Nelson Mandela

I once told Jane all about Nelson Mandela when she admitted that she had no idea who he was. It was a complicated, long story involving Nelson, the Dutch man, rowing all the way to Africa in only a small kayak. It was especially surprising that he was adopted by Africans as a leader since he was a white man. He fought Robert Mugabe who assembled an army of mercenaries. He was victorious and united Africa.

One day we were sitting in her lovely house and her father mentioned Nelson Mandela after South Africa had been discussed on the television news, 'but I bet you know nothing about him' he said to Jane, smiling, to which she happily declared 'oh, but I do' and then recounted the story to prove it. Sorry Jane.

Dennis Nordern

Once I was walking with Jane through Soho, down Berwick street. Just where the market stalls begin we bumped into Dennis Nordern, host of television's 'It'll Be Alright On The Night.'

I remember that it was Victory in Europe day and so, for some reason or another, I was carrying an old World War Two British Tommy helmet. I got so sick of the sight of the thing I was to give it away in 2005 via an ad on Freecycle. A very grateful Italian student inherited it.

At first Dennis seemed quite open to the idea of finding a photobooth and having passport photos taken with us but, to be honest, I'm not sure that he was that aware what was going on around him. He soon became agitated and insisted on parting company. I had promised him that he could wear the helmet in the photos which had appealed to him at first but now he became disinterested. I dragged him by the arm but the commotion that he made was attracting the attention of passers by so, reluctantly, I released him.

The Drinkers In The Royal Oak

By the time I was finishing school and starting to attend sixth form college the dark and dangerous Waterloo pub was no longer popular and all the school children went to The Royak Oak in the village of Godmanchester. After a while Howard and I found ourselves in there all the time, playing pool in the basement room, even on empty weekdays.

Aside from the younger boys and girls many old men would be there, every day of their lives, getting drunk. They would sit at the bar, a dismal row of them. They were all slightly stupid, misogynist, racist, homophobic, uninspired and unambitious. One sticks out in my memory well, I think he was called Jim and he was a disgusting wretch. He was always drunk and he'd screech incoherently with a voice that was entirely hoarse like, as they say, sand paper. His skin was stretched taught over his flimsy, skinny body, he had a foul mouth, harassed girls and shouted abuse at boys.

He was a builder but I don't know when he found time to build anything since he was always in the pub.

Brothers who had worked on the plumbing of the family home that my dad worked on would always tell me, drunkenly, what a genius my dad was. They were amazed that he had carried out all of the electrical work and carpentry and most of the plumbing on the house himself, especially given that he was an amateur.

One Sunday afternoon I was sitting on the bench behind the place with Jane. All of a sudden all of the regulars ran out, announced that they were about to play 'flaming arse holes' and stood against the wall, pulled their trousers down, put toilet paper between their legs and used cigarette lighters to set the paper alight. They were unpleasant people. Jim declared himself the winner.

I overheard one of them, a stocky skinhead who I think was named James, boasting that he was a great arm wrestler as I was waiting one evening to be served at the bar. I told him that I was confident that I could beat him but he thought this impossible and dismissed me.

Later that evening Jane, Howard and I were standing out the back by Jane's green Morris Minor. We were in the habit of buying undrinkable, cheap 99p La Mancha wine from the local off licence when we were running out of money and drinking from the bottle. James the even heavier drinker walked past and I asked him if he was still too scared to have the arm wrestle, so he took me up on the challenge and we set about holding the competition on the bonnet of Jane's car. And I won. He stared at me momentarily and then punched me in the face. Honestly, the locals at the Royal Oak pub were a dismal bunch.

Bookmaker's Shop.

Jane was also from Huntingdon and I went out with her around the time that I went to university. I knew her family was from Dalston in London.

Well, a couple of years ago I moved to Dalston. Opposite my flat is a derelict bookmaker's shop which bears the same name as my friend Jane. I mentioned it to her and it turns out that, although her immediate family thought that it had long since disappeared, this was the bookmaker's shop which had been owned by her grandfather in the 60s. The place where a man who was robbing the shop shot her poor grandfather dead.

What a coincidence!

Go Faster!

Honestly, I'd never felt so sick in all my life.

The fair had come to Kennington Park and a really mean fair it was too, from the skinny, feral men who ran it, and drank every night that week in our local pub, to the run down attractions with their rust and peeling paint.

