People queue to light candles in memory of Lidia Venegas

MORE than 100 people went to our memorial service last week to say goodbye to Lidia Venegas, a rough sleeper who was “woven into the fabric of life in Camden and Kentish Town”.

For many years Bolivian-born Ms Venegas, thought to be in her early 60s, slept on the streets of Camden. She passed away in her shelter of scrap materials in Islip Street at the beginning of January. Within days, residents strapped bouquets of roses and tributes to a fence close to the old Barclays bank in  Kentish Town Road where she had constructed a camp for six months last year.

With no funeral organised for Lidia, the New Journal helped to host a memorial service for her at St Michael’s Church in Camden Town on Thursday morning – and it was a measure of how much the community cares that dozens of people came to bid farewell.

Ms Venegas grew up in a tourist town called Copacabana in La Paz, Bolivia. She had a twin sister and a father who was an ice cream maker.

He sold his frozen treats in the town’s main square. Ms Venegas’s neigh­bour in Copacabana, Maritza Venegas Lagos, attended the memorial last week. Ms Lagos now lives in Islington, but she was born a few doors down from Ms Venegas’s family and would get free ice creams from her father.

Father Michael  Thomas

She told the New Journal that after the death of Ms Venegas’s father and sister, she turned to knitting and baking: “She was very good at making cakes,” Ms Lagos said. “She used to make meringues, orange, banana cakes and sell them to people in offices.”

Ms Venegas moved to London around 25 years ago “to work and have a better life”, and initially stayed in Ms Lagos’s spare room in Kentish Town for two years, before renting a flat.

She worked odd jobs, including cleaning and pet sitting. She loved feeding the pigeons and attended St Michael’s Church where she could be found sweeping the leaves in the courtyard outside. The two went their separate ways and Ms Lagos last saw Ms Venegas eight months ago in Kilburn High Road, but Ms Venegas wouldn’t accept her offers of help.

“We had no idea that she was in the condition that she was until we read your report in the newspaper. We had no idea. When someone sent me the picture of those flowers on the rail for Lidia… it really hit me.”

Ms Lagos added: “I asked her at least twice, ‘Look, if you’re finding it hard, just go back. I’ll help you with the plane tickets’. But she didn’t want to. She said she felt free here. She felt safe. Somehow she preferred British people. She wouldn’t mingle with Bolivians in London.”

Lidia’s shelter in Kentish Town Road

Former mayor Jenny Headlam-Wells lights a candle

In church on Thursday, Father Michael Thomas touched on that relationship that Ms Venegas formed with local people. He told the congregation: “Over the last 20 years, you have embraced Lidia. You’ve allowed her to become woven into the fabric of life that exists here in Camden and Kentish Town.

“Despite her lack of English, Lidia was known by virtually everyone. In fact, I’d go so far as to say if you didn’t know Lidia, you are probably not truly from Camden. In our own way this community loved Lidia. Yes, she may be someone who we only encountered from time to time no matter what the season, but she was one of us and when someone has been part of a community for so long, so cared for, it’s hard when they are taken from us. In many ways, Lidia was loved unconditionally by this community.”

Esther Oghenekaro, a member of the church who gave Ms Venegas a job cleaning her home, also made a tribute from the front of the church, describing how she had been a “fashionista” interested in clothes.

Esther Oghenekaro and, below, Elodie Berland from Streets Kitchen

Streets Kitchen volunteer Elodie Berland told the service: “Goodbye Lidia. You were so resilient and strong. You were a constant part of our lives, we were a part of yours.

“Legend has it you once did take breakfast from one of the crew, but most of the time we would just hear your gentle voice from inside your home saying: ‘No thank you. Have a good day. Take care.’ We were so happy every time to hear your voice. You were alive.”

She added: “You were our neighbour, our friend. We made sure you knew we were there for you, but in this world, in this borough, on those specific streets, it is just not enough. We are so sorry and we miss you. We promise you, you will be remembered.”

Willie Donnelly, who lives in Camden Town, was among those who attended the service. He told the New Journal how he gave Lidia presents at Christmas.“I used to take her a little present and she got me a Christmas card from Marks and Sparks, the dearest place she could have got it from,” he said. “I could cry when she gave me that and said ‘thanks very much for everything’. It’s just heartbreaking. She had a big heart.”

At this week’s full council meeting leader Georgia Gould said the circumstances of her death were being reviewed.

* COUNCIL leader Georgia Gould said Lidia Venegas’s death was a “tragedy” and the circumstances and what support she was offered would now be reviewed.

She told Monday’s full council meeting: “Lidia was visited weekly by outreach teams to check on her welfare and make sure she knew of open offers of accommodation and I know many people in Kentish Town offered support and help to her. But again the absolute tragedy of somebody losing their life on the streets of Camden calls us to look at what more can be done to prevent this in the future.”

She said people would be “calling on us to look at what more we can put in place in future to deal with health inequalities we see for homeless to prevent anyone dying on our streets. “We will be reviewing her death.”

Former mayor Jenny Headlam-Wells attended last week’s memorial service.