Mick Hugo obituary

My friend Mick Hugo, who has died aged 73, was active in the squatters movement of the early 1970s and helped to set up the Hackney Housing Co-Operative, which has provided homes in London for hundreds of people over the years.

Born in the Hoxton area of Hackney to Florence (nee Bartrip), a dressmaker, and her husband, James Hugo, a demolition worker, Mick went to Shoreditch secondary school and joined the merchant navy in 1961 aged 15, mainly to avoid the temptation of drifting into crime, as many of his friends had done.