Gloria Johnson passes away

Gloria pictured for a recent Islington Tribune story about vandalism on the Bemerton estate

A redoubtable local resident, Gloria Johnson, has died at her home in Perth House on the Bemerton estate. For almost all her life she had lived in the Cally area having worked for the railways at Kings Cross. She was rehoused on the estate after it was built in the mid 1970s and was known to all the older residents … and a lot of the younger ones too.

She was utterly committed to her estate and to a way of life she felt had withered away – where people showed each other respect and behaved with courtesy. She had lived through the Bemerton estate’s rougher moments about a decade ago and was appalled at the way that prostitutes, drug dealers and other criminals had tried to move onto the estate. Although the worst of times are over, Gloria remained exceptionally vigilant to anti-social behaviour and to any incidents of vice-related activity anywhere in the neighbourhood.

Paul says “I shall miss Gloria. I used to see her almost every day and she would always have something to say or ask about. She had a burning sense about what was right and what wasn’t. And she would know what went on around her like almost no-one else. Sometimes she interpreted events wrongly but often she was absolutely spot-on. I’ve chaired scores of neighbourhood meetings in the last 5 years or so and you could be sure that Gloria would attend almost everything and anything. She could be quite hard work when she got her mind fixed on something. And that something wasn’t always the subject under discussion. But she was a sincere, determined and committed woman with very firm opinions.”

The funeral will be at St Andrew’s Church, Thornhill Square, at 10.30am on 19th November.