing from the book is when you guys kick the ball and smash the bust-off and smash the bust-off. You must have kicked it really hard, but that's another thing. It was. I mean, there's so many stories I couldn't even tell. I'm sure, I'm sure. And of course, you said that you stood still. And so you escaped that the consequences of that. And some of those who then did get caught and what happened to them. So what made you different, apart from that incident as a whole? Because where you described how a lot of young people were being badly policed and being badly treated just generally. How did you escape the crime, the gangs? And because I can't imagine you to be the gang. Well, obviously you didn't spin with the gang. How were you able to-- I mean, Jumanie, he never went out at a certain age. He got to an age. And he was indoors all the time on his playstations or-- Yeah, Xboxies. Yeah. And how did you escape that? So I think this-- because I mean, I would say I escaped it, but I didn't really-- what basically happened was, obviously, I had an older brother. And obviously, I knew Jumanie. I used to hang around with a lot of older people. So what effectively happened is that when I was young, when that incident happened, I was kind of getting up to the usual delinquency that you do get up to and hang knocking on people's doors running away, throwing eggs and throwing fireworks on one fire night. You know this is being recorded, don't you? It is being recorded, yeah. It has been recorded. Right. Just not recorded it. No, but it's the truth. It's delinquent stuff, right? I think one of the big things my parents been in the house, having two strong family and parents at home, made a big difference. I had an older brother who would set me straight and make sure I didn't stray too far. But with certain incidents where, if I'm honest, and people don't really think about this a lot, but a lot of the time it does come down to pure luck at times. And I just feel extremely lucky because some of the incidents that I couldn't even mention the book were incidents of literally wrong place, wrong time, right place, right time. Yeah. And one of the incidents, I spoke about in a book when someone approached me even knife, when I was about 14, 15. That incident was, I'm not gonna name names or describe the incident in full detail, but that incident, the individual that tried to stab me, the individual that then stopped it from happening, then went down to Murdo, cover the years later. So it's like, he'd done a good deed and then went on to do a bad deed. But he was, him not being there that day saved my life. But then he caused the death of someone else. It's all about timing, but that incident changed my life. A lot of incidents changed my life. Yeah, I mean, I know you referred to it as PTSD in the page one, two, five, actually, very low of that because it's growing. And that's when I realized, gosh, and in fact, I mean, another question, would you be a different person? How'd you been in a different bar or a different, because as you say, it's kind of, so it can be totally luck in terms of what happens to you and how you progress through life. - 100% and particularly in the 2000s, I think in this day and age, I feel like it's a little bit easier to get away from crime because the schools are so good now. - Right. - And the areas are far more filled of densifiers. And like, there's not, in heck, in the 2000s and the 90s, there was like dark pockets. So if you walked into certain estates, things were happening where the police just were not going into those areas at all. So I remember parts of Wall Street, there was things happening I saw that I would, I would think now the police were just, it would just never happen. And there's social media, there's mobile phones, there was none of that back then. So I think a lot of it is pure luck. And I do think if I grew up somewhere else, like even in dagin' and blah, blah, or Essex, and it'll be a completely different person. - Yeah. - But living in Hackney, and I talk about these stories like people like Idris Elba, Alan Sugar, Trevor Nelson, Julie, love, Barbara Windsor, all these different people. You can tell in their demeanor that grown up in Hackney just gives them that edge, that ability to, you know, it's like a fight for, not just justice, but even Diane Abbott, you know, there's a fight for, because we've seen things in Hackney that other people are compared to one of our friends who's like, he's here in Sirens is just unheard of in his area. And we hear Sirens every day, you know? I posted something on Instagram the other day, and I didn't even realize that the Sirens are being played whilst I was talking, and it was so normal to us. - Right. - Right. And it does become normal. Everything becomes like, crime, people getting shot, people getting, this sounds so as I mentioned, but people getting shot, people getting robbed. It's just so normalized. - Right, yeah. - Well, I mean, well done anyway. We agree that it's also a level of attracism, it's less about it, but nevertheless, you still have to do the work to get to where you are and to produce that work. So, I mean, that's absolutely fantastic. So what has been a reception so far, who, you know, and particularly, I don't know what your friends in the ends, as you say. - Yeah, yeah, of course. - How they received, what comments do you get, and what feedback do you get in? - Well, I'm still in the ends, I'm still here. - Yes, yes, I'm still here. - Yeah, you know, and it's like, I'm just not in that this the part I was. - Yeah, you're in the better ends though, I think, from what you said. - No? - I don't know, maybe, 'cause I'm in, I mean, I'm still in happening, I'm in North, I'm just in the North part, but I think what I would say is the reception, I've been blown away about a reception, because I don't know what I said. I don't think people cared as much about gentrification as I did, but it shows that people really care about their place, just like they do in New York, just like they do in Berlin, just like they do in some of the other parts Paris, some of the other parts of the world that are being gentrified, like they do in Tottenham, like they do in Bricksdale and Peckham, Camden, there are people who are really feeling the issues of gentrification, and what I want to stress is to anyone that wants to write or make music or express themselves, do it, because it's an expression of self, this is what this book is, this is book is an expression of me and us as a community. - Yeah. - It's not like a, I'm not writing from a perspective of, like I'm not an anthropologist, I'm not looking at a community from the outside and writing about it. This is us, this book is for us, so it is our history that we have contributed to. I'm just a funnel of that contribution. - Excellent, excellent. I mean, the reason we came across you actually, we had a kind of normally look for, we write about Guardians, wherever they are doing something interesting and unusual and so on. We were actually searching on Hackney and we came across your name. Ah! And then, and that was last year, and we missed that one. I come and what was happening, but we missed that one. And so we looked again, 'cause we normally do open house and saw your name again. And for now, this time we're gonna come. And then of course I met you and I realized, oh my God, we're literally, I can literally throw a stone from where I lived in the original. