Features

‘London is too expensive’: Walthamstow Empire cinema squatter

The Echo speaks to Enzo Gomes, who squatted in the Empire for two weeks last month before being evicted by the council

The Walthamstow Empire after a rave was held by the squatters on 9th September

“London is too expensive. Here in London you just work like a slave to pay bills. I’m not a slave anymore.” Enzo Gomes is one of the squatters who made the Empire their home for two weeks before being removed by the council. He speaks while sitting on a mattress in what used to be the ticket hall of the cinema.

Born and raised in Brazil, at 18 Enzo moved to Israel and volunteered in a kibbutz (a collective agrarian community) after being kicked out of home by his father. There, he “worked in watermelon fields in the desert”.

He arrived in London via Egypt in 1989, and began squatting two years later. Enzo says how he started taking drugs early in his youth. At 14 he was regularly smoking weed and a year later he began snorting cocaine. Now he only
smokes cannabis, he says.

Gomes has three grown-up children; a 27-year-old daughter, and two 23-year old twin sons. His ex-wife left him when his children were teenagers. Until that point they were all living in squats; he smiles as he recalls how teachers at his sons’ school had no clue that they were living in a squat. Enzo calls his kids “wonderful”; one of his sons has a four-month old baby, and his daughter is a mother to a five-year-old.

A gifted musician, producer and singer, Enzo uploads fast-paced remixes and edits of popular songs to his YouTube
channel, FluorEnzo. His sons are also musically inclined and together the trio have busked on London street corners for years.

He doesn’t hold back from dishing out words of wisdom that he has gathered from over three decades of squatting: “Once you have possessions you are in debt. We shouldn’t have anything. Not having anything is my shield of protection; I don’t get arrested, and I don’t fear the police. I don’t fear anything any-
more – not even death.”

The following morning (12th September) Enzo was turfed out as the council regained full possession of the building. Speaking on the phone that afternoon he sounded unfazed and said he was already moving on to a new squatting spot.


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