Author wants to speak to tenants who used Right-to-Buy

Posted on January 7, 2020 by insidecroydon

Acclaimed author John Grindrod is seeking help from Croydon residents for his next book.

John Grindrod: looking for interviewees

Grindrod was brought up in New Addington in the 1960s and 1970s, and his experiences have been recounted in the well-reviewed book Outskirts. Grindrod’s first book, Concretopia, also relied heavily on the new town experience of New Addington, as he wrote of the rebuilding of Britain after the Second World War.

Now, he’s working on his next book. And he needs your help.

Grindrod explains: “My first book, Concretopia, told the story of how Britain was rebuilt between 1945 and 1979, using interviews with residents as well as architects and planners.

“My new book is a sequel, covering 1980 onwards, and for that I’m looking at all the big things we built and lived in in that period, whether it was Docklands, all those Millennium projects or the rise of Barratt and Wimpey homes.

“One thing I’m really keen to write about is the 1980s Right-to-Buy.

“I’d love to interview people who bought their council home in the 1980s and find out what it was like to do that, and what happened as a result. My family didn’t buy ours, so I don’t have that first-hand experience, and so it would be brilliant to chat to people who did it. It feels like a really important bit of British social history that is not covered very often.

“If this sound like you and you fancy a chat for an hour of so about your 1980s right to buy experience with me I can be contacted at dirtymodernscoundrel@gmail.com or on Twitter @grindrod.”

About insidecroydon

News, views and analysis about the people of Croydon, their lives and political times in the diverse and most-populated borough in London. Based in Croydon and edited by Steven Downes. To contact us, please email inside.croydon@btinternet.com
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