Crime
“The manager asked me if I wanted to have overtime to do some work on the Beaumont Estate of an evening. I think they approached me because no one else wanted to manage it. I said I'd do it because I was keen and enthusiastic. I was given a sheet of residents that I had to visit. At the time there were three tower blocks. I was aware that people had died in the lifts. I was trying to blend in so that if I saw any local youths maybe they'd think I lived there. I kept all my paperwork in my pocket so they didn't think I was someone official. I got into the lift and it stunk of urine. I was going to the 9th floor but the lift stopped on the 3rd and about 3 or 4 youths came in with their hoods up.. ..and it seemed to take forever to get to the 9th floor where I was going. I was just looking down thinking come on, hurry up. When it got to my floor it was such a relief. I think a lot of the residents were pleased to see someone outside office hours trying to assist them because 99% of them said nobody had been out to them before. Some of them were talking to me about their other problems too, like the stabbings, the cockroaches, the mice etc. They were more concerned with all these issues. A lot of them refused to pay the rent because of the conditions they were living in. I was in that lift and I couldn't wait to get out of it“
Richard Southall

“We were playing a game called run outs. I was running and climbed onto one of the bungalows, them small houses where old people lived and they can detect any sound I mean really, so I was on the roof crawling and one old woman climbed out and saw me and said,

“Leyton Manor Park was the site of Leyton Manor School for Girls. It was a mixed infants and juniors until 1948. George Mitchell was all boys and Leyton Manor was all girls. All the boys from George Mitchell would be lined up against the railings waiting for the girls to come out. They didn't need biology lessons then! It stopped being a secondary school and it was empty for years”
Steering group

The Forest Community Centre
(now the Seddon Centre), Beaumont Road
“They would knock on your door every Sunday and ask you for your 40 pence donation towards getting a Community Centre built. It was December 1976 that the social club opened and we used to pay £5 a year to join. It was fantastic because if you couldn't get a baby sitter you could take your children and there'd be discos and bands and there'd be bingo on a Sunday night and loads of events - youth club, darts, pool matches etc. It was a proper community place”
Linda Bleach

“We played at Brooks Farm and in the street. In summer our next door neighbours would bring out their bikes and we would ride up and down the street. We used to go to the park. There's a shop next to it, to buy ice creams and everything, so we were all together like, in the summer”
Zanib, 15yrs old