Layla Haidrani

‘Growing up in Hackney, I didn’t have the easiest start to life. My dad wasn’t around and I got mixed up with the wrong crowd. When I was 16, my brother and I were taken in by social services. By the time I was 21 I had already been in and out of prison, started taking hard drugs and become homeless. Being on the streets was tough, frightening and cold. I found out about nearby soup runs thanks to The Pavement, a free magazine for rough sleepers. I’d go to day centres at 6am for showers, spend a few hours there, walk to a soup kitchen and then on to the next place. For eight years, I went to church and tried to change my life, but I had to stop going when I felt that certain people were trying to control me. The only way I knew how to survive was to go back to my old life. Soon enough I had lost the place I was staying in, was back on drugs and ended up back behind bars. After I came out of prison, I became a Big Issue vendor in Russell Square and Mayfair. After living in a hostel for a year and a half, I got the keys to an assured tenancy in Islington. Finally, I was referred to the Single Homeless Project charity. They gave me a wonderful support worker, Amanda, who believed in me before I could even believe in myself. And she was the one who referred me to HCT Group, a social enterprise that was offering me the opportunity to train as a bus driver. I was scared! I hadn’t driven for 13 years, my licence had expired and I was worried about my criminal record. But it wasn’t l

Artist and craftsperson Carrie Reichardt has spent almost 20 years transforming her house on a quiet Chiswick street into a mosaic-covered wonder… ‘I’ve always turned to art as a form of personal therapy, and after a mental health crisis in 1995, making art became an important way to deal with my emotions. I discovered mosaicking, finding it so meditative that I switched my fine art practice to include crafts. Then, in 2000, my partner encouraged me to mosaic the patio of our Chiswick house, and I made the decision to mosaic the entire house. I started with the entrance around the door, creating a design based on the Indian textiles that I’d encountered as a community artist working in Southall. After that I worked on the lower sections of the front of the house, then the back wall facing on to the garden, helped by my colleagues from community arts collective Living Space Arts. My art practice changed in the early 2000s when I started writing to Luis Ramirez, who was on death row in the US. I was so traumatised by his execution in 2005 that I worked on a mosaic tribute to him on the back wall for eight months. It was unveiled on what would have been Luis’s forty-third birthday and we closed the street when his family came to see it. That was the first moment I used arts and crafts as a tool for activism and political protest. It was my only way of dealing with the injustice: if I was going to make art, I may as well make it meaningful. Whenever you create public art, there’s

Denzil Forrester lived and painted in Hackney for 49 years, capturing the rhythms of its underground nightclubs – and the impact on the area of police brutality… ‘I arrived in London from Grenada in 1967 when I was eleven-and-a-half. It was like being thrown in the deep end. I had to wait about six months before I could go to school, so I stayed at home with my mum helping her make bags in a basement in Stoke Newington. At school, there were only a few other boys from the West Indies. Being in a class full of people who didn’t look like me took about a year to get used to. After school, I got on to the Central School of Art and Design foundation course. It was one of the most memorable times in my life. I lived in a squat on Clissold Road in Stoke Newington. I was one of the first generation of black art students and I had great support from my tutors. This experience was made possible by a full government grant – something that no longer exists. Music and dance were, and still are, my main source of inspiration. And I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time: Hackney in the ’80s. I had access to all the major dub ‘blues’ (underground parties) and nightclubs: Phebes, All Nations and Four Aces. For the first time, I was in a big space with dub reggae playing at full volume. It was a piece of heaven on earth.   Denzil Forrester   I began to bring my sketchbook, A1 paper and drawing equipment. The clubs were dark and smoky, but I didn’t care what the people looked

Shawarmas may be standard fare for the city’s 3am crew, but the Lebanese-London connection runs deeper than kebab shops. After seeking refuge during the 1970s civil war, the Lebanese diaspora first settled in the Edgware Road, setting up long-established eateries and earning it the name ‘Little Beirut’. Westminster may have the highest concentration of Arabic speakers in the capital, but thriving Lebanese communities now exist in Kilburn, Northolt and Ealing too. There’s more to Lebanese culture than food, of course, but breaking bread could be an Olympic sport for Lebanese Londoners, such is their devotion to hospitality. Baba ghanoush, aubergine, pomegranates and artichokes have been mainstays of Lebanese food long before wellness bloggers cottoned on to the Mediterranean diet, and they look just as good on your Instagram as they taste. No wonder Londoners have taken to Beirut-style cooking with such gusto. Layla Haidrani Did you know? The Lebanese-owned Al Saqi in Westbourne Grove was the first Arabic bookshop in London. It’s known for publishing books that are considered taboo in some Arab countries. Layla’s favourite Lebanese spots in London   A photo posted by Elaine Lau (@lainelau) on Jan 5, 2017 at 8:40am PST For street-style Beirut food and drink, try Yalla Yalla. They import wine from the Bekka Valley and there’s a whole menu of arak, the Levantine version of anis. Hit an art auction at the British Lebanese Association, set up in 1984 to encourage friendship be