Hackney Under Fives aimed to provide information for all families with under-fives of all kinds, bring all those working with under-fives and their families together to improve services and advocate for the needs of under-fives and their families. While they provided a range of services and lobbied and campaigned on many aspects of under-fives, they existed primarily to press for more and better day care facilities for under fives in Hackney.

They were formed at a public meeting held to discuss plans to expand nursery education held in February 1973 at Harrington Hill Primary School. ¹

In 1975 Hackney Under Fives wrote in their newsletter, The Pied Piper, that of the 18,000 under-fives in Hackney only 3,300, or one out of every seven, children had some form of childcare provision such as a place in a day nursery (1,500 children), nursery classes or nursery school (1,000) or from a registered childminder (800). ²

Hackney Under-Fives had monthly open meetings at Centerprise. Their office, also based at Centerprise, was open every morning Tuesday – Saturday from 10 – 1. People visited for information, to talk through problems or for people to buy play materials. They produced regular guides for people with under-fives in Hackney which gave an overview of all the various kinds of services that were (or were not) available, from toy libraries to community nurseries. ³

They applied for Urban Aid funding so they could have a paid worker in July 1974 and by March 1975 an Under Fives Co-ordinator was in post. In 1976 they had an Urban Aid grant which paid for two part-time coordinators until 1980. In the early 1980s they were funded by the Greater London Council.

Hackney Under Fives offered help and advice to groups of volunteers who wanted to start playgroups with funding from the council. (The Council wanted to increase the number of playgroup spaces available from 502 playgroup places in Hackney in August 1972 to 2,940 places by 1973.)

Hackney Under Fives helped other groups start where they saw a need or a gap. They helped form the Hackney Childminders Association. In 1975 a report Childminding in Hackney was published, written by some members of Hackney Under Fives. In 1977 they decided to prioritise improving conditions for childminders.

They helped start a group for the parents of 'handicapped' children in Hackney after being approached by a parent of a child with learning disabilities.

They set up a toy workshop to make and repair toys as a job creation scheme for local people, based at the Bethnal Green Institute. They also sold play materials from their office at cost price.

They supported community nurseries that were set up by groups of local people. They were involved in attempts to increase the training available to early years workers. Later the community nurseries came together to form Hackney Community Nurseries Association.

In 1975 Hackney Under Fives supported the nursery workers dispute, which was when nursery workers employed by the council took industrial action.

They helped found the Hackney Nursery Campaign in 1976.

In April 1976 they reported that ‘interest in the under-fives, and helping to meet their needs, has become a very important part of community activity in Hackney over the past year’, which they attributed partly to the existence of the committee. ⁴

In 1977 they affiliated to the London Nursery Campaign, provided them with an address and took a turn at doing the London-wide campaign’s secretarial work from March to July that year. ⁵

They were affiliated to the Working Woman’s Charter, and members of Hackney Under Fives were instrumental in amending the Charter’s childcare demand. ⁶

In 1978 they wrote to their contacts about a new campaign demanding ‘£2 million for under-fives now’ which would pay for a ‘crash programme of expansion of day nursery places, support services for childminders, and other facilities for under-fives in this Borough, starting from 1979 -1980 financial year.’ ⁷

They felt progress had been too slow, for an estimated 6,000 children who needed childcare there were still only 484 day nursery places in Hackney.

‘What is there to show for 7 years campaigning?’ they wrote. ‘One new nursery opened in 1977 for 50 children, 4 more on the planning board, a few increases in grants for 3 or 4 community nursery projects and still no support for childminders.' ⁸

As part of the campaign they organised a deputation to the council on 4 April 1978 and a march on 20 May 1978, which was attended by 400 grown-ups and 100 children. With the £2 million investment they called for they hoped 1000 nursery places would be created. ⁹

Rosemary Rae, one of the workers reported in 1978:

‘The other part of my job I find really difficult. We get an increasing number of enquiries from parents about nursery places and I find it quite upsetting telling desperate women that they are very unlikely to get a desperately needed place for their child.’ ¹⁰

They were also increasingly helping groups to start projects for under-fives, such as the community centre and nursery at the Old Fire Station in Stoke Newington and wrote: ‘it is very encouraging to see so many groups working on their own and producing really magnificent results’. ¹¹

In the early 1980s Hackney Under Fives supported families housed in Bed and Breakfast accommodation in the Finsbury Park area and campaigned around their need for childcare facilities.

