Residents' stories
Christine points out that a house is more than four walls.
Before the M4 cut Harlington in two, Christine could walk from her home on the Dawley Estate in the north to St Peter and St Paul's Church 5-10 minutes away. For decades, all the family weddings and christenings were held there.
While the motorway made life more difficult and placed the church in a blocked off road, it did at least allow the community to survive. A third runway and new roads would devastate the whole area.
Christine is angry that the government and BAA can even consider destroying the area she calls home: "I have never known anything else; my parents moved into my home as it was being built in 1939. The whole estate was built between around 1936 and 1939, largely for factory workers."
"When I married I moved away - to the next road - but I moved back in 2000. A house is not just four walls, this is my home and my whole history. I was born in this house, as were my two children and my sister's two. Both times, we had them within weeks of one another and people joked that it was Ross Close Maternity Hospital. Other people had their babies at home or in the local Cottage Hospital in Sipson Lane."
There were poignant memories for Christine too, as both her parents have died in the house, but she would not consider moving. "The area may have altered from the place I knew as a child, but this is MY HOME. I have friends and neighbours that I've grown up with. One friend, Rita, was born in Pinkwell Lane and we can remember the old wooden school, air raid shelters and fields that have all gone to be replaced by more housing - which would all be affected by noise and pollution."
"I'd never been on a demonstration until NoTRAG organised one. Since then, I've been on a few including London's massive Climate Change March last December."
"After visiting the local DfT Consultation Exhibition with Rita, I decided to do more and have been delivering posters." Defiantly, Christine added: "No one's going to be turfed out, we'll stick together."
NO THIRD RUNWAY ~ Heathrow is Big Enough
