How rich and poor rallied together to help people of Grenfell Tower in their desperate hour of need
Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Below the blackened tower they answered the call to help.
Young women in headscarves, old ladies with trolleys, well-heeled women from the affluent streets beyond and people with barely anything to give at all. All joining a massive grassroots relief effort on the streets of Kensington.
You will find all of human life in North Kensington, and it turns out, deep humanity too.
“This is London,” Rev Mark O’Donoghue told me outside St Clements Church, transformed overnight into a refuge.
(Photo: John Nguyen/JNVisuals)
“Our diocese has the most eye-wateringly expensive homes in the capital and some of the most deprived areas.
“In there you will see people who have been evacuated represent both those communities – and you will see the people helping come from both those communities, rich and poor. People coming together in the most extraordinary way.”
Some of the donations received would only happen in Kensington.
Stella McCartney ’s chef had delivered 300 meals, volunteers told me. Global asset management company Marshall Wace had 338 pasta salads boxed up individually and sent from Sloane Square.
(Photo: Adam Gerrard/Daily Mirror)
At St Clements, they were as gratefully received as the boxes of bananas and apricots coming in from market stalls and the modest contents of people’s cupboards.
All around the flapping blue and white tape of the cordon, scenes of quiet, practical kindness­ and old-fashioned Blitz spirit contrasted with the horrific inferno raging above, as firefighters wrestled the continuing blaze.
(Photo: Barcroft Media)
At the Portobello Rugby Club where families who had lost loved ones were gathered, a distraught elderly Muslim woman sat weeping on a plastic chair in the shade, watching food and water being delivered.
She told me she was looking for her sister. “Pray she will be found,” she said, as a young white woman volunteer gave her a hug.
Outside the Westway Sports Centre, transformed into another sanctuary, trestle tables sagged with clothes and food there was no room for inside. Nappies, flipflops, baby milk, soap, clothes, bags of oranges, all under a handwritten sign – ‘Those in need please help yourselves’. By lunchtime, donations had spread to cover the tennis courts.
A father feeding his toddler son a donated sandwich told me how grateful the families were.
“I am waiting for news of my parents’ in-laws,” he said. “We haven’t been able to ring them, They were on the 11th floor. We have heard nothing. My wife is running around. We are broken.”
(Photo: Barcroft Media)
Inside, gymnastics mats were on the floor of its main hall, where Alex Russell, from the Westway Trust, said those trying to process the night’s events could rest.
Families seeking cool and quiet away from the headache-inducing smoke from the still-burning block had not stopped pouring in by late afternoon. Across the other side of the cordon, St Clements, a church old enough to remember when North Kensington was piggeries and potteries, was not just supporting bereaved, separated and homeless families, but the emergency services too.
Rev O’Donoghue had led a small group of clergy beyond the cordon earlier in the day to offer prayers and “just a presence” among the fire fighters.“You can’t imagine what they do,” he said. “What we are doing here is nothing. They are out taking a short break then going back into that heat and danger.”
(Photo: Reuters)
Above him, against the clearness of the bright blue day, the smoke rose like a stain above the stubby tower blocks of West London.
I asked about the questions now facing the local council. “The church is about two things - truth and love,” he said. “Truth will come later. I know people are angry and it
is a hot day, but today should be
about love.”
A young priest returning from the same expedition said the firefighters were shattered, soaking wet and mostly silent. “One told me it was the worst thing he had ever seen in his whole career,” he said.
Outside the church, I found Kai Singh from Sikh charity Basics of Sikhi delivering­ crates of water. Mr Singh said he and colleagues had chosen not to go into work in Southall, but to come straight to Kensington instead.
(Photo: PA)
“We are here to do anything that’s needed. Our faith teaches us to act when people are in need.”
St Clements has been inundated with help from supermarkets, clothes shops, local businesses. At the back door, chefs from Argentian restaurant Casa Cruz, still in their whites, were delivering boxes of water and oranges. Catherine Lindsay had been there since 3.30am when the church’s doors opened to the hundreds of people milling about homeless­ and frightened on the street.
“At 4.30, the first donation arrived – 40 blankets and bags of clothes from a Muslim charity,” she said.
Running the community centre there meant she knew many families from Grenfell Tower. “One Syrian family I know who live there, the mother and one child are in hospital, but at least the whole family is alive.”
A woman who had been fed at the church told me she was in total shock. “I am terrified to know what has happened to my friends,” she said. “People were jumping from windows, asking for help, screaming for help! ”
(Photo: Getty)
At the Westway, where smoke from the tower was trapped by the flyover, a young Irish woman delivering clothes asked to use the toilet. “It’s taken three hours to get here,” she said.
The nearby Griffin Gallery, Collart, an art materials company, was offered colouring and drawing for kids, “comfy chairs and toilets, wifi
and phone chargers”.
At Frances Assissi Church they were sending donations that arrived by the bag and trolley load every minute to other churches and leisure centres. “We are completely full with donations,” polite volunteers told other volunteers. “Try the other centres.”
Queens Park Rangers football club opened up its stadium a mile away to provide tea and shelter, and act as a donation point for clothes and bedding.
(Photo: PA)
Jeremy Clarkson gave his entire wardrobe­. Jamie Oliver invited people to shelter in his Westfield restaurant. Lily Allen offered her home. And hundreds of others did exactly the same.
Back at Portobello Rugby Club I saw a woman rush and grab her friend. “You are here! You are here! I was so worried!” Both women burst into floods of tears.
But later, I saw the woman I had seen first at the rugby club being led into the quiet refuge of St Clements Church, weeping uncontrollably. Her relative nodded to my unspoken question. “Yes, they found her sister,” she said.
HOW TO HELP
(Photo: Getty)
You can drop off any donations of clothes, blankets, toiletries, toys and phone chargers at...
St Clement’s Church, Sirdar Road, W11 4EQ, Rugby Portobello Trust Walmer Road, W11 4EY, Tabernacle Christian Centre, Jubilee House, Latimer Road, W10 6QY, and Central Guduara, W11 4SG.
JustGiving has set up a Grenfell Tower page https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/categories/emergencies/grenfell-tower-fire
If you’re worried about somebody who is missing, call the Casualty Bureau on 0800 096 1233 .