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Born of Nigerian / Irish heritage, Gabriel Gbadamosi is a poet, a writer and an essayist. His London novel, Vauxhall won the 2011 Tibor Jones Page-turner Prize and more recently in 2013, the Best International Novel at the Sharjah Book Fair. The novel is set in South London in the 1970s. He has recently developed an online walking tour of the area. 1000 LONDONERS This film is part of 1000 Londoners, a five-year digital project which aims to create a digital portrait of a city through 1000 of the people who identify themselves with it. The profile contains a 3 minute film that gives an insight into the life of the Londoner, as well as their personal photos of London and some answers to crucial questions about their views on London life. Over the course of the project we aim to reveal as many facets of the capital as possible, seeing city life from 1000 points of view. www.1000londoners.com www.youtube.com/1000londoners www.facebook.com/1000londoners Twitter: @1000_londoners 1000 Londoners is produced by South London based film production company and social enterprise, Chocolate Films. The filmmakers from Chocolate Films will be both producing the films and providing opportunities to young people and community groups to make their own short documentaries, which will contribute to the 1000 films. Visit www.chocolatefilms.com Transcript: We were sitting on the fence. It was really unsteady. We climbed up because Brian said he wanted to talk. But it wasn't coming out what he meant. And we had to hold on with our fingers to stop the fence wobbling and brace with our heels on the cross wire. I wrote the book about Vauxhall because I'm of an age when my hair is turning grey. And I wanted to remember for my children who are young what my childhood was like while I watched theirs. I essentially grew up in an urban environment that was part this sort of public housing and part these factory walls. Now that meant that quite a lot of my childhood we spent as kids for our sport, finding ways to climb into the factories, to climb over the walls, get round the barbed wire, take a walk across the grooves. I mean I don't know how any of us survived it but we did. People are going to live so look like the guy just now climbing the wall, over the barbed wire. People will find ways through. And that's just the quality, I think, about my experience having grown up in this area. And I love it, if you listen you'll hear trains, roads. It's public housing. You know your neighbours, fantastic places to play hide and seek - we used to call them run outs, up the stairs, along the balconies. When I was growing up, as some people say now, mixed race in South London, people didn't really see a future for us. The great population growth is mixed race, mixed culture. We're Londoners. This part of South London that hugs the river, which we're in, was very full, not only of poor residential districts but also of industries and heavy industries which gave people work. Well, it's continued to change and why shouldn't it? It's London, it's a place that is a port that opens and opens and opens. There was no noise anywhere in the house. I heard a lorry going past on the main road and then the sound of a train echoing along the embankment. It's a process of change, I hope won't stop with the new constructions along Nine Elms and Battersea. Of these new tower blocks. I hope that it will continue to be a place in London where Londoners meet and collide and find some space to make their lives possible.