Why did it happen? Why in Britain in 2017 can a place of solace, a place to rest your head, a place to laugh, a place to cry, a place to call home go up in flames so quickly and cause so much death and destruction?
Why did one brave firefighter feel the need to write on his shirt ‘We did our best, I promise’ when once again they ran towards the gates of hell as others fled.
And most importantly why on earth have our politicians gone ahead with a public inquiry when criminal proceedings MUST be explored first.
Profit was almost certainly put before the people of Grenfell, those who took such decisions must answer for them in a court of law.
I cannot for a second imagine the desperation of those trapped inside, their final moments and the realisation there was no exit when they needed it the most.
Nor can I imagine the pain of Grenfell, from those who lost everything in the disaster to those who have lost loved ones and may never be able to lay them properly to rest.
Death doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t take names, it just reaches in and causes pain and devastation to all those in its path.
All of us with a heart will be haunted by the images of that tower as it burned, but we should all have a burning shame that we aren’t as well forward as we thought we were.
Britain is full of wonderfully created buildings, from the historic to the modern, from churches to libraries, football stadiums to supermarkets.
We place our trust in those who designed and built them that they did their job and these venues would keep us reasonably safe.
Yet the victims of Grenfell were betrayed in the place which held their secrets, a place they could express all emotions, cast off the shackles society can place on people and truly be themselves.
It was the place they called home which killed them, how in god’s name am I even writing that sentence in 2017?
For crying out loud, we put a man on the moon, we’ve stood up to the most dangerous threat posed to the free world in the Nazis and we have made medical advances which mean a diagnosis now doesn’t necessarily mean death.
But on this night, we couldn’t keep people safe in their own damned homes and watched as a community was ripped to shreds with some choosing to leap to certain death than await the inevitable.
My thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this tragedy, we can’t bring the fallen back but together as a nation we can help a community begin to heal.
Grenfell is a monument now, a symbol of how Britain failed the basic function of the state, to keep its people safe.
It must never happen again.
What a beautiful and important post. After a week I still cannot get my head round the fact that this happened in Britain in 2017. I cannot begin to imagine how those people felt and are still feeling now. Answers and criminal proceedings are needed so that nothing like this can ever happen again.
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