Keeping the Faith

As the government announces that schools should have the right to ban the Muslim veil, Harriet Shawcross visits a Hackney primary school that is proving the importance of keeping the faith.


There is a religious resurgence taking place in Hackney. On this bitterly cold March morning a Jehovah’s witness is handing out The Watchtower, as a rabbi whistles past on his bicycle, ringlets flying. An imam in floor length robes and a duffel coat emerges from the newsagent, only to be overtaken by hundreds of Muslim boys streaming noisily towards a smart semi-detached house.

“Stand back,” warns Mohammed Adia, as the boys crowd through the doorway. “There’s not much room.” This is Tawhid Boys School in Stoke Newington, a fee-paying Muslim school of 100 pupils. Life at the school is cramped: there is no library, canteen, or IT facilities, and teaching takes place in the converted bedrooms of a Victorian terraced house.

The battle for more space has been a long one. After six years of faltering negotiations, last month the council agreed to re-start talks over the purchase of new premises on Belfast Road, behind the existing Stoke Newington site. Mohammed Adia, chief pastor at the school, is overjoyed: “Imagine what we could do,” he says, gesturing wildly towards the window. “This is a wonderful decision.”

The expansion is long overdue: there are 218 boys on the waiting list for Tawhid, and no way of squeezing them into the already over-crowded classrooms. But the extension has not been universally applauded, and many fear that the expansion of faith schools like Tawhid will breed nothing but division, fundamentalism and insularity.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, is a vociferous opponent of faith schools. “This is the last thing we need,” he sighs. “Schools like this encourage splits and divisions in the community. Children from different backgrounds need to get to know each other on a day to day basis from an early age. Once the barriers of suspicion between communities have developed it is very hard to break them down. Faith schools emphasise the differences between communities,” he continues, “rather than showing them what they have in common. The expansion of faith schools is a disaster waiting to happen.”

And yet inside Tawhid there is not a whiff of insularity. Colourful displays about Shakespeare’s Globe and mosques in Somalia compete for wall space, and Turkish, Urdu, Somali, English and Arabic can be heard across the playground. The school itself is also situated in the heart of an orthodox Jewish community. “It’s like the West Bank in London,” Mr Adia jokes. “Only there’s no hostility here. We play football against Simon Marx [a Jewish primary school] up the road. It’s no problem.” He is keen to point out that his students are not cloistered away from the community. “People see us,” he says. “We go to the mosque to pray everyday, and whenever the boys go to the corner shop I tell them: be nice, say please and thank you. You never know,” he continues, “maybe one day someone will notice their good behaviour, and might want to learn more about Islam.”

Given the overwhelmingly Jewish population of Cazenove Road, this seems like wishful thinking. But the local community has supported the school’s bid for expansion wholeheartedly. “They’re lovely people,” says local rabbi and Lib Dem Councillor Joseph Strauber. “They deserve to run their own school. People are always playing on the differences between Judaism and Islam, but I say we’re both brothers of Abraham, or maybe cousins, once removed. The fact is we want the same things. A Muslim once told me; ‘We choose to live here because your children will not corrupt our children.’ I think that’s very true. We are both looking for a moral education for our young.”

Mr Adia prides himself on the moral instruction at Tawhid. Although the school’s academic record is not impressive, with only 55 per cent of pupils achieving five GCSEs at grades A-C, he believes the moral curriculum is second to none. “What we are trying to do here,” he says, “Is teach the boys to treat each other like human beings; living people created by God. We try to teach them Muslim values like forgiveness, modesty and respect for women. There has been a real deterioration in education in this country. Discipline is missing, respect for parents is not there. We are trying to bring these things back.”

But Dr Neil Burtonwood, a senior lecturer in Education at Leeds University, believes there is a sinister side to this moral instruction. “It is certainly possible that faith-based schooling will encourage the growth of sub-national identities,” he says. He believes that by teaching children Muslim values, and only employing Muslim staff, schools like Tawhid run the risk of creating an insular student base, who consider themselves Muslim rather than British. This process is exacerbated by the demonisation of the Muslim community in the tabloid press. “Under conditions of stigmatisation communities will look inwards for security and identity. Faith schools are part of that.”