The pub opposite our flat, when Jane and I lived on Camberwell New Road, was called the Skinner's Arms. It served an ageing clientèle made up mostly of Irish people who must have been attracted by the construction boom in the 50s and now just spent their days in the pub. The landlord was a friendly, heavy drinker with a big puffy face that, with it's bumps, resembled a big, happy, shiny potato. Jane and I, and sometimes Daniel too who was spending a lot of time round at ours (he'd bring a copy of The People newspaper and spend the afternoon reading through it in the living room), would be the only people under 60 in the place. I went past it a short while ago and the building is now a nightclub.

There was a pool room in the back and, on the first night of the fair, I was playing pool with the fairground workers. I think I got into an argument. The next morning Jane and I were hungover and took a stroll in the park to clear our heads. We walked past the umbrellas ride and I asked the owner, who was busy with some maintenance or other, if he'd start the ride up for us.

So there we were, sitting, waiting in the umbrella ride on that gloomy damp morning, the only people in the whole park, the only people on the umbrellas. And as our umbrella slowly started to twist through the sir, I thought I'd try reading my paper, just to be silly. Perhaps that annoyed the ride owner, or perhaps it was something to do with the argument in the pub the night before, or perhaps he simply was a bad man, but he set the ride at full speed and disappeared. Gone to the newsagent's or for a cup of tea, wherever he went he didn't return for a half an hour. When we finally got off it took me a long, long time to get my balance back and I felt sick all day.

Renting a Room

Howard and I decided one day that it would be fun to rent a room out in Jane's flat on Camberwell New Road.

We put an advert in the Loot classifieds paper, advertising the room at the bargain price of ten pounds, and then showed applicants a temporary shelter made of sticks and a bed sheet on the roof. We had lots of fun, we were very young after all, but the advert was very popular, the telephone would not stop ringing, so we soon grew bored and went to the pub. We left the other flatmates to deal with it, which was very impolite of us since, like I say, the phone did not stop ringing. Very stupid..

Tear Gas At The Laurel Tree

The Laurel Tree in Camden is where all the indie kids would hang out in the 90s. Jane and I discovered the place by accident when we decided to run away from our flatmate one evening. He was queuing in the chip shop beside Camden Tube and, although it was a mean thing to do, I am glad that we did it. Parsley's band 'Dutronc' were playing cover versions of Jacques and I thought that the whole place was just fantastic. I returned the next week and met Morgane, the first of all of the people that would become my friends in London. I proudly let it slip that I was playing bass for the Television Personalities but she beat me by letting me know that she played keyboards for Stereolab, who I thought were just fantastic. Morgane introduced me to Nick and Dino who became great friends with whom I'd go to lots of parties with and with whom I'd start the band Miss Mend (and later play in The Projects with Morgane and later still Dino.)

One time I was at Chris and Loretta's 'co-op' club night and I found myself wanting for cigarettes. I drunkenly pushed my way through the crowd to the stairs. The ground floor hosted a depressing pop disco and the dance floor was heaving with fake tans. I pushed my way to the cigarette machine and allowed it to prop me up as I slowly filled it with all the coins that I had, searching every pocket for extra five and ten pence pieces.

Eventually the packet of cigarettes was in my hand and I turned on my heel to find the whole place absolutely empty. The few hundred people had disappeared. It was quite a dream like experience. The room that had been a heaving, sweating, drunken mess was, to my surprise, deserted. Then I began to taste what I assume to have been tear gas at the back of my throat. I returned upstairs. It seemed that It couldn't have been a large tear gas canister that had been thrown down there because it didn't have much of an effect on me.

Kennington Park Lido

Jane and I lived right around the corner from Kennington Park and one sunny day we decided to find the swimming pool. It was marked in my A to Z and we often wondered where exactly it was. We searched without luck, how difficult could a swimming pool be to find in a small park? We asked one person but they were unaware of any lido, we asked another with no luck. We searched on. We asked a lady who took a look at my A to Z, pointed out that it was printed in the early fifties and that the lido had been demolished way back in 1981.

How I Met Daniel

When I first lived in Stamford Hill, while I was still a University student, my favourite place was Safeways the supermarket. On the opposite side of the junction, I'd use any excuse to visit.

It was there that I bumped into the singer from my favourite band at the time The Television Personalities and his girlfriend Alison. I can't remember what I said but I do remember it being a bit awkward. I don't think that the name of his band was quite as well known in those days as it is today and this made it feel like an even bigger coincidence somehow. I'd play his records every day, I thought that his songs were just great.

They were at a Pastels show that I went to a few days later at The Garage opposite Highbury and Islington tube. He was feeling very introverted and sullen, which I'd say now was down to not having taken heroin, since at the time, he was an addict. Alison was feeling a little upset by Daniel's mood (she didn't know the extent of his drug taking, in fact, I don't think that she knew that he took the stuff at all) and I think my being there was an irritation. We travelled home together and I invited him over for the next day to meet Jane, the invitation was reciprocated and we became friends.

