Slums in the sky?
Wednesday, 10th January 2007
Just after dawn on 16 May 1968, on the 18th floor of a block of pre-cast, system-built flats in Cleaver Road, Canning Town, Mrs Ivy Hodge, a 56-year-old cake decorator rose from her bed as usual. In the kitchen, she struck a match to light the stove for her early morning cup of tea. Then the trapped gas explosion caused by the flame instantaneously blew out the whole of the top, south-east-facing corner of the building, killing four and injuring another 17, and setting in motion a public inquiry whose scathingly critical report concluded that the 200-foot, 22-storey, forever thereafter infamous Ronan Point had literally been bolted together with nothing more than a builder’s box full of rust-encrusted pins.
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