Talal Karim: Finsbury Park Trust

Everybody has a story. After 10 years running the Finsbury Park Trust, Talal Karim, shares his favourite parts of this colourful area. Interview by Nicola Baird. Photos by Kimi Gill 

Despite being super busy – his phone rings constantly and he needs to rejig our meeting time twice – Talal Karim always seems calm and polite, taking time to show Islington Faces around the offices of Finsbury Park Trust and make a cup of tea (weak for me, strong for him).

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Talal has spent much of his life working in Islington – he was a Labour councillor for Junction ward for 20 years (1982-2002) and since July 2009 has been Executive Director of Finsbury Park Trust. The trust had been envisioned 10 years earlier, via a funding bid (Single Regeneration Budget) for community-led regeneration of the diverse streets and businesses around Finsbury Park. It’s an area that historically has sometimes felt forgotten thanks to its boundaries being shared by three councils: Islington, Haringey and Hackney. Talal may be the area’s most recent champion but he’s quick to show a photo in Finsbury Park Trust’s lobby of Margot Sreberny, explaining that she was known as “Mrs Finsbury Park”. Turns out she founded Finsbury Park Action Group in 1984. In a tribute to Margot when she died aged 82 Islington Tribune (6/8/2010) revealed that she escaped from Nazi Germany as a child, then spent 50 years improving the “forgotten area” around Finsbury Park – work which led to her winning an MBE.

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Timeline for Finsbury Park from 1869 to 2019

• August 2019 saw some brilliant activities celebrating 150 years of Finsbury Park in Finsbury Park (which opened in 1869). Find more info about the #finsburypark150.Also see info on the arts and cultural projects that are running at the dedicated #FP150 site on http://2nq.uk
• December 2019 – the new station entrance in Wells Terrace is due to open.
• 2020 – planned opening of the City North: Fonthill Road development including 300+ homes (built by Telford Homes), a seven-screen cinema and shopping centre.

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Places Talal Karim likes around Finsbury Park

• I like the park though I’m not a regular user. We are so lucky to have this green lush park and it’s nice to see everyone using it. The 150 year celebrations of the Park held in August was fabulous bringing together communities of different cultures to take part in the celebrations.
• I spend a lot of time eating around this area. The Trust organised a civic lunch for three Mayors in April at Yak and Yeti, a Nepalese restaurant. It was very good food and they donated £120 to the three Borough Mayors’ charities .
• I have lots of favourite restaurants. I like My Cottage Café 10 Clifton Terrace which does Lebanese food, and Gadz, at 44 Clifton Terrace which is a favourite of our MP Jeremy Corbyn. Also Pasta Remoli and the Italian on Fonthill Road, Osteria Tufo, at 67 Fonthill Road.
• On Stroud Green road I like Cat’s (Thai) on 79 Stroud Green Road and Pappagone on 131 Stroud Green Road. I’m a good cook but only cook for a large crowd – usually for other people. I find that because I live on my own it’s often cheaper to eat out. I also like Happy Days Grill on 86 Fonthill Road, Brick & Olive, 93a Stroud Green Road, The Deli at 80 (80 Stroud Green Road) and Boulangerie Bon Matin on 178 Tollington Park Road.
• On Blackstock Road – Blighty Café, 35-27 Blackstock Road, Lara’s Cafe at 16 Blackstock Road and Il Guscio on 231 Blackstock Road
• I like the Park Theatre and often meet people for drinks there.
• I just love Fonthill Road. My walking route to work is always down Clifton Terrace and into Fonthill Road. I know a lot of the traders too.

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So, what’s Finsbury Park Trust?
Turns out that Finsbury Park Trust is the legacy organisation of Finsbury Park Partnership (later renamed FinFuture) In 2013, it reverted back to its original name Finsbury Park Trust. It’s a registered charity with a mission to continue the tri-borough regeneration around the Finsbury Park neighbourhood. Finsbury Park Trust, where Talal’s office is based, owns three properties just by Finsbury Park tube renting out space to local organisations for both permanent office space and occasional meeting rooms. Tenants include Jannaty Women’s Society, Islington Somali Community, and other community organisations Caspari Foundation, Link Ethiopia, Ghana Union and the Congolese Community Council. One recent tenant is a Social Enterprise, Cocktower Community Health & Wellbeing which runs a second hand book shop and hopes to open a coffee shop soon.

Talal’s CV includes Business Development and Regeneration work with Camden Council, Kilburn Town Centre Management and Gospel Oak Partnership accumulating 30 years working in the private, local government and voluntary sectors. Everything leads to Finsbury Park… but how did Talal end up in Islington? It’s a fascinating story which includes early introduction to labour rights learning from his father who worked as Government Labour Relations Adviser and involvement with the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

“My father was the Central Labour Commissioner in Pakistan, working as an arbitrator whenever there were strikes and then later in Bangladesh as an Adviser to the Prime Minister in Labour Relations. He travelled all around the world attending ILO meetings. We first lived in a beautiful part of Rawalpindi called Satellite Town. Then we moved – we were one of the first families to be re-located to Islamabad (the new capital city, built in the 1960s to replace Karachi, and sometimes compared to Canberra). The Government school bus picked us up at 6am to start at 7.30am. Everyone knew each other – the first families were only government officials and diplomats – and half our street there were Bengali families so there was a close bond between us,” says Talal. But this happy state didn’t last.

