This week 30 years ago: Failed lift repairs leave Islington pensioner stuck in sixth floor flat for 10 months

An 88-year-old pensioner was praying to be released from “prison” – after being shut off from the world in her council flat for almost a year.

Catherine Seager, who lived in a sixth floor flat, had been waiting for workmen to replace the lift at Parker Court, in Basire Street off New North Road, for 10 months.

The incomplete work left her stuck at the top of 88 stairs. She said: “I am lucky to have good friends and neighbours. But I am fed up with being stuck in here unable to get out. All I’ve got is the view from the balcony.”

Meanwhile, an Islington councillor was fighting government plans to ban schools from mentioning homosexuality.

Cllr Bob Crossman, who in the previous year had become the country’s first openly gay mayor, said it would lead to a “denial of human rights of lesbian and gay ratepayers and citizens”.

He added: “This isn’t Germany in the Third Reich. It’s England in the third term.”