We were to spend a great deal of time with each other, right up until his disappearance. and I got to know Alison well, who's a great person, and their flatmate Declan too who was overwhelmed with an obsession with the blind South American singer José Feliciano.

Hitchhiking From Glasgow To Cambridge

I travelled to Glasgow thinking that I was going to be studying at the Strathclyde University there. No sooner than I arrived, with boxes of all of my stuff, I realised that I hadn't read the prospectus so well. I was only interested in studying literature but the course that I had chosen would only specialise 100% in the subject by the fourth year; the first year comprising five subjects, then three and two in the third. So I spent the next month putting off enrolment and attempting to transfer to Glasgow University. I stayed at a halls of residence on Cathedral Street, played scrabble and made a Super 8 film of the blood trails to be found around the city centre (I found new ones every day.) I spent nights at the art school bar, which I heard was a good place, pretty much always on my own (I was awkward and found it impossible to meet people) until Jane showed up. She stayed for a week, during which time all money ran out and we lived, pretty much, off potatoes. I had to steal packing tape. By this time my transfer to Glasgow University, which seemed to a simple formality at first, had been turned down since the course was over subscribed. There was nothing for it, I would have to hitch hike to Cambridge with as much of my stuff as I could manage; two apple boxes, a couple of shoulder bags and a couple of plastic bags.

One evening, a couple of days after Jane returned home by train, I prepared. What I wouldn't be able to manage I packed away in boxes and stored in a closet to be collected by courier when I could afford it. I didn't sleep well that night and at four o'clock I was boiling the last of my potatoes and, by five, I was staggering up the road with my boxes and bags to the M8 motorway. I felt very miserable with such a burden and not even enough money for a cup of tea.

I positioned myself by the side of the road, I had made a huge sign offering all the possible routes that could be of use to me, I was surrounded by all my stuff. Unexpectedly, a middle aged man emerged from a pile of rubbish that I had been standing beside for a quarter of an hour. He was a very friendly vagrant. He was not an alcoholic, he pointed out, but had preferred homelessness all of his life. He bought me a cup of tea and a sandwich from a mobile café.

Soon I got my first lift, a courier travelling South via Edinburgh. In no time at all dawn had risen and I was waiting for him in a quiet cul de sac of townhouses. Returning with his parcel, he drove off at speed, tyres screeching. I pointed out that he had very nearly run over a cat. 'If there's one thing I have learnt driving as a courier' he said seriously 'it's to never, ever be distracted by anything furry or flappy on the road.' The man was an idiot. Later he risked gunning down a road which was reduced to a single lane for both directions due to its narrowness, even though the lights had been red for some time. 'I should have done it, I should have just gone for it,' he had said to himself anxiously as we waited at the red lights. 'Fuck it,' he declared, deciding to just take the risk. It was frightening.

He dropped me off South of the border. I was picked up by a man who wasn't in the mood for conversation and, by mid afternoon, I was at Sandbach services on the M6.

I waited there by the exit with my sign and my stuff. It was crisp and cold but the sky was clear and the sun warm. I was offered a lift by a woman who looked like a model and drove a red Ferrari. Unfortunately it turned out that she was going to Birmingham. I was then picked up by a banker who had just made what he described as a 'an amazing fortune' trading. He kept impressing on me how he'd never do such a thing as pick up a hitch hiker if it weren't for the fact that, on that special day, he felt like 'giving something back.' We soon fell into silence.

Another couple of rides later and, at eight o'clock in the evening, fifteen hours after setting out, I was in Huntingdon. I felt very happy with my achievement. My parents didn't seem happy though and informed me that I could only stay with them for a day or two. After that I travelled to Bristol and shared Jane's room at her halls of residence until we got a flat there together in St Paul's.

Tony P.

One summer’s day, when I lived on Camberwell New Road, I was walking through the churchyard near Oval Tube Station and a couple of drunks sitting on a bench asked me for change. I had none but we chatted for a while and they seemed like nice people. They were very surprised when I returned a few minutes later with a can of Special Brew for each of them. They were surprised that I didn't want to drink one myself on such a beautiful sunny afternoon. It turned out that Rocco, who Tony P. would later tell me was losing his mind through drink (he was chuckling constantly) needed to use a telephone. Since none of us had a ten pence piece I invited them around to my girlfriend Jane’s flat, where I was sharing her room. Caroline, Eve and Jane were at home, everyone got along fine, Rocco made his call and soon they went on their way.

