Journalism is often cast as a bullish, alpha occupation. Be tough and unstinting and a bit shouty: first, fast and forthright.

But our attempt to tell the life stories of every single person who died in Grenfell Tower required something different: compassion, patience, an ability to instil trust, an understanding that, with some requests for interview, “no” really does mean “no”. There is no point trying to honour someone’s memory if you alienate their loved ones in the process.

The project took nine months. There were several moments early on when I felt it might be an impossible task. It was one of the most daunting things I have done in 15 years at the Guardian: even as we came to publication this week, it felt as if the job was only half done.

The challenge was that, to do the job properly, we wanted to talk to the people who knew the victims best. But we also knew these people – suddenly widowed wives, bereft brothers and sisters, no-longer aunts and uncles – were so consumed by grief and anger that talking to us was the last thing they wanted to do.

The first decision: if the family said they didn’t want to cooperate, did that mean we should desist? We decided that, as long as we trod sensitively, friends, mentors, colleagues and neighbours were valid sources. I asked Robert White, our obituaries editor, if this was the right approach.

“If through a process of fair reporting you’ve put together a story that relatives can’t take issue with on a point of fact, then I don’t see that they could raise an objection,” he said.

With reluctant relatives, we trod carefully. How to talk people round? I listened to my own voice cold-calling people I really didn’t want to cold-call; it was reedy, slower, apologetic before it had even said anything that made sense. I was desperate for people not to hang up on me without saying a word.

As so many victims were originally from overseas, it made sense to see what we could find out in their home countries. But this was to be old-style journalism. Many sources insisted on face-to-face interviews, not quick phone conversations or questions and answers via email.

Ruth Michaelson scoured Cairo for details on several families. Angela Giuffrida took a trip to San Stino di Livenza to see the parents of the Italian sweethearts Gloria Trevisan and Marco Gottardi.

And several reporters from the Dhaka Tribune pitched in to help unearth the backstory behind a Bangladeshi family, literally going the extra mile to locate living relatives. “The roads to one village were substantially underdeveloped and muddy,” said reporter Saiful Islam. “Our vehicle was stuck in the mud a couple of times on our way there and back, even our accompanying guide told us that he did not sign up for this.”

Intriguingly, even after all this effort, there are still people we know little of. Amazingly, in a world addicted to oversharing, there are several Grenfell victims with no digital footprint at all, utterly private individuals who led their lives as far away from the limelight as it’s possible to get.

For these individuals, there was little to be written. A couple of seasoned colleagues assured me that this was probably OK. Sometimes a dearth of information says a lot more than a glut.

Workers inside the tower after the fire last year. Photograph: Hannah Mckay/Reuters

What might they have become?

Hanan Wahabi, who lived on Grenfell Tower’s 9th floor, escaped from the burning building with her husband, son and daughter. Her brother Abdulaziz, his wife Faouzia, and their three children Yasin, Nur Huda and Mehdi, lived on the 21st floor, and did not. For hours and hours, Hanan told me the first time I met her, she stood outside the building, waiting.



When I visited the Premier Inn where the family is still living 11 months after the fire, Hanan’s daughter Sara, who used to play with her cousin Mehdi on the landing outside his flat, described how he kept his small toys – Minions, Furbies and fidget spinners – arranged on his desk: “He was like a collector,” she said. Had he grown up, this smiley eight-year-old might have one day been a comedian, or what she called a “humour man”.

Obituaries are for public figures. These Grenfell profiles are different. The victims were private people: teachers, shop workers, pensioners, taxi drivers. Eighteen of the 71 victims were children, almost half were under 35, cut down before they had the chance to fulfil their dreams of becoming footballers, small business owners, occupational therapists. Our task was to find the people willing to tell us who they were when they lived – what did they like to eat, to wear? How did they talk? Were they funny, shy, generous? – but also who they might have become.

Sara went to Thomas Jones primary school, Mehdi to Oxford Gardens, and it was through the schools that I made many of the contacts that proved invaluable in writing my portion of the Guardian’s tributes. Many of the children who were killed, I realised, would – now that their immediate families were dead – be remembered more accurately at school than anywhere else. Teachers told me which children were confident achievers, or strivers; which girls and boys had tight social circles and who were the class clowns (Yaqub Hashim, six, was one). One school, Avondale Park, had a memorial wall dedicated to two whole families: the Hashims and the Choucairs, deeply mourned because Nadia Choucair worked in the nursery.

The Marks & Spencer press office helped me find Mizan, who worked with Nadia’s husband, Bassem. Berkti Haftom’s former boss, Adegboyega Phillips, shared generous recollections of an employee he said was the life and soul – and for whom he bought flowers on mother’s day.

Susanna Rustin adds: Lots of people were desperately upset by Grenfell, and wanted to help. Hence the vast piles of donations. I live locally, saw the smoking tower that terrible morning, and was upset too. It wasn’t my job to report on the fire but I have found in this project, the Guardian’s memorial to the victims, an outlet for my own fury and sadness: that such a disaster could happen in my city in 2017; that whole families could die amid such unimaginable horror and fear. We are grateful to everyone who trusted us with this attempt to explain who it was that we all lost last year.