Bukky Bakray is in demand. But when she isn’t acting, the 19-year-old Hackney native can be mostly be found wandering east London with her friends, an area that for a long time was all she knew. Growing up in Lower Clapton, her early childhood memories are of the Asda carpark in Leyton, eating KFC in the car while her mum did the shopping or playing with her brothers in the park. ‘I walk past there now and there’s nothing in that park,’ Bakray laughs. ‘But to me and my brothers back then, it was like Chessington or Thorpe Park. I remember it being amazing.’
Bakray was five when work began on nearby Stratford City that preceded the 2012 Olympics, and was turning 10 when it was completed. She thinks the regeneration had a positive effect. ‘I started to go to the gym by the Copper Box and now I’m walking around there all the time, I’m reaping the benefits,’ she says. ‘People are nicer when they’re close to green spaces, people are always smiling round there. It’s refreshing being around places like that. Everyone is deserving of that refreshment.’