At the mention of Muslim identity Mr Adia raises his hands to heaven: “I’m born and bred in Hackney,” he says, “I’m not from Afghanistan; I went to Hackney Downs School. I’m a British citizen, and I’m proud to be British - but what’s so wrong with being Muslim? The situation here is getting worse and worse. Just last month my cousin had her veil pulled off her head on the bus.” He sighs: “Everyone should have the right to practice their religion. In many countries Muslims are denied that. But that is what’s so wonderful about Britain - we have freedom of religion. It’s about time people started standing up for that.”

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Watching the weight

Women huddle together for warmth in a church hall – it’s almost reminiscent of a scene in a developing country. But these women aren’t starving, and this is not a city devastated by war. No, this is a Weight Watchers meeting, writes Pamela Welsh



It’s seven o’clock on a cold March evening and St Anne’s Hall, off Hoxton Street, has been hijacked by these people desperate to lose weight. The hall had been used for a children’s playgroup earlier in the morning. There are grubby fingerprints on the wall from tiny hands, and a sign on the wall proclaims colourfully: “Today it will be cold.” It is cold today; it’s snowing. The faithful plod in, shaking themselves down like wet dogs, and resignedly take their place at the end of the long queue.

The queue of women stretches like a snake around the small room, waiting to pay their £5 membership fee. They are mostly dressed in black, the colour they say you should wear if you are slimming. The queue shuffles slowly past a table covered in Weight Watchers merchandise, like filing past a coffin lying in state, mourning the loss of the confectionary and chocolate they once could have tucked into guilt free. Hungry eyes ogle the low fat crisps, but it’s not the same. Where are the Golden Wonder crisps when you need them?

Weight Watchers is a modern phenomenon, attended by hundreds of men, women and children in the UK. Its quirks and nuances have entered our lexicon, and our culture has even begun to parody the weekly meetings and weigh-ins that have become synonymous with it – think Marjorie Dawes in Little Britain, with her tough fat-fighting attitudes and scathing remarks.

It is the most high profile and highly attended of all the slimming clubs in the UK, but it sprang from humble roots. In the early 60s, New Yorker Jean Nidetch discovered that the best way to control her weight was to eat normal food and talk to friends and other people who could understand and support her. Jean invited some friends to join her in following a medical diet recommended to her by a hospital dietician, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Since then the company has continued to expand: in the UK alone over 6,000 meetings are now held each week by a Weight Watchers leader who has also lost weight successfully with the group.

Back in St Anne’s Hall there are scared looks on all the faces waiting for the weigh-in. “I’ve been really bad this week,” one woman says, her eyes fixed on the scales with an expression of horror. Although the scales are designated a private area, you can tell the fortunes of all the women by their faces as they step off. An elated woman turns to her friend and whispers “I lost two pounds!” Another, who is wearing a mini-skirt in an effort to weigh less, looks crestfallen.

But it’s time for the meeting to start. Dee’s high pitched voice rings out around the room. She hands round her home-made fat-free chocolate brownies. Devoid of fat, they taste like they contain dust instead of anything appetising. “You can find the recipe in this cookbook,” she says enthusiastically. “It’s only £20.”

It’s toe-curlingly embarrassing. “It was Mother’s Day this week,” our new instructor, Dee, tells us all. There are around 25 women in the room, most of whom are under 30. The older women look at each other and laugh: “I got a massive breakfast in bed,” one woman with a broad Cockney accent says guiltily. “Ooh, it had everything. There were sausages, bacon and eggs. And I had a kebab last night.”

Dee laughs and says she knows how she feels. She points at the picture that she has pasted onto the cardboard at the front of the hall. “This was me, when I was fat.” It is unrecognisable.

For all the embarrassment and the artificial atmosphere in the room, this makes it all seem real. This is what people put themselves through this for. Dee is now a size ten, but it has taken hard work. Her self-esteem suffered and she wanted to feel better about herself. And while it is very easy to make fun of her and all the women who sit looking at her, my heart goes out to them.