Hackney Under Fives had an important coordinating and lobbying role. Some of the issues they took up included pushing the council to fund extended days in nursery schools and playgroups, tackling discrepancies in funding in community nurseries by supporting them to submit joint grant applications and successfully campaigning against per-capita (or ‘demand-side’) funding for nurseries.

In 1978 Hackney Council wanted to introduce per-capita funding, which meant nurseries and playgroups would receive money according to an attendance allowance rather than grants based on their running costs. After a long fight this idea was dropped by the council, and community nurseries and playgroups began instead negotiating for pay parity with council nurseries, supported by the trade union NUPE.

However, from 1980 onwards local authority cuts started to slow efforts to expand pre-school provision and campaigns were instead focused on preserving what had already been created. Hackney Under Fives affiliated to the campaign against the cuts. They bought soft play equipment to a demonstration on the steps of the town hall and made a handout on the effects of the cuts on the under fives, including cuts to specific nurseries and projects. The Day Nurseries were short of staff, meaning there were 200 unfilled spaces in the nurseries despite the large numbers of priority children on the waiting list. The Council had built four new council nurseries but did not open three of them due to spending cuts. Hackney Under Fives campaigned for them to be opened, and resisted the council’s idea they could be handed over to ‘Mother’s Co-operatives’ as then the children most in need of places would not benefit. ¹²

In 1980 Sue Finch, then Chair of Hackney Under Fives, reported on the areas where she thought Hackney Under Fives had made a difference that year: understaffing in council nurseries, parity funding for community playgroups and nurseries, stopping the increase of council nursery fees in 1979, getting the budget for toys and equipment in council nurseries doubled and finding out about the council’s plans not to open three new nurseries (which they only discovered because they had representatives on the Social Services committee.) ¹³

Two of the new nurseries, Clapton Park and Comberton Road, did open later in 1980, but two others were offered to the charities Barnados and National Children’s Homes. Social Services were seeking to make a million pounds worth of cuts. Community nurseries had a 5% cut to their budget and were told not to replace staff when they left. The high vacancy rate in council nurseries, due to reductions in staff because of the cuts, meant that despite there being two new nurseries there were only nine extra places for children overall, 111 less than there should have been.

There were many demonstrations held at Council Committee meetings. At one Social Services Committee meeting held to vote on a package of cuts on 13 February 1981 Hackney Under Fives reported on the committees which they said were ‘now synonymous with demonstrations’:

‘There was a very large contingent of U5’s groups, both statutory and community, and council workers. After demonstrating on the steps, everyone (and a lot of children) stormed into the Council Chamber.’  ¹⁴

Many of the proposed cuts were not accepted at this meeting, but at a later special meeting of the Labour Group in the Council £2.5 million in cuts was agreed. Exactly what would be cut was not yet decided but Hackney Under Fives warned ‘if these cuts go ahead there will be redundancies among nursery workers and a sharp cutback of nursery places, and presumably a rise in placements to private residential homes.’ ¹⁵

In the same period Hackney Under Fives developed ideas of the kind of daycare they wanted ultimately to achieve. Writing to Patrick Kodikara, Director of Social Services, Hackney Under Fives said they were committed to the provision of: ‘free, flexible, non-racist, non-sexist, community controlled facilities for under fives in Hackney’. The current system, they wrote, is inadequate and ‘two tiered’.

They warned against the use of privately owned nurseries:

‘There are no private nurseries in Hackney and Hackney Under-Fives would not like to see a nursery provision of this kind unless the granting of licences to private nurseries was dependant on a ‘good employers’ agreement. … Hackney Under-Fives is deeply concerned that private nursery operators should not be allowed to exploit the current unemployment situation by hiring and firing at will, paying low wages, having high staff turnover and thus providing low standards of care and continuity.’