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And it was that close. We found the Ganyan, we were always looking for the Ganyan. And the fun, you mentioned it all, you didn't talk much about the Ganyan. Which is of course, that's what the book is about. So first, do you have a Ganyan in? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. My name is, what, on Friday, that's, is that, is that, like me? - Like me, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Friday, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Say the name. - I'm coffee, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Okay, I'll take that. Also, you said that you listened to a little DL music. That it means, what's your favorite one? - You know what? You know what? - That's hard. - Because, you know, I can't even say the names. But what I would say is, I came from a very Ganyan household. But the thing about the 90s is that, I came from Ganyan household, but my mum and dad were very much about, like, also promoting British culture, you know? I didn't learn tree, I understood it, of course. But my mum and dad were very much like, you know, you're going to school, you're doing this, you're doing that, you're, [BLANK_AUDIO] But I really valued hearing my mum and dad talk about Ghana, coming from a Garni and household, hearing Daddy Lumber every day. And all the high life music, the hip life music, going church on Sundays with other Garnians, like I felt that. But the thing about second generation kids, especially in that time, is that we always had a trade off between being from Africa, which was only like kind of distant, because I only went Ghana once or twice when I was younger. Okay. Versus the British life that you was facing and experiencing every day in school. And you know back then, Britishness was promoted so much on the TV. And it was like always trying to trade off between the two. I feel like kids this day, this day and age, there's much more exposure to Ghana, much more exposure to Africa, which we just didn't have back then. Have you been back since, as an adult? I haven't been back since I was full team, but I'm planning to go next year. So obviously, I presume your father is a deal. Yes, of course. And mum is probably just gospels like I really. See, my mum is probably down in London as well. Oh really? Yeah, she's, well, mum and dad both have the same music. Oh yeah, that's good. When I get a chance, I'll send it to you. Yeah, please, please. So look, so is there anything or anyone you edited out that you wish you kept in the book? I mean, it'll be loads. Like what or which ones or it's anything you can say. You know, I wish I'd said that or kept that one. Yeah, there was, there was loads of stories that I did. So I interviewed a lot of people and a certain story is that basically I could have included, but would have changed the narrative. Right, certain certain stories, even my own stories were just two were two, they were two problematic in the context of the people that are affected. Right. Right. Right. So because you know, there's a story and there's a story that a lot of my friends know and people that around the area knew that I fell off the garage in. In in church, Cressiff when I was about eight years old and I cut my leg open. And the whole community came and took me to the hospital and that was like just one of the things that I could have spoken about that had an effect on my sense of community. And that was linked to another incident that I don't really talk about and it's like, you know, it's you were running away from somewhere. No, no, it's just one of those. Yeah, and you know, there's there's there's a there's a really good book by Robin Travis who's written about his experience in Hackney. Yeah, I've got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's actually belonged to who does that can be long to. Yeah, and he's he's he provides some stories for my book, but you know, I'm sure there's stories in his book that he's not going to talk about his book is very. You know, when I think about the things that happens in his life, sometimes it happened to my life, but I'm definitely new people that you know that got stacked or had found themselves homeless or you know just things that were just quite, quite painful. So, you know, the book is the book is as honest as it can be, but not too honest, of course, of course, it would have to be volumes as well. Yes, exactly exactly. So what next what's next for the next five 10 or as they go 10 five. Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, I've got to know some ideas and looking at education in different areas, looking at the history of local people, but very much now just continues to promote the book, continues to talk about the journey of gentrification and continues to contribute to the history of Hackney, right? History is still being written with every day. Right. Thank you very much. Before you go, have you got any handles, social handles you want to drop? Yeah, where can people buy the book and so on? Yeah, so you can buy the book anywhere. It's on Amazon, it's in Waterstones. You can buy it from local bookstores in Hackney. All of my handles are Rick, your Boa. So RIC, your Boa. I'm on Twitter, on Instagram. I'm going to be on TikTok soon. So I'm going to be doing a lot of visual content talking about Hackney, talking about places, talking about communities. So yeah, just to search for your Google, you can find the book, find from Hackney with love and is my answer to gentrification. And also you can follow me from talking all about gentrification and Hackney. Richard, you're Boa or rather, Richard, coffee or Boa. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode. To listen to more content like this, visit our monthly Academy magazine, Connecting Communities podcast. On Apple Spotify, Buzzsprout or wherever you listen to your audio. Follow our news on academy magazine.com and academy magazine.co.uk. An access exclusive early release content and discounts at k0-fi.com/academygazine. The music in this episode is called Life No Day Easy by Chechaku and the Supra Pong Stars and is a special remix exclusively for a academy magazine. Supra Pong Stars is a high-obtain patchwork of Gunners Indigenous genres, including palm-wine music, high life, Afrobeat and Afro funk. You can find out more about the band on their Instagram, Supra Pong Stars. Thank you.