The Ferrier Estate in Kidbrooke, South London, was built by the GLC as social housing between 1968 and 1972 on the site of the former RAF Kidbrooke. It was designed by the London County Council architects of the time and used revolutionary construction techiques - concrete panels manufactured on-site. At the time, it was a futuristic design with big hopes for the future - people were excited to be living there. The site covered 270 acres and had over 2000 homes. These homes were a mix of highrise flats, split-level flats and terraced houses. As well as the flats and houses, there was a boiler house, a social centre, health centre, library, pub and shops.
But the utopian vision started to deteriorate from the mid-80s, crime increased and the Ferrier became a ghetto. In 2004, permission was granted to redevelop the whole estate and the compulsory purchase and re-housing of the residents began a year later. The flats and houses started to be demolished in March 2009, with the last official residents leaving the Telemann Square flats in 2011 (in November 2012, a number of squatters were living in the Telemann Square flats).
The last of the Ferrier was demolished in summer 2013 and has been replaced with less attractive and innovative flats and houses - with a small flat costing upwards of £200k.
I'll do a report on the whole estate at some point, but today I just want to show you one small flat of the 4000...
Visited with Immortal Owl
We were just poking round some empty flats in Ronald House, one of the highrise blocks. Looking for bits & bobs of interest - snippets of the lives of those who used to live there. Most of the flats we saw were unremarkable, with a handful of things of interest. We'd covered about 10 flats when we found this...
The immediate reaction was:
Are all the pictures of the same person?
Yes they are!
And there are loads of photo albums!
And they are full of pictures of this Mary Duff!
WE'VE GOT A STALKER!!!!!
So we started to dig through all the stuff left behind. It soon became apparent that the chap had two obsessions - Mary Duff and soft porn/Page 3. He had about 6 2" thick A4 folders full of pages cut out of porn mags and newspapers - all in wipe-clean plastic sleeves
Each folder was dedicated to a different girl so he must have bought a phenomenal amount over the years to amass such a collection.
But that was nothing compared to the amount of photos of Mary Duff.
Most of the photos in the albums seem to be photos taken at gigs - pretty much constantly throughout the performance. He even put out of focus shots in the albums. There were also photos which were clearly taken of videos while he was watching them on TV.
....and he kept and catalogued all the negatives.
And had scrapbooks full of concert tickets, fanclub letters etc.
In fact, he kept a list of all the times he'd seen Mary perform on stage
And typed it up
The list finished in 1995, on number 394. However, the books of concert tickets showed that he kept going to gigs after that date.
He also managed to get his photo taken with Mary a lot
Continued...
But the utopian vision started to deteriorate from the mid-80s, crime increased and the Ferrier became a ghetto. In 2004, permission was granted to redevelop the whole estate and the compulsory purchase and re-housing of the residents began a year later. The flats and houses started to be demolished in March 2009, with the last official residents leaving the Telemann Square flats in 2011 (in November 2012, a number of squatters were living in the Telemann Square flats).
The last of the Ferrier was demolished in summer 2013 and has been replaced with less attractive and innovative flats and houses - with a small flat costing upwards of £200k.
I'll do a report on the whole estate at some point, but today I just want to show you one small flat of the 4000...
Visited with Immortal Owl
We were just poking round some empty flats in Ronald House, one of the highrise blocks. Looking for bits & bobs of interest - snippets of the lives of those who used to live there. Most of the flats we saw were unremarkable, with a handful of things of interest. We'd covered about 10 flats when we found this...
The immediate reaction was:
Are all the pictures of the same person?
Yes they are!
And there are loads of photo albums!
And they are full of pictures of this Mary Duff!
WE'VE GOT A STALKER!!!!!
So we started to dig through all the stuff left behind. It soon became apparent that the chap had two obsessions - Mary Duff and soft porn/Page 3. He had about 6 2" thick A4 folders full of pages cut out of porn mags and newspapers - all in wipe-clean plastic sleeves
Each folder was dedicated to a different girl so he must have bought a phenomenal amount over the years to amass such a collection.But that was nothing compared to the amount of photos of Mary Duff.
Most of the photos in the albums seem to be photos taken at gigs - pretty much constantly throughout the performance. He even put out of focus shots in the albums. There were also photos which were clearly taken of videos while he was watching them on TV.
....and he kept and catalogued all the negatives.
And had scrapbooks full of concert tickets, fanclub letters etc.
In fact, he kept a list of all the times he'd seen Mary perform on stage
And typed it up
The list finished in 1995, on number 394. However, the books of concert tickets showed that he kept going to gigs after that date.
He also managed to get his photo taken with Mary a lot
Continued...
