Entertainment
Queen’s Brian May ‘furious’ as belongings are destroyed in London flooding
Brian has hit out at the council (Picture: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
Brian May is furious after a number of his ‘precious’ belongings were ruined during the flooding of his London home.
There were flash floods in the capital on Tuesday following intense downpours the previous night.
Queen guitarist May, 73, said he came home from a day out to ‘horror in our house’ in Kensington, west London.
Sharing a video of the damage to Instagram, he wrote: ‘After a nice day at The Royal Holloway College, we came back to horror in our house. The whole bottom floor had been inundated with a sewage overflow – which has covered our carpets, rugs and all kinds of precious (to us) things in a stinking sludge. It’s disgusting, and actually quite heartbreaking.’
He said his wife Anita Dobson had ‘a lifetime of memorabilia on the floor of our basement – and most of it is sodden and ruined’, and had only just moved some of childhood photo albums into the basement.
Brian continued: ‘It feels like we were have been invaded, desecrated. Anita had a lifetime of memorabilia on the floor of our basement – and most of it is sodden and ruined. I had rescued all my most treasured childhood photo albums and scrapbooks from my studio house because it was threatened with a forest fire some months ago. Where did I put it all for safety ? In the basement here in Kensington. Irony. Today it turned into a sodden mess.
Brian’s home was flooded with sewage (Picture: Instagram)
‘I’m devastated – this stuff is only ‘things’ – but it feels like Back to the Future when the photograph fades – feels like a lot of my past has been wiped out. I’m angry. Historically, for 150 years, Kensington has never flooded due to rainwater.
‘Why did this happen ? It’s almost certainly the result of all the basement building that has been plaguing this area for the past 10 years. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council was warned years ago that sinking so many deep basement extensions would obstruct the aquifers underneath our living space and render the drainage system ineffective.’
In a separate post, Brian wrote: ‘This devastation is a direct result of the infamous RBKC allowing the ruination of our quality of life. These are the same people who scandalously allowed the wrong cladding to be put on Grenfell Tower leading to the loss of so many lives. The same people who allowed a vast area at the end of Kensington High street historic buildings to allow the building of the – 1, Palace Gate monstrosity by developers – in spite of almost the whole population of Kensington objecting.
Anita’s memorabilia was destroyed (Picture: Steven Ferdman/Getty Images)
‘The same council that has allowed selfish basement building b*****ds to ruin the lives of residents for endless years with the noise, pollution and destruction of our habitat by purely speculative basement construction.
‘The RBKC have been called one of the most corrupt and negligent borough councils in England. I hold them responsible for all the misery that is going on in my neighbourhood tonight. It’s time they were held to account.’
The council have been contacted for comment.
More: London
The flash floods caused chaos for travel in London on Tuesday, with Euston Station lines shut down.
Underground stations, including Chalk Farm and Hampstead stations in north London and Wimbledon in the south, also drew their barriers due to the heavy rainfall, while one video posted on Twitter showed water pouring in down the stairs at Sloane Square tube station.
