By Rosalind Bayley. The history of a mansion flat estate in Lissenden Gardens and the forces that shaped it. Residents of Lissenden Gardens, the birthplace of poet John Betjeman, took an unusual path in the 1970s, resisting gentrification through an inspiring campaign to become a council estate. Asking what made this estate different, the author discovered a founder who didn’t share the sexual and snobbish preoccupations of late Victorian and Edwardian developers, Anthony Green RA who painted life on the estate for most of his career and an Olympic record-holding diver among three generations of family ownership. On the way, how the first electricity was generated in Hampstead, the economic forces that precipitated the crisis of the 1970s and a walk-on part in the early 20th century battle against gated communities. The book is available from the Owl Bookshop or by post from the author (consult the Lissenden Gardens community website).