Aug 4, 2003
Now entering…
I’ve always been interested in the People’s Republic of Frestonia. As a kid growing up in West Notting Hill in the seventies and early eighties, I used to have to walk past Freston Road on the way to see the peacocks in the park, and every time would ask my mum to tell me about what happened there.
In the early seventies, a group of run-down and condemned houses on the Western edges of scruffy Notting Hill were occupied by squatters. Over time, they and existing residents, numbering about 150 people in total, formed a creative community of like-minded individuals, though they faced eviction and demolition of their homes on a near-daily basis.
In 1977, they seceded from the United Kingdom, formed the People’s Republic of Frestonia, and appealed to the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force to prevent evictions by the Greater London Council.
Everyone who wanted to join in was made a minister of state, though there was no prime minister. Nicholas Albery, the Frestonian Minister of State for the Environment explains:
“The Minister of State for Education was a two-year-old, Francesco Bogina-Bramley, and the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs was a dwarf, the actor David Rappaport-Bramley (who wore a T-shirt saying ‘Small is Beautiful’). The nation’s motto on its coat of arms was ‘Nos sumus una familia’, ‘We are one family’ and everyone adopted the surname ‘Bramley’ (just in case the Greater London Council (GLC) were to suceed in evicting us, they might have to rehouse us together, as one family).”
After international coverage in the media, the GLC backed down, and:
“Frestonia was eventually rebuilt to our design with several millions of pounds of foreign aid from Great Britain, channelled via the Notting Hill Housing Trust to [Frestonia's] own co-operative.”
Thinking about a free state in a once shabby (and now gentrified) area this evening, after passing it in a cab on the way to a meeting a couple of weeks ago, I found this stunning gallery of photographs of Frestonia taken by long time resident (and one-time minister of state) Tony Sleep. Really amazing.
