@AladdinPR

Award-winning #PR troubadour specialising in charities and non-profits. Exp in #antiracism, #environment, #health, #housing, #unions, #crisiscomms.

[London Emergencies Trust @LET_2017]

Remembering #FinsburyParkMosque https://t.co/Pb8Z5vtr03

[@AladdinPR @AladdinPR]

Reclining figure - pencil and charcoal (after Henry Moore)

[London Emergencies Trust @LET_2017]

Remembering #FinsburyParkMosque https://t.co/Pb8Z5vtr03

[London Emergencies Trust @LET_2017]

Remembering those who lost their lives and those who lost their loved ones in the 1972 #Staines air disaster https://t.co/uE8vJv2JOg

[London Emergencies Trust @LET_2017]

Remembering those who lost their lives and those who lost their loved ones in the 1972 #Staines air disaster https://t.co/uE8vJv3hDO

[London Emergencies Trust @LET_2017]

Remembering those who lost their lives and those who lost their loved ones in the 1972 #Staines air disaster https://t.co/uE8vJv2JOg

[@AladdinPR @AladdinPR]

This looks like it reflects the worsening salary situation for many charity workers https://t.co/V3Rpg3nUPN

[London Emergencies Trust @LET_2017]

Remembering #Grenfell #ForeverInOurHearts https://t.co/HlpN6M1Ukg

[London Emergencies Trust @LET_2017]

Remembering #Grenfell #ForeverInOurHearts https://t.co/HlpN6M1muI

[London Emergencies Trust @LET_2017]

Remembering #Grenfell #ForeverInOurHearts https://t.co/HlpN6M1Ukg

[London Emergencies Trust @LET_2017]

NEWS: #Grenfell memorial needs to be shaped by many voices, designers say https://t.co/RmpyjCpp6u

[London Emergencies Trust @LET_2017]

NEWS: London launches fresh push to strip unsafe cladding faster https://t.co/LDG5xOyM2w

[Crazy Vibes @CrazyVibes_1]

November 1971. Chiswick, West London.
Erin Pizzey is 32 years old. She is not a lawyer. Not a politician. Not a doctor.
She is a woman who talked Hounslow Council into lending her a cold, rundown building on Belmont Road — a former community hall — for almost nothing. Her original plan was modest. A warm room. A cup of tea. Somewhere for mothers with young children to simply get out of the house.
Then the door opened.
A woman stood in the entrance. She was covered, head to foot, in bruises. She was holding two small children. She was shaking.
She didn't want tea.
She needed somewhere to hide.
Erin let her in. She didn't turn her away. She didn't tell her to call the police.
Because Erin had already called the police. They told her the same thing they told every woman in Britain at the time: they could not enter a private home over a "domestic dispute." That was the law. The home was private. What happened inside it was a family matter.
When Erin contacted a female civil servant to report what she was seeing, the response was astonishing. The woman told her flatly: "There wasn't a problem of battered wives until you made one."
Erin put down the phone. Then she went back to her residents and made sure they were fed.
Within weeks, 40 mothers and children were sleeping in four tiny rooms. No funding. No staff. No legal authority.
She didn't stop.
By 1973, word had spread through quiet whisper networks — one woman telling another, "There is a place. Go to Chiswick. She won't turn you away." That same year, Erin hosted the first National Women's Aid Conference in the UK. Women from across Britain arrived, and they all recognized the same thing at once: what she had built needed to exist everywhere.
In 1974, the council set a maximum of 36 residents. At peak times, 150 women and children were living inside those walls — sleeping on floors, on chairs, in hallways. The building smelled of cooking, fear, and something else entirely: relief.
Erin was taken to court for overcrowding. She appealed all the way to the House of Lords.
She kept the doors open the entire time.
That same year, she wrote a book. Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hear. It was the first published account of domestic violence in British history. It used real stories from real women inside the shelter. Overnight, a problem that had no official name was on front pages from London to New York.
The movement spread. Refuges opened across the UK. Then Australia. Then Canada. Then the United States. The pattern she created in four small rooms in West London ��� no blueprint, no permission, no funding — had been replicated in hundreds of shelters across the Western world.
MP Jack Ashley stood up in Parliament and said: "It was she who first identified the problem, who first recognised the seriousness of the situation and who first did something practical."
She was ranked 14th in a poll of the 100 women who shook the world. She was awarded the Italian Peace Prize. She received a CBE. The charity she founded — Chiswick Women's Aid, which became Refuge — grew into the largest domestic violence charity in the United Kingdom, with over 460 employees and an annual income of more than £33 million.
Erin Pizzey passed away on October 4, 2025, aged 86.
She never stopped.
It all began with one woman, one borrowed building, and an absolute refusal to say no.
Forty women and children showed up with nowhere to go.
She made room.

Share this if you believe one ordinary person, refusing to look away, can build a shelter that holds the whole world.

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[Richard Osley @RichardOsley]

@NewJournal Reporter role https://t.co/0eKfu2OXUg

[Camden New Journal @NewJournal]

We are looking to hire a new reporter – see link below

[Oversight Trust @OversightTrust]

NEWS: Seb Elsworth to step down as CEO of @si_access https://t.co/biMGxf5i9W

[Ladywell Live @LadywellLive]

The Ladywell Society has launched a survey to understand what matters most to those who live, work or study in the area. The survey will help shape its priorities and guide how it represents local views in discussions with the council. Use the link https://t.co/tFk39vyEWt

[@AladdinPR @AladdinPR]

Another Chelsea legend has gone. Farewell Bobby Tambling https://t.co/k2RgSfGATy

[BBC London @BBCLondonNews]

Call for unity 9 years after London Bridge attacks ➡️ https://t.co/Tc3HLuU4dc

[London Emergencies Trust @LET_2017]

https://t.co/jI8AdRTWEM