When did you first become involved with Loughborough Community Centre?
1979 my youngest was almost a year old. A lady called Jan Hague introduced me to a new mother’s and toddlers group in Wolley House undercroft. I started to attend regularly, it was a nice network of local mothers and it was a safe space for us to come together with our children. I became close to one of the volunteers, named Kathy. She continued with LCC for many years before she moved out of London.
Later myself and Kathy became lead volunteers for the group and were employed by LCC. We still are good friends now all these years later. Nicole was another regular volunteer in LCC, she did a lot of volunteering with us, she was very creative and into art. We all lived on the estate. Between 79 – 80, we applied for various funding from Lambeth and we kept getting turned down. It wasn’t until 1981 when we got our first funding, we got a small grant from London County Council.
When was LCC established in 1981?
The riots happened in April 1981. There was so much tension and frustration amongst local people. Everyone had had enough of being suppressed. It was so hard for black people to progress and get jobs. Then there was the Scarman report that kind of came out in September 1981.
A community development worker was employed to support and develop community groups within the area. We were told to prepare for big changes in the community. We had a community meeting and announced constituting as the Loughborough Community Centre around November 1981. We were all so excited about the possibilities of being able to make an active change within the community, that was led by us, local residents.
First, we were based in Wolley House undercroft.We discussed as a group how we could improve the experience for local children by having more space and resources for them to play.The community development worker signposted us to funding pots and suggested we write a letter from the group highlighting the needs of the group.
We ran off a shoestring. Kathy and I always discussed how great the project could be if we had some money. We worked with the community development worker to draft a proposal for the creche. She signposted us to send our proposal to the council but we were turned down. We then approached County Hall were the Greater London Council – Women’s Committee was in place. The Women’s Committee gave the creche its’ first grant. They came down to visit us, it was a grand day. They supported us throughout the years and suggested we target the age range of children 2 – 4yrs and call it a preschool. Our criteria was; children 2.5yrs and potty trained. I always supported Ken Livingston as he was always a great advocate for community work and this enabled us to do more for the community.
We welcomed the Women’s Committee and they were very good support and came down once every so often. On one occasion when they came to visit, I was doing the admin. This I did on a voluntary basis. We were just mums off the estate trying to keep it going for the community.They spoke to us about each person’s role and how we should be getting paid for the work we were doing. They helped us to develop a staffing structure and financial systems to manage larger sums of money for payroll.
I received training to manage these processes for LCC. As a group we’re so happy, it was like winning the lottery. This motivated us to more, so we created leaflets for the preschool service and dropped them through letter boxes around the estate and put posters up. The charge was 15p per session per child. This enabled us to buy refreshments for snack time and items to make playdough or do a cooking activity each week. It wasn’t a lot of money but to us and back then it was.
Around 1986, we heard from community development worker about the Max Roach One O’clock Club building being vacant in the morning. She helped us find out who was in charge of it. We made a proposal to use the centre in morning for the preschool 9am – 12pm. The council granted the request and we were ready to move in right away. This was another big win for us at LCC. We now occupied two community spaces, the Max Roach One O’clock Club and our main base of the Loughborough Community Centre.
The use of Max Roach came with rental costs, for a few years we were never informed of the cost of rent by the LA. Each year we would write to the council requesting an invoice for rent. We were informed one year that the cost was 250 per quarter, 1000 per year. We were scared that they would back date the fee from our agreed start date, so we always put money aside some expense towards the rent each year to cover the costs. We never got that invoice throughout my time at LCC.
Where did you work prior to coming to LCC?
I was working before, for Lambeth Council. I used to work as an admin assistant part time. Before I became full time, I was doing three jobs in the local area. I used to work nights, at the Housing Office, then part time at the Laundry and then mornings at LCC.The undercrofts on the estate were active places for the community. I was hopping from different undercrofts making a living. Most of them are closed off now but the Laundry is still there.
I was spending more and more time at LCC. I was doing the creche in the mornings and supporting the administration after the session before my second job. I used to do the wages, I got training from the Women’s Committee. Prior to their training I wasn’t getting paid to do this task, I did it for 3 years on voluntary basis. I was happy doing this task as I was learning new skills. The Women’s Committee spoke with the management board of LCC and insisted that I was doing a job and should get paid for my work. They agreed and I was backdated 3000.00 for my previous work and paid for administration from then on.
