First family fleeing abuse get keys to The Independent's safe haven
A safe haven built by The Independent's Brick by Brick campaign is now officially home to a family fleeing domestic abuse.
Construction of the purpose-built safe houses was completed earlier this year, and now a survivor of abuse has been handed the keys to the new home - and a fresh start.
The hugely successful campaign, launched in partnership with leading domestic abuse charity Refuge, was backed by readers, politicians, royalty and celebrities when it launched in September 2024.
When the initial target of £300,000 was reached after just a month of fundraising, The Independent decided to build a second house with over £585,619 raised in total by our generous readers.
The first occupant of the houses, who has to remain anonymous for safety reasons, said: "As soon as I walked in, it felt warm, safe and homely. It's the first time I had slept properly in months.
'The children are the happiest they have been for a long time."
The new semi-detached houses, built by Persimmon Homes, are in a secret location to protect survivors.
They have two double-sized bedrooms, open-plan kitchens and built-in cupboard storage space, as well as a private drive with off-road parking and solar panels on the roof.
The homes also include a number of safety features, including CCTV, a fireproof letter box and enhanced locking on windows and doors.
Geordie Greig, editor-in-chief of The Independent, said: 'This is significant because it helps the most vulnerable people who are in danger of their lives being severely damaged by abuse.
'It's permanent because we aim to build a house that will be there for generations as a sanctuary to safeguard these people who are on the run, from situations which are dangerous and life-threatening.'
After the 10,946 bricks were laid, an all-female team of decorators added the finishing touches to the property to make it a true home for those seeking refuge.
Every new family coming into the home will receive a welcome pack with a variety of items such as essential toiletries and key things they'll need for their first few days in the house. Children will also receive new toys and books to help them settle in.
To help the house feel more welcoming, the team has used bright, airy colours to help 'ignite that feeling of well-being, freedom and moving on'.
During a family's stay, Refuge staff will provide emotional support and legal advice, and will support women with safety planning, budgeting, finding a safe new home, dealing with debt, applying for welfare benefits, accessing health services, and finding nurseries and schools.
As the house will see many survivors pass through it, Refuge will carry out maintenance and a deep clean between each family.
The houses were funded by The Independent's Brick by Brick campaign, which was launched in September 2024 in response to the nationwide domestic abuse crisis.
Thousands of women across the UK face danger in their own homes, but a woman is turned away from a refuge every two hours due to a lack of space or capacity.
The Queen, Sir Keir Starmer, Dame Helen Mirren, Dame Joanna Lumley, Olivia Colman, Victoria Derbyshire, Andi Oliver, David Morrissey and Sir Patrick Stewart were among those to offer their support for the campaign.
The Independent heard testimony from a wide range of survivors, including women who were beaten, lost their jobs, friends and children, while others were simply too terrified to leave.
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He was first encouraged in the subject by no less a figure than Sir Basil Liddell Hart, the former Great War soldier, interwar strategist and apostle of 'the indirect approach', although perhaps studied more in Nazi Germany than in Britain. While reading history at Worcester College, Oxford, in the late 1950s, Bond met Liddell Hart at home in Buckinghamshire, where the latter had recently settled and Bond's father had become his gardener. At Oxford, Bond had elected to take the special subject paper on Napoleonic military history taught by Norman Gibbs, Chichele professor of the history of war. Liddell Hart, impressed by his gardener's son's scholarship, gave him access to his library and private papers and introduced him to visiting prominenti including Howard, who encouraged him to take an MA in war studies. This he completed in 1962 while lecturing at Exeter and then Liverpool. Brian James Bond was born in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, in 1936 to Edward Bond and Olive (née Sartin). He was an early beneficiary of the 1944 (Butler) Education Act, gaining a free place at Sir William Borlase's Grammar School in 1947. Leaving school in 1954 he elected to do his two years' National Service first, rather than deferring it to take up his place at Oxford, and was commissioned into the Royal Artillery. Although hardly the same as Howard's decorated active service in Italy with the Coldstream Guards, it did at least give him an insider's understanding of military culture and some credibility with serving officers looking to KCL for professional development. In 1962 he married Madeleine Joyce Carr. She died in 2023. They had no children. Bond's first book, as the editor of Victorian Military Campaigns, with each campaign written by a different historian, including Sir John Keegan, was published in 1967. Next came a serious study of the Victorian army and the staff college before two books on the Second World War and a highly regarded study of British military policy between the wars. He was disappointed not to be Liddell Hart's official biographer, the job going instead to one of his former doctoral students. Evidently Liddell Hart's widow, Kathleen, had wrongly believed that Bond had said that her husband had been a fascist. To an extent, honour was satisfied when, with the diplomatic intervention of Howard, he was allowed to write an interim study of Liddell Hart's ideas, but not touching on his life as a whole: Liddell Hart: a Study of His Military Thought (1977). Unfortunately, two reviews focused not on the book but on Liddell Hart himself — and disobligingly — which further upset his widow. Bond then turned, as eventually all British military historians must, to the First World War and in particular to the Western Front, which meant Field Marshal Haig. Undoubtedly the pendulum had swung beyond all balance with the publication in 1961 of Alan Clark's The Donkeys, a book that Howard dismissed as being almost entirely worthless. Some rebalancing was needed but Bond's revisionism was considered by many to be almost as unbalanced as Clark's diatribe. It was ironic, too, that Bond's revisionism disputed Liddell Hart's own assessment of the British high command in the First World War. One review of Haig: A Reappraisal said that Bond wrote with blinkers on: '[His] Haigiography testifies to the power of British patriotism and loyalty into which, as a British general, Haig tapped. Bond's defence of Haig's asininity horsed cavalry convictions is only exceeded by defence of Haig when he was faced by the evidence that his major push into the Somme had failed.' 