The People’s Museum has created a mural entitled ‘What’s Your Story’ which now covers the fence surrounding the Story Garden on Ossulston Street. The purpose of the mural is to celebrate social housing in Somers Town by commemorating the centenary of the St.
Pancras Housing Association. The mural features quotes taken from interviews conducted by museum volunteers of local residents who live in social housing. Artists Edmund Cavill and Sophie Adams, with the help of local school children, painted these quotes alongside
images of the housing estates in Somers Town. This mural honours Somers Town’s working-class community, a community whose existence is thanks to its history of social housing.
Every time I open the door to my flat, I say ‘Thank you Mrs Barclay’
First established by Father Basil Jellicoe in 1924, the St. Pancras Housing Association provided affordable homes to some of London’s poorest residents. The housing association’s founders were not only interested in giving people spacious, clean homes. They also believed that a holistic approach to social care was necessary to create communities in which people could thrive and be proud of. Amongst many other services, the association provided their residents with nurseries, community halls, and holiday excursions. This innovative approach helped transform Somers Town into a vibrant community, founded on the availability of high-quality social housing.
Social housing brings about harmony, it brings about social cohesion and it creates a sense of community and a sense of belonging. It forges a local identity.
Today, after decades of government neglect, the social housing stock in this country is profoundly depleted and often poorly maintained. Yet so many people who come to this country or grow up here still depend on it. Social housing is a necessity and people deserve to live in communities where they feel safe and healthy. In order to gather stories for the mural, interviews of local residents were conducted on their experiences of social housing. These interviews revealed a diverse array of feelings and opinions. Primarily, people communicated feelings of relief and gratitude. Interviewees told many stories of why they are thankful for their homes. Some stated how they have been able to raise their families without the threat of homelessness, others that social housing allowed them to move away from difficult home situations. Many simply said how thankful they were that social housing meant they were finally able to achieve independence. However, it is impossible to ignore the issues and complaints that were raised during the interviews. Disabled people stuck in inaccessible flats, mould and broken appliances that have never been fixed, and overcrowded bedrooms to name just a few.
I live in a council property. It is a nice feeling to live in central London as everything is very accessible. However, the room situation is quite difficult. There are five of us sharing a two bedroom which is quite difficult.
The mural was heavily inspired by the ‘Thamesmead Codex’, an artwork created by the artist Bob and Roberta Smith in 2021. The artist interviewed residents of the Thamesmead estate in southeast London; Smith then painted their conversations onto a series of twenty-four placards which are now on display at the Tate Modern until December 2024. In their reflection on the interviews that the artist carried out, Smith stated that: ‘I thought I was making a painting about a housing estate, but actually I’ve been painting about the desire to be heard.’ This desire was also evident in the interviews conducted to create the People’s Museum’s mural. People chose to use the opportunity not only to vent their frustrations about the current state of social housing, but also the pride they felt in belonging to the Somers Town community, and the fears they felt about losing this community. As one resident stated, ‘Social housing brings about harmony, it brings about social cohesion and it creates a sense of community and a sense of belonging. It forges a local identity.’
I started making friends with some of the mums and they were cool and then it kind of went from there. But when I started finding out about the history of Somerstown and Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin and the radicals, then I was like wow this place is really special!
The mural on Ossulston Street is a celebration of social housing and the sense of identity that it has created in Somers Town. It tells the stories of a community that can only exist because of the efforts of those reformers who believed that people have the right to good, affordable homes. Yet, the message behind the piece is undoubtably the need to fight for this right. By showing the stories of those whose lives were transformed when they first got the keys to their flat, the silent voices of the 1.2 million households across England who are still waiting for homes are deafening.
