Walking to the first interview for this project, I noticed a young boy sitting on a wall a few roads down from my north London flat. He had his head in his hands and his body shook gently, quiet sobs erupting as his feet dangled above the ground. Opposite him lay a sea of flowers, some wilting, others fresh, weather-worn cards, their rain-defeated ink fading into illegibility and candles laid out to form the initials ‘JH’. When I came back home five hours later, he was still there.
It’s a memorial Londoners have walked past countless times since it appeared in early January, at the site where 24-year-old Jonah Ho-Shue was stabbed to death. He was the first person to be killed on London’s streets last year.