The Weight Watchers system works by using a formula to assign food a points value. This is worked out using the calories and the saturated fats – an apple, for example, has half a point. Your daily points allowance is worked out by taking into consideration your weight, age and activity levels, leaving the average women with around twenty points to play with each day. You can earn more by doing more. An hour at the gym is worth another three apples.

Despite the overload of cheesiness, Dee does impart some interesting information. Did you know that half your daily points allowance can be consumed by a large hot chocolate from Starbucks? There’s a collective intake of breath around the room. “No!” says one woman incredulously.

But Dee is right. She goes on about how it’s important to plan your food – nibbling makes you fat, you know. We play a game, totting up the fat in a McDonalds, and it’s actually quite fun. And yes, maybe it’s excruciating for the newcomer, but for the seasoned WeightWatcher, the meeting is a vital part of their week.

These women are genuinely glad to see each other and there is a community spirit in the hall – they have a common goal and a shared understanding. Dee stands up and leaves us with the ambiguous sentence, “I hope to see a lot less of you next week.”

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PROFILE: Audrey Villas, aka Tenant's Association fixer extraordinaire

Audrey Villas’ time is precious. Her phone bleats for her attention every few minutes, and harassed colleagues pester her about the issues of the day: paper shredders and graffiti. As the head of Arden Estate Tenants’ Association (TA) she is on call for up to 12 hours at a time, fielding enquiries from disgruntled residents and exasperated council members, writes Harriet Shawcross

She sighs: “It’s no wonder I have heart problems is it? It never bloody stops here.”
Audrey has worked for the TA for the past 29 years, tirelessly campaigning to improve life on the estate. She proudly catalogues the door entry systems, CCTV and football pitch, which have come into being as a result of her efforts. “I just want this to be the best estate around,” she says.
But these successes have come at a price. Audrey suffers from stress related heart disease, and although she is fast approaching retirement age she rarely leaves the office, which has taken on the air of a makeshift sitting room, littered with smiling ornaments and family photos. She gestures proudly at the bright blue walls. “I painted those myself,” she says. “I was here till midnight every night, just to make it look nice.”
Despite her obvious dedication, Audrey downplays her achievements, claiming: “I’ve always liked helping people, ever since I was a little girl.” While at school in Stoke Newington she worked three part time jobs to help support her family, until she was forced to leave school at 14. She smiles: “It seems stupid now, but I had trodden on a rusty nail a few weeks before the final exams, and it had gone septic. I could barely walk, let alone hobble all the way to school, and as we could not afford the bus fare I missed the exams.” With no possibility of retakes, Audrey was forced to leave full time education with no qualifications and few prospects.
She fell pregnant at 17, and hastily married her childhood sweetheart. The marriage lasted a year, and at 18 Audrey found herself a divorcee and single mother. “We were far too young,” she says. “He left me when I was five months pregnant, because he was a gambler.” But rather than wallowing in self-pity Audrey carried on working to support her seven siblings. “We’re very close,” she says, “and we always made time for one another”.
But within a year Audrey was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The strain of supporting her young son had become too much. “I think my body just gave up,” she says. “That’s when I woke up to the fact that you can’t solve everybody’s problems. There’s just one of me and there’s only so much I can do.”
This early realisation resonates with her current work at the Arden Estate. Despite her dedication Audrey has received death threats and hate mail from angry residents, and has recently been accused of accepting “backhanders” from Hackney Council. At the mention of this she visibly prickles, and her breathing becomes strained. “I feel like I have been stabbed in the back by the community,” she says. “I work so hard here, but you see me as I am, I don’t suck up to anyone, so people get offended. The fact is you can’t please everybody.”
So how would Audrey Villas like to be remembered when she retires from the TA? She pauses before leaving to answer another phone call, “I don’t want high acclaims, or to be praised,” she says, “all I want is for people to say, she tried.”

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Making the Grade: a Primary Concern

Education in Hackney is not one of the borough's strong points. But recently a Stoke Newington primary school has been doing its best to buck the trend, as Liz Gyekye reports.

Hackney does not evoke images of educational success. It is one of the most deprived areas of the country, which is notorious for its teenage gangs, and is, according to Channel Four, the worst place to live in London.

