wed 15 nov

The BBC came to the street today. They’re following up on last year’s visit when a presenter prowled the street below us waving up at us in our rooftop eyrie. They ask us what we want to be called – ‘artist and filmmaker’. We’ll probably be labelled activists but that’s better than the ‘Filmmaker Dan and his wife’ or ‘Mum and Dad in rooftop solar battle’ of last year. I’m busy making signs to take to the school gates later. ‘EVERY SCHOOL A POWER STATION ‘ PEOPLE POWER ‘SUN POWER….

Dan is in his grandmother mode making sure everyone is fed and watered well. They chat BBC and bias. The fiction of neutrality. The inability to speak out. To see things as they are. About being berated for working for the BBC due to their reporting on Gaza. The myth of BBC impartiality. Sangi from Solar for Schools is here – she talks of being a climate activist in Mumbai. She is able to call out genocide.  But they are here to talk to people about how they feel about having solar panels four months on from their installation on the street in June.  

They interview neighbour Chi. We’ve already filmed with him today – a moment of beauty. Chi has just turned 70. Originally from Hong Kong, he’s lived on this street for over 20 years. Gruff, left wing and with one of my favourite dogs around. He plays the saxophone and has agreed to serenade us on film as we record all the layered parts of what will become the ‘Bread and Roses’ track and music video. It is a song about the need to fight for and defend both sustenance and beauty. He plays on his doorstep and then in the middle of the street, the falling leaves reflecting the golden tone of his instrument.  He’s wearing the wellington boots he says his wife Gina hates and it is beautiful.

 It’s coming together – this song that involves so many voices, so many separate shots that the edit timeline is a vast complexity. More neighbours have agreed to sing from their doors and windows and Pippa and Dylan are rehearsing the harp and tin whistle.  Last year on the rooftop we had a few ‘rooftop sessions’ – our friend Gina singing out across the terraces.  We’re not suddenly turning our documentary into a musical but this song calls to our mission and is a way of bringing people together in some form of joy and solidarity.  Singing and social movements often intertwine. Bread and Roses is a women’s rights and wider labour movement classic echoing across history. Other chants and rallying cries join it from ‘There is Power in an Union’ (written by Joe Hill in 1913, but popularized by Billy Bragg’s 1986 album ‘Talking With the Taxman about Poetry’.) to Pete Seegar’s ‘Solidarity Forever’ (original version Ralph Chaplin 1915). On the streets we sing out a call and response of ‘People’ - ‘Power’, flash mob climate choirs congregate in museums tainted by fossil fuel money (Science Museum) and Fossil Free London interrupt Shell’s AGM singing ‘Go to Hell, Shell.’

At 3pm we make our way through the rapidly darkening leaf strewn streets to Barn Croft Primary School. The first box of solar panels is being craned onto the rooftop and today’s the day we put the call out for people to gather outside the school gates to celebrate. Last year, when the plan to raise the money to make this happen was only just beginning we shared a similar call and children held aloft banners with ‘FUND OUR SCHOOL’ ‘EDUCATION IS A RIGHT’…. . This time they say ‘ SOLAR SCHOOL’ ‘FINALLY!’ but we’re uncertain if anyone will join. Bleakness and despair are infiltrating. Which is why these moments are even more important – to resist despondency and to double down on the things you can do to make change and connect. Luckily, ponytailed parent Rich is a march aficionado and ally and we soon rally enough children and parents to take over the road outside the school with smoke grenades and anarchic marching up and down shouting ‘Every School A Power Station.’ It is a good day.

Here. but not there.

Here our government vote on life and death.  Valiant attempts at amendments to call for an immediate ceasefire are outvoted. The streets of Whitehall are full of people calling on our government to do the right thing in the face of such slaughter. But no. Party politics, obfuscation, accusation. Politicians are quick to appear with ‘sensible’ excuses and faux concern in front of the Union Jack but as Howard Zinn states “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”

I feel deep revulsion. Exhaustion. Nothing in comparison to the suffering of others. Somalia floods. Bombed, traumatised and mourning, sleep deprived and surviving for now - Gazan civilian men are asked by Al Jazeera ‘What will you do after this?” ‘sleep’, ‘sleep for days’, ‘rest for a long time’ come the answers.

I sleep furiously and dream of rubble.