Living in the area

​

Ruti Aury and Myrna with their children Laila and Nahem first lived on Westbourne Park Road in a rented dilapidated house which was later demolished alongside hundreds nearby to make way for new council house estates.

"There were 10 wild cats living in the basement," Nahem

 

"We had a workroom on the first floor with a cutting table used sometimes for printing.

 

One day Aury dropped a wad of money he had withdrawn from the bank to pay the machinists who worked from their own places, None of us could find it amongst the piled high bits of fabric from off the cutting machine.  By chance, about a month later.I bent down and there beneath my feet found it". Myrna

​

Myrna & Ruti - "Opposite us on Westbourne Park Road were hippie community organisations that had sprung up.
Patchwork, The Bit cafe and Release and Gingerbread. These community organisation's premises were also demolished. So a rich community of people's lives were ruptured and uprooted. One of the rare times we ate out was at the community non profit  BIT cafe for locals and down and outs. Myrna and Ruti volunteered to cook there. Clive Chabrier set up The Bit Cafe".

​

Ruti - When we had to leave Westbourne Park Road as the area was being demolished we then took Shrewsbury Road over from a potter who rented the whole building again for an incredible low rent even for that time.
None of us were part of a consumer society. "Our kids clothes we got clothes from jumble sales, or they were hand me downs. There was a kind of pride in living simply. We furnished the place out from thrown out furniture left in the street or recycled. We didn’t go shopping. There wasn't a retro fashion trend. Beyond the current trend of Mary Quant and Biba who were the trend setters, we operated in a different way and mindset.