It is no surprise then to learn that its state schools consistently under perform, with only 47 per cent of pupils achieving five GCSEs at grades A-C. Last week the Hackney Post revealed that the borough’s primary schools also score some of the worst results in London, despite significant government funding.

Yet, at Grasmere Primary School in Stoke Newington, black pupils are doing well. There are 240 children on the school roll, 13 per cent of whom are Afro Caribbean. It is ranked fourth in the borough, and its test scores are well above the national average.

The school has achieved its success by introducing an intensive programme of mentoring, showcasing the achievements of JP Morgan employees. A substantial government Ethnic Minority Grant (EMG) helped fund these initiatives.

Grassmere head teacher Mark Derrington explains his success: “News reports consistently say that boys of Afro Caribbean origin are underperforming, but in our school they perform very well” he says, “Targeted programmes like the EMG are taking us in the right direction.

“We are instilling a belief in each child that he or she can do well. We involve the parents a lot. We also get the boys to ask what they want to be doing when they are older, and we then tell them the routes they should be taking to become that successful 23 year old.”

Statistics show that boys from Afro Caribbean heritage start school at average academic levels, but begin to fall behind when they reach GCSEs. In 2006 just over 44 per cent of black Caribbean pupils gained five good GCSEs, compared with 57 per cent of their white counterparts.

Diane Abbot, MP for Stoke Newington and North Hackney, believes male role models can help improve Afro Caribbean boys’ performance. “We need to have more men in primary schools,” she says, “and we also need more black teachers. Many of these boys are coming from homes where there's no father figure. They don't see education and reading of books as something that a real man does. I believe more male role models at the primary school level are the key.”

But some argue that not enough emphasis is laid on the successes of black children. Alan Wood, Chief Executive of The Learning Trust, says: “Far too often when we talk about black children we talk about negatives. We fail to understand that so many are successful. Good teaching and dynamic leadership is the key to success. Black children do well in schools that are successful. Most successful schools are the ones with the highest parent input.”

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PROFILE: Janet Williams, owner of 'The Crib' Youth Club

Janet Williams has been running 'The Crib' Youth Club in De Beauvoir since its conception in 1999. She tells Chloe Lambert how her own experiences as a teenager inspired her to help the young people in some of Hackney's worst estates.

In November, in the early hours of a Sunday morning, a young man called Darren was shot as he walked with a friend through Hackney. As a silver car sped off he staggered across the street and collapsed in a pub doorway. Two young women knelt at his side and tried to stop the bleeding from the hole in his chest. But he died from shock and trauma a few hours later, aged 20.

Janet Williams spoke to Darren just last week when he turned up at one of her youth clubs. Now she will watch him be buried.

We are sitting in our coats on plastic stools, in a kitchen on a Hackney estate. She leans forward, looks out at the cold, dark sky and says: “Sometimes I don’t feel like going to work because you don’t know who won’t be turning up.”

Janet has been running The Crib since it was set up seven years ago to work with Hackney’s most excluded young people. Many are what Janet calls “latchkey kids”, bringing themselves up from an early age because their alcoholic or drug-addicted parents cannot cope.

“Some of them just turn up and go to sleep” she says. The project has expanded to offer everything from sexual health clinics to housing advice to weekends in Blackpool.

Janet was drawn to youth work after her own shocking childhood experiences on these very estates forty years ago. “My father was an abuser, physically and the other way,” she begins, flashing a mouthful of teeth that gleam against her dark skin.

She left school at 14, pregnant and barely able to read or write. Having had her second child by the age of 16, she fell into crime and an abusive relationship with a crack addict. After running away to America, she returned to Hackney and threw herself into helping the gangs of children she found sitting on stairwells. She says: “I looked around and thought: there’s nothing for young people here.”

The kids call Janet when they are arrested, when they are in court, when they are pregnant, when they want to leave home. Our conversation is interrupted almost every ten minutes by the vibrations on her mobile. She chatters noisily down the phone in the Patois slang used by kids across the city, hangs up and resumes telling her stories at the same breakneck speed.

“They still trust us because we go that extra mile. We don’t refer them on to somewhere else. We don’t treat them like a piece of paper.”

