A new mural is going up on New Cross Road as a memorial to the people who died in a fire more than 40 years ago – and as a reminder to those who have forgotten.
Richard Simpson, who runs the Cummin’ Up Caribbean takeaway, is putting up the three-and-a-half metre tall mural on his shopfront on the road on Saturday (January 22), a few minutes’ walk from number 439, the house where the deadly fire took place on January 17, 1981.
Thirteen young black British people died that night after a fire broke out at a birthday party for Yvonne Ruddock and Angela Jackson. Most of the people who died were teenagers, with the oldest just 22. A survivor is thought to have killed himself two years later.
The cause of the fire is still unclear, decades on. Two inquests have returned open verdicts. The tragedy soon led to an outcry from people who thought police and the media were not taking the fire seriously enough because its victims were black. Some 20,000 people marched on March 2 that year on the ‘Black People’s Day of Action’.
Mr Simpson said he was speaking to another business owner on New Cross Road recently who had no idea about the fire, which is memorialised with a blue plaque at number 439.
“What happened was our George Floyd, but lots of people don’t know about it,” he said. “These are the bridges. It’s a simple bridge I want to put in place.
“I want to stimulate the first ‘w’ – ‘what’! It’s to invoke something, a feeling, a demand for justice. I want people to say ‘what’ in disgust, ‘what’ ‘gasp’, ‘what’ ‘stagger’, ‘what’, ‘enquiry’.”
Asked what justice would look like, Mr Simpson said he didn’t know. “If you’re given the commission of throwing seed, by default you’re not selling fruit. Those who follow eat the fruit of your labour…. my job is to prompt the first ‘w’.”
There are already several memorials to the fire in the area. As well as the blue plaque, there is a commemorative bench in nearby Fordham Park and a stained glass window in St Andrew’s church in Brockley. But Mr Simpson said he wants to “get away from the institutions”.
“The manner in which [the new mural] is going to be installed, the ‘street art’ appearance – that’s the key.” The digital mural will take the form of a silhouetted figure with images related to the fire and subsequent protests.
Born in Lewisham hospital, Mr Simpson has a deep personal connection to the tragedy: he was friends from a young age with Glenton Powell, who died from injuries sustained in the fire, aged just 16. He recalled playing football and cricket with him in a park in Ladywell.
Mr Simpson said that he will have a short opening ceremony for the mural with a couple of speakers and a microphone on Saturday afternoon.