We're drifting into young adulthood here - I was 18 years old.
This was the first place I lived having decided (within the space of a few minutes one morning) that I missed London too much and wanted to return. My parents moved to the south coast after the Hayes By Pass started its march across Cranborne Waye in 1987. So I asked a family friend, Mark, if I could stay at his spare bedroom for a few weeks. He agreed, and eventually a few weeks ended up being 8 months. I paid £12 per week to live here. Not expensive, even though the hot water was often not hot, the heating ditto, the carpet was in fact splinter ridden floorboards, and the bed was a more camp than Freddie Mercury. I had an absolutely marvellous time living in such grime (absolutely no irony intended, the time I had was sloppy and chilled – and of course, cheap). Which bearing in mind I was only on £8,300 was probably the reason I could afford to stay on in London. Mark W, if you ever stumble across this blog entry – you were great company in a “Men Behaving Badly eat your hearts out” sort of way. And the half fixed Apple 2 computers, gutted vacuum cleaners and martial arts mags really added layer of squalor to the already squalid ambience I'll never forget.
I like the sign below what would have been the living room window: "NO BALL PLAYING". And just how many TV dishes can you fit on to a building before it falls down?
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