Despite many success stories, the Crib has faced hardship. Darren’s funeral is not the first that Janet has attended, and she is sure it will not be the last. Two years ago Hackney Council shut down the project and sold off its premises for luxury flats.

Janet began holding sessions in her flat. “No one listened to us. But then they realised what we’d been doing because the offending rates in the area started going up. So then they gave us another place. And around the same time my husband died.” A recovered crack addict, he threw himself off a tower block.

The way she drops these personal tragedies into the conversation, the way she squirms to get onto another subject, reveal another side to her extraordinary selflessness.

Perhaps her round the clock devotion to these children’s demons allows her to escape from her own. Her eyelids flicker and she looks solemnly across the room. The mobile vibrates again.

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GANGS SPECIAL: 'The Crib' Youth Club

This week, the Post continues its investigation into Hackney's gang culture. Chloe Lambert ventures deep into the De Beauvoir estate and discovers a youth club known only as 'the Crib'.

Tucked between towering housing blocks, concrete walls and patches of dirty green grass is the Crib.

Since 1999 it has been an open door to Hackney’s most excluded young people. It is a pool hall, a football club, a beauty salon, a dance studio. Above all, it is a place to go.

On a warm Tuesday afternoon the Crib is deserted. Hip-hop is floating out of the doorway. Scott, who runs football training with the boys, is standing outside with a pool cue. He squints as the sun slips down towards the city skyline. “It’s this weather; they’re all over at the park,” he says with a grin.

Within an hour boys and girls are trickling through the doorway. The staff have been walking round the estates rounding them up. Young women relax on chairs near the entrance, enjoying the last of the sun. They talk quietly about a comedy sketch they have written, which is to be filmed and taken to the Edinburgh festival.

A group of boys are tapping pool balls around the table, chatting into their mobiles and arguing about who is the fittest. This year they are going to Amsterdam with the Crib to play in a football tournament.

In grey hoodies, baggy jeans and baseball hats, these boys are the very same that are seen next to headlines about Hackney’s “child soldiers”, “gang culture” and “gun crime”. They yell “hello” in my direction, and come and sit down.

Junior is candid about the tough life he leads outside the Crib. He moved to this area two years ago, leaving behind an estate where a life of crime was hard to avoid. “They say there’s 25 gangs in Hackney – it’s true. I know because I used to live that lifestyle. But I moved out because I nearly died.”

At 18 he has already been shot at three times and now wears a bullet-proof vest. “In some areas it doesn’t matter who you are. If they’re looking for someone about your age, they’re not going to bother coming up and asking if you’re the guy. They’ll just shoot you.”

Junior is hoping he will be scouted in Amsterdam. His friend Ade, 17, dreams of being an architect. They come to the Crib after college to train and get help with their homework. “There’s not enough to do round here,” says Ade, “School’s alright. It’s somewhere to escape, and so is the Crib.”

Janet Williams, who has been manager of the Crib since it was set up eight years ago, says it provides a neutral place for boys like Junior and Ade. “For a lot of them it’s the only place where they can be themselves and be safe. These people have been chucked out of everywhere else,” she says.

Janet set up the project in the hope of catching the kids that were hardest to reach.
Many have brought themselves up from an early age, their alcoholic or drug-addicted parents unable to cope. The Crib runs a number of projects aimed at improving community relations.

Last Sunday a group of kids cooked and served a roast dinner for elderly people living in the local area. Janet also pioneered the ‘Trading Places’ scheme, in which young people accompany Hackney police officers on the beat to see things from their perspective.

“Young people need a voice,” she says, “We teach them to stand up for themselves. But we also want older people to see that they are part of the solution.”

With guns and knives showing an increasing presence on Hackney’s streets, the need for a safe place for kids has never been greater. “The older guys get the younger ones to do their dirty work for them because they know the police won’t stop them” says Junior. “It’s young kids shooting people now. They think that’s what you’ve got to do to stay alive.”

In January this year, a petrol bomb was thrown into the small, ill-equipped building and ten computers were destroyed. Where young people did their homework and improved their CVs there is only a bare room of blackened walls and broken glass.