Shortly afterwards I received a letter through the post from Tony, inviting me to his house that following Sunday in Colliers Wood, South London.

I remember the journey there well. I was in the habit of always leaning out of the open window in between carriages (possible only with the low windows of the old style trains.) I would enjoy the wind in my hair as I listened to my walkman very loud. I was admiring the art deco fixtures and the unusual configuration of the platforms on some of those stations South of the river on the Northern Line where both North and Southbound trains share the same tunnel. The journey was not memorable because of this though, rather because whilst I was marvelling at the architecture a mad man tried to strangle me through the windows of the doors, from the neighbouring carriage. I hit him in the face and he lost interest. I hate violence and I found the need to punch the man disturbing.

When I got to Colliers Wood I found that Tony had cooked me a roast chicken lunch. His welcome was so warm and I found his cooking for me so touching that I didn’t have the heart to let him know that I am a vegetarian, and ate with him all the same. Neither did I have the heart to tell him that I wasn’t an alcoholic but since he had gone to all the trouble to buy eight cans of Tennents Super, we drank all afternoon.

I saw quite a lot of Tony after that. He introduced me to old friends in Brixton (where he wanted to be rehoused after having been forced to move away,) and we’d make journeys to the West End. We looked quite intriguing walking down the street I think, an immaculately dressed older Jamaican man wearing a Panama and a young, middle class white boy with a stupid haircut. In fact Tony’s daughter was quite suspicious of our relationship, especially since I was in the habit of sleeping on the sofa after not being able to contend with the mental cosh that is Tennents Super. Once we had both assured her that there was nothing out of the ordinary going on she remarked that I looked like Hugh Grant and said that I’d be quite handsome if only I cut my hair. Tony then rolled a joint. I hate getting stoned but I had a drag or two all the same. His daughter asked me if I had ever slept with a black girl. The grass was strong and so I found it difficult to react coherently when she suggested that I could sleep with her if I painted her kitchen which badly needed redecorating. I turned down the kind offer but I was so stoned that it felt awkward to turn it down politely.

"Oh Graeme," he would often say "when we touch down in Montego Bay, we'll pick the fruit straight from the tree." He was a very good man, Tony P. full of enthusiasm for life but life was just too difficult for him. He had been found asleep at the wheel of his car, an empty bottle of rum in his hand and the keys in the ignition a few years before I met him. They took away his driving license which meant taking away his job as a bus driver. He said that he had enjoyed driving buses, although the pre pneumatic assisted clutch had given him problems in the joints of his left leg.


He began to lose his mind, Tennents Super, a drink marketed at alcoholics, has odd additives in it that have this effect. Eventually I had to break ties with Tony P. He was just too much of a handful. The last time that I saw him was at my second flat in Stamford Hill. He was being very rude to Dino who had dropped by and, four times in a row, he couldn’t get down the stairs and into the cabs that I ordered for him. Eventually I had to get rid of him by giving him this acoustic guitar that I owned. He had been remarking all evening as to how he would very much like one and, after hours of him overstaying his welcome, I told him outright. Get in the cab, I’ll pay for it, I’ll give you an acoustic guitar, if only you get in the damn cab.

I know that a woman called Darlene wished to save him, picking him up and trying to take him to church once a week providing he was sober enough. He wasn't interested in the church but he liked Darlene. I hope something good came of all of that but, since we have lost touch completely, I shall never know.

Distressed Prostitute

When I was twenty I lived with Jane in South London beside Kennington Park. On one dark, cold night I was walking the short distance from Oval Underground Station to our flat down Camberwell New Road. The weather was unpleasant and, since I was keeping my head down as I walked against the wind and rain, I almost barrelled straight into the distressed woman.

Her clothes were in tatters, she certainly wasn't naked but at the same time you wouldn't say that she was fully dressed. She was bawling and, in between the tears, she expressed her distress to the traffic, shouting at the passing cars. She was in quite a state. Very drunk and her make up was smeared.

I asked her if she was ok and she told me that she had had an argument with her boyfriend, a bastard she said. He had hit her, stole her money and ripped her clothes.

Jane and our flatmates were surprised when I turned up at our place with her. But, after all, she couldn't get home like that. Jane kindly gave her a jacket to wear, we made her some soup, over which she cried more tears, this time of drunken gratitude, and misled her into thinking that we had no alcohol in the flat.

She was very grateful and confessed that she had been reluctant to accept my offer to come back with me in case I would have beaten her also.