Ideally, they wanted nursery places available for all who needed them in small, 25 place community nurseries, and an end to the fragmented system meaning all nurseries would have the same kind of intake, democratically elected management committees and the right to co-opt community members. Staff should all be paid on the same levels and there should be more and better training available. ¹⁶

In the mid-1980s there were several disputes within and amongst under-fives projects in Hackney. (See for instance Acorn playgroup and Clapton Park Day Nursery occupation.) Hackney Under Fives were often asked to arbitrate or give support to one or more party in the dispute, and so had to decide what approach they would take to these conflicts.

Issues of racism, diversity and representation also came increasingly to the fore. In 1982 the only black member of the Hackney Under Fives’ management committee resigned due to a comment made to them by one of the workers, which remained an ‘unsettled dispute’ according to minutes of a Hackney Under Fives meeting held on 10 October 1983. ¹⁷

On 14 November 1983 Hackney Under Fives held an open meeting on ‘Combatting Racism in Under - 5’s’ at the 136 Nursery.  The meeting gathered people involved in community nurseries and other under-fives projects, and discussed how to recruit diverse staff members, the need for play materials and books that reflected diverse cultures, whether to record children’s ethnicity when they applied for a nursery place, anti-racist policies and racism awareness training. In 1984 there was a Hackney Under Fives Against Racism group formed and they planned a whole day seminar on racism and work with under-fives.

In 1987, after the abolition of the Greater London Council, further cuts were made, and new community nursery projects the council had pledged to support were scrapped. Hackney Under Fives wrote ‘it is clear now this was the turning point in the Council’s attitude to under-fives.’ ¹⁸

There was still a great need for more childcare. There were now 1502 full time childcare places in Hackney, which was soon expected to increase to 1702, with 1123 in part time places. This meant 12,175 children under five in Hackney have no access to pre-school provision at all.

In 1988 Hackney Under Fives had special open meetings on single parents and lesbian mothers and decided they would set up a support network for lesbian mothers / coparents and lesbian under-fives workers. They also organised trainings on AIDS, preventing child sexual abuse and disabled children.

In 1990 the Hackney Under Fives reported it had been a difficult year: with too much work, too little time to do it in and cuts to their funding. They protested a  20% cut to their own grant. ¹⁹

It is not known exactly when Hackney Under Fives stopped operating but it seems likely to have closed by 1992.

Footnotes

1. Hackney Under Fives meeting minutes, Hackney Under Fives archive, Hackney Archives
2. The Pied Piper, Hackney Under Fives archive, Hackney Archives
3. The Lime Green Mystery: an oral history of the Centerprise Co-operative, Rosa Schling (2017)
4. March 1975 – April 1976 Coordinators report, Hackney Under Fives archive, Hackney Archives
5. Hackney Under Fives Open Meeting 6 December 1977, Hackney Under Fives archive, Hackney Archives
6. Minutes of Hackney Under Fives Committee, 15.07.75, Hackney Under Fives archive, Hackney Archives
7. Sarah Mudd archive, Hackney Archives
8. Ibid
9. Minutes of Hackney Under Fives Management Committee 22/2/1978, Hackney Under Fives archive, Hackney Archives
10. Hackney Under Fives Co-workers report August 1977 – May 1978, Hackney Under Fives archive, Hackney Archives
11. Ibid
12. Hackney Under Fives Coordinators report – year ending May 1980, Hackney Under Fives archive, Hackney Archives
13. Minutes of Hackney Under Fives AGM, 1980, Hackney Under Fives archive, Hackney Archives
14. Undated news, Hackney Under Fives archive, Hackney Archives
15. Ibid
16. Letter to Patrick Kodikara October 7 1982, Hackney Under Fives archive, Hackney Archives
17. Hackney Under Fives archive, Hackney Archives
18. Hackney Under-Fives Report 1988, Hackney Under Fives, Hackney Archives
19. Hackney Under-Fives Report 1989-90, Hackney Under Fives, Hackney Archives