Lily

THERE have been some whispered comments, pretty thoughtless ones, about a Camden New Journal front page from a couple of weeks ago where we reported on the sad death of Lily Chitty, the 99 year-old who was in the thick of campaigning for the Millman Street Resource Centre to be saved from cuts. It’s true ’99 year old dies’ might not sound like front page news and the threat to the centre will not be recorded as a cause of death. She had a fall at home. But Lily, with her determination and passion, had become a figurehead of a battle still unresolved. Her story encapsulated these divided times.

Here’s Lily speaking on London Tonight just a little while before she died. She starts one part of her interview: ‘As I say, it worries me to death…’. Whatever you think of what we do at the Camden New Journal and what goes on the front page, it is a terrible shame, it’s more than that, that Lily spent her final weeks worrying about what would happen to the centre and who would look after her and her friends.