New Cross house fire

The party was a joint birthday celebration for Yvonne Ruddock (one of the victims of the fire) and Angela Jackson (who survived) and was held at No. 439, New Cross Road. It began on the evening of Saturday, 17 January 1981, and continued throughout the night and into the early hours of Sunday, 18 January.[4]

At the time, there was a fairly high degree of racial tension in the area and far-right groups, including the National Front, were active locally.

There had also been some early complaints from neighbours about excessive noise from the party.[5]

A white Austin Princess car was seen driving away from the fire.[5]

The initial police suspicion was that the party had been fire-bombed, either as a revenge attack or in an attempt to stop the noise; there was also an alternative theory that a fight had broken out, from which the blaze emanated.

Subsequent forensic investigation found that the fire had started by an armchair inside the front room of the property at 5:40am on Sunday morning, and police ruled out the theory that a fight had taken place.[6]

One week after the fire, on 25 January, a meeting was held at the Moonshot Club in New Cross, attended by more than one thousand people. The meeting concluded with a march to the scene of the fire and a demonstration there, which blocked New Cross Road for several hours. The New Cross Massacre Action Committee (NCMAC) was set up, chaired by John La Rose,[2] and organised weekly meetings in New Cross, which saw increasing participation as the police investigation announced that there was no evidence of arson and that the fire was believed to be accidental.

The Action Committee organised a "Black People's Day of Action" on 2 March, when 20,000 people marched over a period of eight hours from Fordham Park to Hyde Park carrying placards that bore statements including: "Thirteen Dead, Nothing Said", "No Police Cover-Up" and "Blood Aga Run If Justice Na Come".[7] One slogan read: "Dame Jill Knight Set The Fire Alight!" — an apparent reference to a controversial speech by Dame Jill Knight, a right-wing member of the ruling Conservative Party, which was widely interpreted as condoning or even encouraging "direct action" against noisy parties.[8][9]

The march was overwhelmingly peaceful but The Sun newspaper reported it with the headline: "Day the blacks ran riot in London".[10][11] References in other newspapers were typically cursory mentions. None of the reports mentioned the fact that the march was cut in two at Blackfriars Bridge by police. This unexplained action created delay, confusion and frustration, and was seen as an attempt to stop the march. It also isolated the stewards and march leaders from the general public who had joined the march at the rear. Press indifference or outright hostility led to an increasing division between some elements of the black and white communities.

In March 1981, many black Britons marched from New Cross to Hyde Park "in the largest mass movement for racial justice on British soil at the time, [during which] journalists stationed in the offices of Fleet Street chanted monkey noises at the protestors down below."[12]

A survivor of the fire, Anthony Berbeck, apparently died by suicide on 9 July 1983 by jumping from the balcony of a block of council flats in south London. He had been traumatised by the death of his friends in the blaze.[13]

The inquest into the deaths of the 13 teenagers, which began on 21 April 1981,[2] saw criticism of the police. The coroner's summary for the jury was heavily directed towards suggesting the fire was accidental, and the jury returned an open verdict, which implied agreement. The victims' families challenged the procedure and while the High Court agreed that the summing-up was inaccurate, it did not overturn the verdict.

In 2002 a new action in the High Court led to an order for a second inquest, which was held in 2004.[14] This second inquest also resulted in an open verdict.[2]

On 14 January 2011 an event called "Remembering the New Cross Fire 30 Years On" was held at the Albany Theatre in Deptford. The event was hosted by Kwame Kwei-Armah and was an evening of spoken word, film, discussion and Lovers rock music. It featured contributions from Alex Pascall, Professor Gus John, filmmaker Menelik Shabazz, spoken-word artists El Crisis and Zena Edwards, novelist Courttia Newland and musicians Janet Kay and Carroll Thompson. Many of the victims' families and the survivors attended the event.[15][16]

St. Andrew's church in Brockley has a strong connection with the victims as many of them attended the youth club there. In October 2002, Lewisham council installed a special stained-glass window at the church in their memory. On 16 January 2011 a memorial service was held there, with speakers including George Francis, chair of the New Cross Fire Parents' Committee; Lewisham council leader Steve Bullock; and Joan Ruddock, MP for Lewisham Deptford.

The victims were also commemorated in January 2011 with a blue plaque from Nubian Jak Community Trust.[17] There is a stone memorial in Fordham Park, Deptford, listing those who died; facing the stone memorial is a bench with a memorial inscription.[18] Both were installed in 2012.

There is also a memorial to the victims consisting of a park bench plus 13 trees with a plaque at either end on Hackney Downs in east London and a memorial plaque on the wall of Catford Civic Hall listing the names of the "fourteen young people who died in the New Cross Fire of 18th January 1981".

In 2017, the "13 Dead, Nothing Said"[19] exhibition was hosted at Goldsmiths College, University of London. The exhibition[20] presents a body of photographs documenting the Black People's Day of Action, taken by Vron Ware, who had attended the march on 2 March 1981.[21]

Documents and papers related to the New Cross Massacre Action Committee's campaign are held in the archives of the George Padmore Institute and can be accessed by the public.[2][28]

The Black Power group Black Unity and Freedom Party (BUFP) published an account of what happened on the night of the fire in their journal, Black Voice.[29]

• Gordon-Orr, Neil (2004). Deptford Fun City: a ramble through the history and music of New Cross and Deptford. London: Past Tense Publications.
• The New Cross Massacre Story: Interviews with John La Rose. Prologue by Linton Kwesi Johnson and epilogue by Gus John. London: New Beacon Books, 2011. ISBN 978-1873201312.[30]

• 1981 Brixton uprising

• "1981: Nine die in New Cross house fire" – BBC News "On this Day".
• Picture taken at New Cross March
• Remembering the New Cross Fire 30 Years On - promotional video
• Professor Les Back, "New Crass Massahkah: Remembering the fire at 439 New Cross Road". Published on 14 January 2016