‘Zara’s plants gave a sense of peace and neighbourly love to the place so rare these days. And now it’s all gone’

• THIS is in response to Zara Lee’s letter about the pulverisation of her precious plant pots and flowers, (They have shown no respect, January 18).

I was Zara’s neighbour for years. Ashington, on the Kentish Town estate, is not the greatest of places. It’s full of ants and mice, with cheap cupboards falling from kitchen walls and toilets unscrewing from the floors. The communal stairs, of raw concrete, look like prison steps and the walls are streaked with unknown dirt.

The view from the windows is of other flats, just the same, full of people like me and Zara who try their best not to let life grind us down, going to work in the morning, raising kids to be decent hardworking citizens of a state run by a billionaire who starves councils of money so that places like Ashington continue to exist despite having reached their death’s door years ago.

Yet… Zara, her partner and little daughter made it all bearable for me. We were the lucky ones in Ashington. We had a communal terrace, full of flowers, so beautiful that the kids downstairs wanted to spend time there and I had put a small deckchair out so I could have some peace, even in the middle of winter, among all that colour.

Every evening Zara’s partner would come back from work and tend to her plants, giving a sense of peace and neighbourly love to the place so rare these days. And now it’s all gone.

Thank you Camden Council. You’ve done a great job. You should be really proud of yourselves. I will pray for you. Good luck.

JOSEPHINE BRUNI
Caversham Road, NW5