You may have read the great story over the weekend about the Minister, the glue on the gate and the neighbourly feud. We hope you read about it in the Observer. Ever wondered how these things come to light? Observer Social Affairs Correspondent Jamie Doward was on the scene. Entirely by accident of course. He lives next-door. He emailed the blog from deep undercover on the story henceforth known as Gate-gate.
Sunday morning 7 AM. Flashbulbs go off outside my house. There is the muffled sound of a hurried discussion and then footsteps. Being a woefully uninquisitive journalist I decline to look out of the window to see what's happening and go downstairs to make some tea. I briefly wonder how and why someone has got into the cobbled courtyard outside the house. It's a terraced property, one of six, in a converted factory. Estate agents euphemistically refer to it as a mews. We used to have CCTV to monitor who was coming and going but someone stole it. That's Hackney for you. I toy with the idea of proposing we install new cameras at the next residents meeting.
Now awake I spend the next four hours preparing Sunday lunch for some friends. The girlfriend makes an appearance at a staggering 11 am, just as I'm finishing off a chocolate mousse a la Jamie Oliver who has, by necessity, become my culinary guide since he has been endlessly lauded in our newspaper. The mousse is made with Amaretto and it tastes great. The secret's in the whisking, don't over do it, Jamie says. 'There seem to be some estate agents outside the mews,' the girlfriend says. I put my head out the door and see the arresting sight of my kindred professionals in full cry. 'Journalists' I say noting their cheap suits and plain ties. Three separate thoughts go through my mind. They are:
1) What does this mean for house prices?
2) How much did my next door neighbour get?
3) Am I about to lose my job?A paragraph by way of explanation. Two months ago I returned home to find my next door neighbour, Nicola, and her husband badly shaken up. Actually, Nicola was shaken, Chris was livid. They had had a run in with a neighbour whose garden adjoins our courtyard. He'd been parking his car in the yard and some builders renovating his house had also parked their van in the mews. Nicola found it difficult to reverse her car to drive through the security gate and had complained to the neighbour. This was not new. She had complained several times before and had brought it up at residents' meetings. The residents association decided to stick a notice up pointing out there was no parking, something that had incurred the wrath of the neighbour who pulled it off the wall and stuck it to Nicola and Chris's front door in a fit of temper.
It's an everyday story of petty neighbourly squabbling. No one died, everyone moved on. Literally, in the case of Chris and Nicola who relocated to Essex. The story might have ended there, only the neighbour was an MP. Not just any MP, but an MP who campaigned against nuisance neighbours. And a minister, too: Chris Pond, minister for Work and Pensions. What if the press found out?
Well, of course, the press did find out. After Nicola and Chris moved out last month the Mail on Sunday got wind of the story. The paper found their new address and despatched a hack to stand the story up. Nicola poured her heart out and the story of Mayhem Mews, as the MoS quickly dubbed it, became public property. Previously, I think, the two of them did not want the story to come out, but they were angry Chris Pond still hadn't paid for the damage to the door and decided to go public with their grievances. Knowing the story was about to break I told a colleague who found out from the police that Pond had been cautioned and the Observer ran its own version last Sunday. I'm glad it did. If we'd missed the story, the Ed has already cheerfully suggested, I might have had to seek alternative employment.
With two papers covering the story it was inevitable a press scrum would descend on the mews. There were camera crews, snappers and hacks, all impeccably well behaved, standing outside the gates, notebooks at the ready. I wondered about going out to say something but I really didn't have anything new to add to the story. I still don't know the full facts. I don't know for sure -although I have a good idea- of how the Mail on Sunday got Nicola and Chris's new address. I think they're giving the money to charity.
Being a hack and on the other side of the pack was a wierd experience, especially when I had to ring my friends who were coming to lunch to warn them they would have to brave Fleet Street's finest if they still wanted some food. My friends have dubbed the saga 'Gate-gate' and enjoyed the experience of looking out of the window to see camera crews filiming the enervating sight that is our courtyard's turning circle.
Now the mews has achieved notoriety I'm trying to gauge what this means for house prices. Two years ago an estate agent tried to sell me a house on nearby Graham Road following an armed seige. 'Now it's on the map everyone will want a piece of this place,' he told me with the sort of logic that can only be replicated when you are on class A drugs. But I'm hoping Gate-gate could be the [erm pun intended] turning point. Not since Razorlight sang 'Don't go Back to Dalston' has my part of Hackney enjoyed such prominence. And not for gun or crack-related crime, either. Clearly, when grown men can fall out over a turning circle the long-awaited regeneration of East London has arrived and the area is at last, that most crucial of words, gentrified. Who needs Cross Rail?