Politics and people
“I was always politically conscious. That’s why my father sent me out. I came to this country in 1971 during the Bangladesh civil war (March-December 1971). My parents were from the eastern part of Pakistan which became Bangladesh after the War of Independence. My brother was coming to the UK to study accountancy and my father suggested that I join him too. We went from Peshawar to Kabul, from Kabul to Tehran then stayed three months in Tehran with my oldest brother – sorting out our visas to come to London. Early December 1971, my father came to Tehran to attend a Regional ILO conference when the war broke out between India and Pakistan and he got stranded in Tehran. He gave us $200 from his conference allowance to us. It was $50 each to go on the train, which took 10 days, and then we had $100 dollars for London. We arrived in London on 27 December after taking a train from Tehran to Istanbul and then the Orient Express to London,” says Talal. Here Talal and his brother stayed with his late uncle Jafar Kareem and Aunt Heloise, whose first home was in Tufnell Park. Talal is a huge admirer of his late uncle, a psychotherapist. Jafar Kareem set up the Nafsiyat Intercultural Therapy Centre and was later responsible for getting Talal “involved in the Labour party; that’s how I stood for election as a local councillor in 1982 for Junction Ward.”

Talal wanted to do a degree, but he needed to take A levels first. “I went to college at Kilburn Poly and then studied politics at Warwick University,” he says. After experiencing the restrictive politics of Pakistan – at that time military dictatorship – it was an exciting time for Talal the student. At Warwick there were sit-ins and students got involved in solidarity campaigns for all sorts, such as Anti Apartheid, Chile Solidarity Campaign after the brutal overthrow of President Allende by military dictator Pinochet. “After my degree I worked in the private sector for three years and then Citizens Advice Bureau for 16 years. I still meet up with old friends from Warwick including Mike Jackson (ex Unison Official and also a former Labour Councillor), Linda Pentz who was active in Chile Solidarity Campaign, Kaspar De Graaf, ex-President of Students Union (one of the organisers of the 150^thcelebrations in Finsbury Park) and Nita Clarke (who worked for Ken Livingstone and Tony Blair). We plan to have another reunion social soon,” says Talal with a happy smile.

Origins of Finsbury Park Tri Borough work and Margot Streberny
“I took the initiative as a Councillor and as Chair of Economic Development Committee to set up the Finsbury Park Tri Borough Working Group,” explains Talal. “The first meeting chaired by me took place in December 1982 in Islington Town Hall attended by Jeremy Corbyn as Councillor and Chair of Planning in Haringey and the late Margot Sreberny. The Council then established the the Tri Borough Finsbury Park Working Group in 1983.”

Involvement in the Labour Party
From this interview it’s clear that Talal thrives on politics and has made many friends during his years working in Finsbury Park. There’s one political friend he’s keen to name check – Islington North’s MP. “I have known Jeremy Corbyn since 1980,” adds Talal. “I accompanied him to India and Bangladesh in December 1986/January 1987. We travelled by train from Delhi to Kolkata. He stayed with my family in Dhaka and travelled to Sylhet by train. In the mid eighties he lived in Turle Road just a few streets from me. I used to babysit his older son Ben (Jeremy used to introduce me as his “political Godfather”), cooked meals on social occasions, including for Tony and Caroline Benn, who were once invited at short notice. Jeremy  has been a good friend to me and has been my best political mentor along with Tony Benn. I have taken so many family members and friends from abroad as his guest to the House of Commons. He would give up his time to conduct a tour and treat us for tea and cakes in The Pugin Room or Jubilee café. He is one of the nicest and finest politicians and it is so unfair that he gets such a bad treatment. He will be an excellent Prime Minister and I am looking forward to seeing him in Number 10 soon. Maybe he will ask me to cook meals again when he’s at Number 10 ( and of course that means a bit of wise advice from time to time when needed) Jeremy is like that – he listens to everyone and is very amenable.”

If you have your own wise counsel that you wish to share about N4 with Talal, then he’s contactable at Finsbury Park Trust.

• Finsbury Park Trust, 225-229 Seven Sisters Rd, Finsbury Park, London N4 2DA. Tel: 020 7561 5510 https://www.finsburyparktrust.co.uk

Over to you
If you’d like to nominate someone to be interviewed who grew up, lives or works in Islington, or suggest yourself, please let me know, via nicolabaird dot green at gmail dot com. If you enjoyed this post you might like to look at the A-Z  index, or search by interviewee’s roles or Meet Islingtonians to find friends, neighbours and inspiration. Thanks for stopping by. Nicola