Loïs Acton has lived a full and active life that is showing no signs of stopping.
Her early years were spent living in diverse places such as India, Wales and a village near Bognor Regis. A landmine accident meant her father could no longer work, so the money dried up and at a young age Loïs realised friends and neighbours treated them differently.
It is no surprise that after witnessing the caste system in India and seeing her family become victims of class snobbery in Britain, Loïs’s driving force became challenging injustice and achieving change; two things that she has been doing all her adult life.
Loïs studied politics, sociology, economics and history at the University of Exeter and then majored in geography. Of course, she was in the students’ union. “And captain of Netball!” she was keen to add.
While at school, Loïs did her first charity walk with school friends: “I realised then that if you work in a group, you can do amazing things.”
Aged just 18, Loïs ran an old people’s home; at 19 she was assistant matron at the first boarding grammar school for girls with ability challenges caused by severe physical mobility issues.
After graduation, she wanted to make “exciting geographical and environmental films with and for young people from different backgrounds. In order to understand the potential audience, I applied to work in a school and did my teaching and youth work qualifications on the job in Bermondsey, Walworth and Rotherhithe from 1970 – and never left!”
Her Lamp Post School came about when she started talking with the kids who hung around outside her Bermondsey Street flat that she shared with a doctor at Guy’s and a dental nurse.
“Word got around that I was a youth worker and a teacher – that was unusual in the area – so when I got home from teaching at Aylwin School,” explains the lifelong activist.
“I’d chat with them. It was a unique learning curve for me to discover so much from the young people and hear of their dreams and aspirations, and some of the life difficulties that were thrown across their paths.
“Leaving my Aylwin job and joining forces with them seemed a logical move!” It was not long before the Lamp Post School became well known.
“Children self-referred,” says Loïs. “Right from the beginning I was joined by other teachers and volunteers, and we were all clear that young people had to want to come, and that we would not accept referrals from agencies, like social services or probation.”
“Finance came in the form of donations of money and equipment, some grants and a little money from the Inner London Education Authority for milk, etc.
“Borough Market would give us food, as would the local bakeries and Alpino Gibbs Food Wholesalers – now Zandra Rhodes’s residence and Fashion and Textile Museum!”
Loïs instilled confidence in the students. They built a stage out of palettes on waste ground in Bermondsey Street and produced their own plays.
David Essex and Alfred Molina would go along to help out. “Barristers opened their chambers to us; we had trips to the Old Bailey as well as to the Young Vic; to UK farms and France – and camping in my Mum’s garden!”
As the school developed so larger premises were required. “We found an old bakery in Long Lane, which we were leased on a peppercorn rent. Southwark Council were our landlords.”
There were always problems but the Lamp Post continued for about ten years. A decade that Loïs is very proud of. Proud for the achievements of the former pupils and for the achievements she collaborated on: “Together with residents of Tyers Estate, Whites Grounds and Bermondsey Street, we closed the street without permission and held the first-ever Bermondsey Street Festival.
Collaborating with others we founded the Bermondsey Community Association and were instrumental in getting funding from the Greater London Council to build the Bermondsey Village Hall and landscape Leathermarket Gardens with hills!
“We were also members of the North Southwark Community Development Group helping to achieve wins on planning decisions and preserving areas like Mint Street Park and playground, Tanner Street Park, and the Coin Street social housing and community centre. The list is endless,” Loïs says as she runs out of breath.
“Because of those collaborations, we forged the legacies that still exist.”
After Lamp Post, Loïs went into television, making “social issue programmes… I always wanted to give people a voice.”
WATCH: Local historian makes fascinating documentary about the Bermondsey leather trade
Her television work included supporting the launch of the MOBO Awards, the TV Diversity and Disability Networks, the Carlton Diversity Awards and the Carlton Trust.
She made a programme on young carers because she knew the hardships they faced. “[ITV and Carlton] gave £50,000 to set up a website for carers, and also produced a teaching pack for teachers to understand the difficulties of pupils who had caring duties in the family.”
Over the years, Loïs has managed music festivals, arts and theatre events and was behind the Guns on Our Streets documentaries. She is passionate about grassroots projects and is always looking for ways to help and instigate change.
Today, 40 years on from the Lamp Post School, Loïs is fighting to save the Beormund Community Centre from developers.
https://southwarknews.co.uk/news/politics/coyle-beormund-bermondsey-centre/
But it will perhaps be the Lamp Post School that Loïs will be remembered for. She is certainly proud of what the school, its staff and its pupils achieved.
At a recent 50th anniversary of the school, you could see the pride in her eyes as she caught up with the Lamp Post kids and what they were doing now. And each one of them claims Loïs had a positive effect on their lives.
I asked her for some final words: “I want to thank all the people and families that I met in the 1970s for what they have taught me and the love that they have shown me.”
Reunion of Bermondsey school ‘with no rules’ – Loïs and the Lamp Post Kids
