Second day opens with tribute to Debbie Lamprell
At the start of the second day Michael Volpe, director of Holland Park Opera, read out a tribute to Debbie Lamprell by her mother Miriam Lamprell.
She had a whale of a time as a child, her mother recalled. She complained of being asked to come in from playing early because she loved people so much, the statement said. She took ballet and tap dance lessons as a child and like sport.
Debbie was a big Spurs fan and loved watching the team with her dad Reg. “She was his treasure and she felt the same about him,” Miriam said. They also liked going blackberry picking together.
Debbie got the idea of living in north Kensington when she visited museums in London, her mother said.
She loved her Grenfell flat but the refurbishment became a “nightmare”, her mother recalled. The death of her father Reg brought Debbie closer to her mother, the statement said. She would frequently text her mother at night. Her mother also frequently stayed at the Grenfell flat but the lift in the building made it difficult for her to stay.
Debbie loved exploring new places and travelled all over the world, including to Sri Lanka, Miriam said. She was happy with her friends, her job and her neighbours. Her neighbours knew she was home because they could hear the laughter of Debbie and her friends.
At the funeral one of Debbie’s friends told her mother “you would not believed how many people loved her,” she recalled. Her mother expressed gratitude at a stone step being laid in Holland Park in Debbie’s memory.
The statement added: “I am bereft without her. If she had a normal death I would have been able to comfort her. A part of me has been ripped out.”
Debbie texted her mother on the night of the fire to say she was home safely and said “God bless”.
Her mother statement: “I am an old woman with nothing left. I am completely blessed to have had her as a daughter.”
The inquiry has updated today’s programme to include a further tribute to Mary Mendy who was commemorated on Monday along with her daughter the photographer Khadija Saye.
In a statement read to the inquiry yesterday her niece Marion Telfer said: “My aunt was my hero. She has been in my life for every major event. She was my mum as well as my aunt.”
Grenfell Inquiry (@grenfellinquiry)
An updated programme for today's commemorative hearing. pic.twitter.com/t6rHk14oeB
May 22, 2018
The second day will start with tributes to Debbie Lamprell, a 45-year-old opera lover who lived on the 16th floor.
On the night of the fire, Lamprell reportedly texted her mother at about 11.30pm to say she had got home safely. She was identified by dental records after her remains were found on the 23rd floor. In a statement, her mother, who asked not to be named, said Debbie was a “wonderful, precious daughter, always smiling and helping others”.
Her funeral was attended by former school friends, according to Michael Volpe, general director of Opera Holland Park, where she worked. “Debbie was still close to people she grew up with; they’d stayed friends. She was just an incredibly nice person.”
He told the Guardian: “She knew everyone; all the singers knew her, all the orchestra knew her. Everyone loved her because she was so chirpy, and she remembered things. She’d ask after someone’s mum, or their children.”
Then the inquiry ill hear about Maria del Pilar Burton, known as Pily, who was rescued on the night of the fire but who suffered from previous health complications, remained in hospital for months and died on 29 January.
She was finally recognised as the 72nd victim of the fire on the eve of the public inquiry.
She was 74 and lived on the 19th floor of the 24-storey block.
Her husband wrote in a statement: “Pily was well known in our community, she was what people call a real character. A character in the best sense of the word – she was flamboyant, colourful, passionate and friendly.”
Before the Choucair family the inquiry will hear commemorations to Rania Ibrahim and her two young daughters Hania Hassan (3) and Fethia Hassan (5), who all lived on 23rd floor.
Originally from Aswan in southern Egypt, Rania was the youngest of five girls. She settled in the UK in 2009 after meeting her husband, Hassan Hassan.
He was in Cairo at the time of the fire owing to his brother’s ill health. He watched footage his wife posted online showing that the tower had caught fire.
One of her sisters Rasha said Rania recounted a dream about the tower a month before the fire. Rasha told the Guardian: “She dreamt that her parents were on different levels of the building. She heard them asking her to go to a higher floor. She believed this meant she will be in a higher place in heaven. Then she laughed.”
Rasha believes her sister was reticent to finish decorating her flat because she felt something bad would happen there, “as if she sensed the danger”.
The second day will close with a tribute to Hesham Rahman, a 57-year-old Egyptian who lived on the 23rd floor for almost five years.
“He was so proud of that flat,” his nephew Karim Mussilhy told the Guardian. “I remember when he first got it – all the furniture he bought, and how much effort he put into decorating.”
Rahman’s extended family has longstanding links to the area around the tower and he was thrilled to get an apartment on the top floor.
Born in Cairo, Rahman emigrated to the UK aged 18 with his aunt and her husband, who cared for him after he became estranged from his father’s family.
Updated
Second day to hear tributes to the Choucair family
The second day will hear tributes to the Choucair family who lost six members from three generations, according to a running order of today’s proceedings published by the inquiry.
Zaynab Choucair, who at aged three was one of the youngest victims of the fire, died alongside her sisters Fatima (11) and Mierna (13) and their mother Nadia Choucair, father Bassem Choukair and their grandmother Sirria Choucair.
Grenfell Inquiry (@grenfellinquiry)
The programme for today's commemorative hearing. A link to the stream will be posted at 9:45. pic.twitter.com/qdreZClyEP
May 22, 2018