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There is a t in water for a reason!' but there is a certain hypocrisy at play. These people also tend to be those who break out in an angry sweat at the pronunciation of hyperbole as 'hyperbowl'. 'There is a famously loose relationship between English spelling and pronunciation. I call for an end to the prevailing thinking that the English language is being used and abused but instead for a greater understanding that language changes over time and naturally varies between people from different backgrounds.' Dr Cole's research has revealed how the King's English and Cockney have all but disappeared among young people as three new accents have emerged. Voice analysis found the traditional two accents had been overtaken by standard southern British English, as articulated by Ellie Goulding; estuary English, as spoken by Adele; and multicultural London English, as voiced by Stormzy. 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The English language is always in a state of change By Dr Amanda Cole Last month, Telegraph writers and editors wrote about the 'mispronunciations' that most peeve them such as the letter h being pronounced 'haitch', 'expresso' for espresso and 'hyberbowl' for hyperbole. But are 'haitch', 'expresso' and 'hyperbowl' wrong or are they just alternative pronunciations? How many people must pronounce a word a certain way and for how long before we accept the new pronunciation as correct? The English we speak today includes many pronunciations that would have horrified or mystified speakers from previous times. Prior to the 15th century, vowels were pronounced very differently to present times, meaning that, for example, words such as bite and name would once have sounded more like 'beet' and 'nahm'. In fact, English has changed so dramatically that an Icelandic speaker might have a better chance of understanding Old English than a modern-day monolingual English speaker. At times, the English language has changed because of mispronunciations so prolific that they became the accepted norm. The word apron actually comes from the Middle English napron. Over time people turned 'a napron' into 'an apron', resulting in the word we know today. In the same way, nadder became adder and oche became notch. It is also little wonder that cows, which follows the regular English pattern for plurals, has won out against kine for more than one cow. In the same way I would not be surprised if yous, a plural form of you which is used in many dialects of English, one day became widely accepted. The English language has always been in a state of change, and so too there have always been those who bemoan such change. In 1440, friar and poet Osbern Bokenam wrote with dismay that the English language had been corrupted by Norman French after the arrival of William the Conqueror – something that we now consider to be foundational to modern-day English. In perfect irony, he expressed his concerns using words with French or Latin origins such as famylyar (now, of course, written 'familiar'), demonstrating the futility in policing language. Linguists aim to describe and not prescribe language. We consider the English language to be defined by how people use it, not a set of ideals for how we feel it should be used. Most lexicographers also take the same approach. For example, although it really grates on linguistic pedants, most dictionaries now include figurative definitions of literally ('I laughed so hard I literally died') because there is a sizeable body of evidence that many people use the word in this way and have done for a long time – even literary greats such as Charles Dickens, James Joyce and Charlotte Brontë. You may think I am pushing linguistic wokery – a term I just made up that would certainly have been uninterpretable for English speakers born a hundred years ago, let alone in times of Old English. Indeed, a prominent newspaper columnist once called me a proponent of linguistic anarchy. But I do believe that there are, dare I say it – take a breath – incorrect pronunciations. I won't forget the time my Italian friend pronounced the r in iron (as in: I, Ron, do solemnly swear…). I instinctively corrected her pronunciation – for which she was glad – and another linguist in earshot gently chided me for prescribing how a word should be pronounced. There are, of course, rules and collective understandings that govern the English language and I am in no way challenging this. But I do call for a wider awareness of how language works. In this country, the current thinking on the English language is that there is an ancient stone tablet atop a mountain – although, surely, it should rightfully be homed in southern England where apparently exemplary English is spoken, so perhaps it is just atop a sizeable hill in the Chilterns – on which the divine pronunciation of each and every English word is etched. Deviation from this text is sacrilege or at least wilful traitorship to our fine land and the language we share. In reality, the English we speak is like a snapshot of the sea: it will never look the same at any two points even if it is recognisably the same body of water. There are swells, tides and sometimes transient ripples on the surface. Linguistic puritans may stand on the shore wagging their finger at the incoming tide but will eventually be enveloped. The last of the nadder-sayers undoubtedly sounded like a stubborn fool and perhaps the same will one day be true of 'aitch' for h in British English. Having said that, I do think it is okay and only natural to have an opinion on language. I, for one, openly dislike being called a 'girl' – something women, even those deep into adulthood, commonly experience while the equivalent is rare for men. But the motivation behind any commentary on language is important. Calling women 'girls' is literally infantilising but 'haitch', 'expresso' and 'hyperbowl' are pretty harmless and any criticism seems to come from a place of lofty linguistic idealism. Much nitpicking on language devalues regional dialects. In the original Telegraph article, aim was taken at the Essex accent in which, apparently, proper becomes 'propaaa' and water is 'wor-arrrrr'. As a linguist but also a proud Essex girl (or, better put, woman) I take objection. Our accents reflect where we are from and who we are. In particular, in the UK, accents are closely linked to social class. Those with the strongest regional accents tend to be working class. Accent prejudice is a smokescreen for broader societal prejudices particularly class snobbery and middle-class gatekeeping dressed up as a light to protect and serve the English language. Many may cry, 'but the spelling! There is a t in water for a reason!' but there is a certain hypocrisy at play. These people also tend to be those who break out in an angry sweat at the pronunciation of hyperbole as 'hyperbowl'. There is a famously loose relationship between English spelling and pronunciation. I call for an end to the prevailing thinking that the English language is being used and abused but instead for a greater understanding that language changes over time and naturally varies between people from different backgrounds.
