40th anniversary of the New Cross fire tragedy

On Sunday, Yvonne Ruddock should have celebrated her 56th birthday. Tragically, she never saw another one beyond her 16th.

40 years ago, Yvonne and her friend Angela Jackson hosted a birthday party at her home at 439 New Cross Road - a well-attended event packed with their friends who had gathered to celebrate, eat and dance the night away to music.

Shortly after 5:40am on the morning of Sunday 18 January, 1001, the bells in several South-East London fire stations would have sounded. Firefighters rushed to the house to be met with a scene of devastation as flames engulfed the three storey terrace house, with many party-goers fleeing the building. Many more were trapped inside by the ferocity of the flames.

By the time the fire was extinguished, nine young people were dead. Many more suffered life-limiting injuries, with four more later dying as a result. And, less than two years later, another attendee took his own life, plagued by the experience of that fateful night.

Much has changed since then. The fire service is almost unrecognisable and those that attended the blaze have long since left the brigade. But the pain still persists. And the dark shadow of the events still live on amongst those who lost loved ones that night.

In the aftermath, the community felt a devastating sense of loss. Sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, cousins, friends, classmates – all taken away long before their time.

But what compounded the pain was the sense that the community had and was continuing to be ignored. It is customary for Prime Ministers and the Crown to acknowledge a mass loss of life by the way of sending a message of condolence. Yet Margaret Thatcher, after nearly two years in office at that time, failed to reach out to the community.

Thatcher fostered a hostile environment for the black and minority ethnic community, and was widely considered to be courting supporters of the far-right National Front group through the use of anti-immigrant rhetoric. This was taken further by her minister Jill Knight, who appeared to condone direct action against parties with sound systems, a staple of the Black British culture at the time.

The Prime Minister’s silence propelled the wave of black activism that had been sparked by the fire, as protestors rallied to the words 'thirteen dead and nothing said'. The parallels were all too familiar when, in 2017, Theresa May failed to meet the community when visiting the site of the Grenfell Tower fire.

The New Cross community demanded answers and, in light of perceived inaction by the police, hundreds attended a meeting a week after the fire. There was a strong feeling that the fire had been an attack, started by a petrol bomb.

The New Cross Massacre Action Committee was set up, culminating in a Black People's Day of Action on 2 March. 20,000 angry and disaffected people took to the streets in peaceful protest, but their march was disrupted by harsh police tactics and faced relentless attacks from the right-wing media.

Tension between the community and the police remained high, particularly amongst young people who felt they were being unfairly targeted by the police.

In April that year, an incident involving a stabbed youth sparked a riot in Brixton that lasted a weekend and brought the issue of race relations to the top of the agenda.

To date, no-one has ever been charged with starting the New Cross fire. With the advancement of forensic science, it was deemed that the fire started from within the property, either accidentally or deliberately. With two subsequent inquests both delivering open verdicts, many feel they have never received closure – or justice.

40 years on, the landscape of London has changed, but the scars of that awful day remain. We must never forget what happened that night. And we must continue to fight racism and injustice wherever we see it.