This was a huge sum of money, I put into savings, it was the first time I was able to put money away. I later used this money for a deposit on my council flat. I was so happy, the Women’s Committee regularly came down and taught me business administration skills. I worked so hard, now I was paid full time, the expectations from LCC of me had risen. I was committed to making it work, I love my job and role. Everyone was proud of my efforts. Over time most of the people working / involved in LCC moved on or took opportunities else-where to do bigger and better things. There comes a time, when you have to branch out, I love that LCC was a springboard for people in the local community. That’s what you’re supposed to do to progress your life. When you look back remember us at LCC, where your roots started.
How many children you will have you’ve engaged over the years?
I was involved in LCC for about 30 years, that’s a long time, I couldn’t even put a number on it. Children and their families would come and go. Some stayed for long periods of time, some we met for a day and never saw again. On year we did a count of how many households on the estate we supported, it was well over 600 households. As well as the community projects we did numerous fundays and events. The community loved our day trips to the seaside and our annual weekend trip to France.
Some of the children were really challenged. Mainly when they lived in challenging homes. Lots of the mums were single parents with no fathers around. The behaviour of the children was not good, some the children lashed out and had bad language. There was one boy in particular that I will always remember he lived right by the police station. No one could handle his behaviour, but I knew it wasn’t normal and something was wrong. He got expelled from other preschools in the area and we gave him a chance. I hated when children so young were not given a chance to play and learn, this was so often the story for so many of the local black boys. At LCC preschool, these boys did so well and thrived. They loved the garden, all that space to run and burn off steam. Later, I found out that this boy was diagnosed with ADHD. Imagine, everyone just thought he was very naughty and his mum didn’t know what to do with him. I was so happy that we were able to see that he was just a boy that need additional support. We used to get lots of children that needed additional support, parents would tell their family and friends about us.
It says something about our service, how parents felt comfortable with us and we were all part of our community. One mum, tells the next mum and so on. It’s always been like this. It wasn’t just for black people. Our community centre was very diverse. Different communities, so many different races, different cultures and traditions. I made sure we were inclusive. Some people didn’t like it but I know what it feels like to be excluded and I never wanted anyone in our community to feel this way, when stepping into or being at LCC.
How would you describe LCC in three words?
Supportive
Community Sprit
Good Times
I learned a lot, when I worked at LCC. I was just I was just a local mom, when I went over to do stuff, I did things I never had done before. I was curious and curious to learn. Having people like Jean Kennedy at LCC, was good for me. She was very nice, patient and good with people. And you know sometimes I would think that I can’t do it. She would say “oh yes you can”. She would say, “it doesn’t matter how many times you come to me and asked me for help, ask questions”. You know I learnt a lot so much from her. All of this was part of my journey and set the foundation for you guys now.
Managing LCC consumed a lot of my time. Too many late evenings I spent in the office doing business administration. My family life suffered and then my health, I kept forgetting things. The worst bit was, I had a very important meeting in International House one evening. I totally forgot about it, even though I wrote it down, I felt so embarrassed and people around me just didn’t understand. The job was too much for me to manage and it became more and more and more.
My hair was falling out, I kept falling over and I got rashes over my skin, I thought I had lupus. Everything and everyone else was more important than going to the doctor to check on my own health. I was scared and I eventually went to see the doctor. My blood pressure was really low and this had to be managed with medication. This was the turning point that I needed. LCC was no longer good for my health. LCC is the kind of place where you have to cut all ties or your always drawn back in by somebody or some new project taking place. It’s the kind of place where your mind is always ticking, so actually retiring and not being there no more, took a long time to adjust.
What do you hope for the future of an organisation like LCC?
I’d like to see it continue to flourish.
This can’t be done without the support of local people. With a strong management board, it would be even more efficient and you can do so much. Funding is very important because if you haven’t got any money, you can’t do a lot. Small pots of funding make it really difficult to plan long term, if we knew this would be here for 40 years, maybe we would have worried less about closure and put more effort in being here to provide activities.
The preschool has been the key to everything as it is the thing that had secured funding, even if that funding was variable, at least some income was coming in. Knowing that the preschool is named after me, makes me feel so proud and makes all the effort worthwhile. I’m so happy with how much progress you have made since I left. It just sad that parts of the community is still very vulnerable and in need of places and people like LCC. Whilst there are people in the community that are still in need, I would like to see LCC continue to support local people. There will always be a need for services like LCC.
You’ve got the best garden in town, most of the children don’t have gardens, so they come to play.