But the staff remain optimistic: “Sometimes I think, is it all worth it?” admits Janet, “But I know in my heart I’m doing the right thing. If I had to die for them, I would.”

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Tassle do nicely: Burlesque in Hackney

Bistrotheque in Hackney is leading the capital in bringing burlesque to the public, as well as attracting the best international acts around. Jane Fulcher donned her boa and sequins to discover one of London’s hidden gems.

Bistrotheque sits on a quiet, inconspicuous Hackney street opposite a cash and carry. It is hard to find amongst the council estates, scaffolding and boarded up windows. Walking past you would never know that inside was one of the most exciting, cutting edge venues in London.
Bistrotheque wasn’t the first venue to bring Cabaret and Burlesque back on to the chic side of London nightlife but it is the one that is doing it in a totally different way.
With popular acts such as the Lipsinkers, international acts like Baby Dee and minor Hoxton celebrities like Jonny Woo appearing, it’s clear that schlepping across London on the 388 bus isn’t enough to put people off.
And if the entertainment is not worth coming for, the food might be. Bistrotheque is also a very successful restaurant attracting both critical acclaim and a loyal following.
I went to Bistrotheque for their Underconstruction night, showcasing the newest cabaret and Burlesque acts to hit the scene. I have been to burlesque nights before. Usually, apart from a couple of nipple tassles and a feather boa, the acts have been quite lame. Once, at the Volupté Lounge in the City, I watched a woman in her sixties play a banjo and sing Norman Wisdom songs for over an hour. Bistrotheque is different.
The main act of the night was a man, known only as Rosella, re-enacting Princess Diana’s life in “Through the Eyes of a Queen”. For over an hour Rosella lip synched convincingly to pop songs, danced (even going on point in ballet shoes), acted, held a mock interview with another man dressed, less convincingly, as Sarah Ferguson and sang an original song entitled “The Worst Thing I Could Do”. The song started with the line: “I could have shagged James Hewitt; I could have had his Nazi child.” The show was satirical, hilarious and fabulous. It ended with Diana’s death, at the hands of a breadknife-wielding Queen Elizabeth, and her body, held in a coffin/doll box, being auctioned to a man dressed as a frog, who represented Prince Charles.
Rosella was followed by a woman reading, in a monotone voice, the lyrics to Eminem’s ‘My Name Is’ while removing her dungarees to reveal the words “trailer trash” written in silver paint over her breasts. Vicky Butterfly and Lily Noir appealed to the more traditional side of Burlesque. Dressed as sadomasochistic dolls they fought, pulled each other’s hair and then resolved their dispute by undressing to reveal the obligatory nipple tassles.
Rather than being seedy, however, in an atmosphere like the one at Bistrotheque, the moment of tassel revelation is one of joy. No dirty macs and no leering, just a raised cocktail to a woman’s uncovered bosom.
The crowd at Bistrotheque are a mixed bunch. The only other person on their own apart from me was an old man with a flat cap drinking Guinness. A group of American pensioners wandered in and seemed to enjoy the show. “It wasn’t what I was expecting” said Ellen, 74, from Chicago. “But I enjoyed it, they gave very spirited performances.” A married couple sat in the corner looking confused left quickly after the first act, but everyone else was having a whale of a time; especially considering this was a Wednesday night in Hackney. The rest of the audience were made up of girls with flowers in their hair, many of them wearing kimonos, gay men who all seemed to know each other – at least well enough to snog everyone that walked past - and a few business men and their dates, looking either slightly uncomfortable or completely enraptured,
“I come here all the time” said John Conley, 34, a management consultant from Dalston. “I think it’s absolutely hilarious and some of it is beautiful. I bring clients and dates here. It’s completely original and always a surprise. It looks like nothing from the outside; it’s like an Aladdin’s cave.”
Bistrotheque is making waves. What remains original and progressive about this venue is that it refuses to make cabaret, drag and burlesque a fetish. By placing burlesque purely in the sphere of performance art and tying it to what might be called a “destination restaurant” it remains entertainment, and great entertainment at that. By opening this kind of venue in an ordinary area of Hackney it becomes unique. If this is what East London regeneration leads to, long may it continue.

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