Eric Mattocks (1928-99): from burglar to squatter
First published in the Guardian (27 January 1999)

Eric Mattocks, who died suddenly in his sleep on 18th January, aged 70, was one of the liveliest and best-loved characters in the London squatting movement. For almost 25 years until his death he was a stalwart of the Islington-based Advisory Service for Squatters (ASS), a rough, rogueish, huge-hearted man, who left an indelible impression on everyone he met. There were few squatting campaigns in that period that did not bear the mark of his practical activism or echo with the sound of his unforgettable laugh.

Brought up in working-class Hackney before and during the war, Eric never departed from his roots in London's east end. He had been a burglar before he was a squatter, turning the skills he learnt in that earlier profession to good use when his own experience of homelessness persuaded him that no one should remain homeless while houses stood empty. On the few occasions that he could be persuaded to speak about his house-breaking past, he was quick to insist that it was strictly confined to "rich people's houses -- Kent, Surrey and Blackheath". He despised "nicking off the working class" and the rise of that sort of mean crime on the estates of Hackney and elsewhere. There was little that he would not do to help the many vulnerable people who turned to the squatting movement when all else failed.

For his 50th birthday, Eric was presented by his squatter friends with the "Order of the Golden Crowbar" (actually a gold spray-painted crowbar) in recognition of the number of squats he had opened up. He had first become involved in the organised squatting movement around the time of the eviction of the Elgin Avenue squatters in the summer of 1975, when barely a day passed without news of one squat or another hitting the headlines. He became treasurer of the London Squatters Union and was one of the founders of ASS, which he also served as treasurer until his death. When ASS hit one of its periodic financial crises, it was Eric who raised the money to keep it going; when the organisation was firebombed in 1981, it was Eric who got an emergency telephone line installed and had it back in action the next day. He did all this while working as a school gardener for the Inner London Education Authority, where he was an active trade unionist and shop steward.

The squatting movement of the 1970s and 1980s was at the heart of the political and cultural turbulence that produced, among much else, punks and punk rock. Although described as a "proto-punk" for his anarchic politics and spikey ways by one of his younger fellow activists at ASS, Eric was never a fan of that particular music scene. At squatters' benefits he was often to be found taking the money on the door, where, equipped with industrial ear protectors, he would question the eager punters' sanity in "paying good money for that bleedin' 'orrible racket". He was also legendary in some music circles for once forcing Joe Strummer and his mates in The Clash, then on their way to stardom, to clean up the rubbish outside their squat. It was "giving squatters a bad name . . . I don't care what bloody pop group they are."

Perhaps Eric's greatest triumph was the Greater London Council's squatters "amnesty" in 1977-78, whereby some 12,000 squatters in GLC properties were given authorised occupancies. Eric had found a kindred spirit at the GLC in John Snowcill, the senior official with responsibility for squatted properties. The two of them discovered they had attended the same primary school and formed a close friendship, which was to culminate in the plan for an amnesty. Eric played an essential role in its implementation -- chewed over with John Snowcill at regular Friday sessions in a Waterloo pub.

Among those who turned up to a London Squatters Union meeting in the late 1970s was Catherine, with whom Eric was to form a relationship that lasted for the rest of his life. Their children, Dorothee (14) and Philippe (9), have lost their father, who loved them as dearly as he was loved by others, far too soon.