The Children of Grenfell

They would not have known, 
the children of Grenfell, 
What caused the fire that night. 
How could they? 

Why would they know 
that despite the rich of the land 
already being very rich, 
they had cried to be even richer, 
so the government had gone to their rescue 
(they love doing that for their own) 
and slashed their way through taxes and 
local authority budgets and 
profit-restricting red tape 
with the fervour of prince charming 
hacking his way through 
a wildly overgrown forest 
to get to his princess, 
all to reach unneeded treasures  
that they could hoard 
for themselves and their friends? 
Austerity, they had called it. 
Belt-tightening for all. 
Words they had uttered so easily 
alongside promises that Big Britain 
would step in to plug the gaps 
left by cuts to public funding 
(and, presumably, holes 
in tower block walls.) 

How could the children 
have had any idea 
about the parliament 
stuffed with landlords 
that vote against safety 
because all they ever want is to see 
their income from property 
rise higher than ever before? 
(Higher and faster than flames 
engulfing a second-class building, 
made to contain second-class people 
in the most cost-effective way, 
of course). 
How could those children 
have been aware that the 
flawed place they called home 
was constructed from 
structural inequality, 
institutional racism, 
the politics of poverty? 
How would they know that 
because they were born 
into the wrong skin, 
onto the wrong floor, 
on the wrong side of the postcode, 
their lives were deemed not worth 
two pounds per panel more? 
And that the work done on their block 
was not for their protection, 
but to shield the eyes 
of their wealthy neighbours 
to stop them becoming sore 
from having to look upon 
the deserving poor? 
(If those neighbours had a way 
to clad the unsightly people 
as they had the unsightly building, 
they would have done it, 
for sure). 

The children of Grenfell 
would not have known any of this. 
How could they? 
Their still-innocent lives 
would have been spent 
believing that people cared, 
they mattered more than money, 
and – as they were taught to do so 
by their good parents – 
those blessed with more 
would have shared. 
The children that night 
would have waited and hoped 
for someone to come crashing 
through their door 
and carry them to safety 
as they had seen happen 
on Fireman Sam 
a thousand times before. 

But the children 
wouldn’t have known 
that austerity hadn’t visited 
the idyll of Pontypandy 
and its fire department 
had never compromised 
between preventive work 
and frontline capacity 
or implemented 
a deadly stay-put policy. 
And so they hoped and waited 
and trusted in a rescue 
that never came, 
and their families and friends, 
those that survived, 
were condemned to 
live out the rest of their lives 
trapped in flame-filled nightmares 
searching for them floor to floor, 
knowing all the while 
that those they sought to save 
were no more. 

The story behind the poem

The Grenfell Tower fire, in which 72 people died, happened in London on the 14th of June 2017. I wrote this in the days afterwards. Six years on, the aftermath continues and the government has still not done enough to support those left behind and to ensure there isn’t a repeat of this avoidable tragedy elsewhere. May the victims rest in peace and may justice be achieved for the survivors and the bereaved families, friends, and loved ones of those who lost their lives.