Grosvenor Road Squat (1972-76)
Twickenham, Middlesex, England

[ click on (most of) the pics to open the full size image in a new window ]
Dominic's drawing of No 7		Warehouse painting by Scratch
[ these two pics were scanned in from very faded photocopies - anyone got the originals? ]

Carol's postcard (1974) "Cats Like Plain Crisps" graffiti (Richmond, 1973) Ben, Barny, Karen, Tim, Viveka, Tina (1976)		Chris's treehouse (1976)

Within a few weeks of being squatted, Number 7 was boarded up by workmen who refused to identify themselves. However after some rather terse negotiating they agreed to leave the back door unblocked, to the relief of those still inside. Local councillor Ken Elmes, offering help and support, hurriedly arranged for the press to come round. The resulting photograph of him, claw-hammer in hand, in the act of removing one of the boards led to a series of wild allegations by cut-and-paste pulp pop writer George Tremlett, the publicity seeking Tory Housing Chairman. He appeared to be quite deliberately attempting to mislead the council, the press, and the public with a series of inaccurate statements claiming that "the first squatters [were] let in by Cllr. K. Elmes [who] helped the squatters break down doors and windows to get into buildings and was photographed doing so" and that he "broke down the door of an empty house in Grosvenor Road with an axe". Transcriptions of some of George Tremlett's rantings can be found in the James Saunders play "Squat". Ken's own account of the incident appears in his recently published autobiography "If I only had time" (Ecomex Press, 1998)
No 7 boarded up		Chris, Joelle and Ken Elmes

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Cats Like Plain Crisps (the band)  |  Cats Like Plain Crisps (the origin... close enough anyway)

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"Look what appeared last weekend where
the shoe shop used to be in St Margarets"
(July 2006)

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galleries

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Carol (1)  |  Carol (2)  |  Clare  |  Joelle (1)  |  Joelle (2)  |  Joelle (3) Joelle (Flickr)  |  John K  |  Martin & Inger  |  Scratch  |  Tony G  |  various

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