We moved from Chalk Farm to Southgate when I was 6 and it was like a different world. There was green everywhere, instead of grey. There was an area of grass right outside our house, about half the size of a football pitch, which we called 'The Green'. And it was ours. When I say 'ours' I mean the few kids who lived in a house facing The Green. That would include kids from the 6 newly built 3 storey houses in a cul-de-sac called Linden Way - me and my brother from number 94, Deborah and Emily from 92 and Jonathan and Philip from 96. (The latter two had older brothers, but both were teenagers and less interested in our patch of grass than they were in other grass, I perhaps erroneously and judgementally conjecture). And then, from the semi detached houses on the other side of The Green, there was just Sergio, a spoilt and annoying kid of Italian descent who we sometimes played with and sometimes told to fuck off. The third side of this triangular oasis had flats, full of old people I suspect as no one came out. There were lots of old people around that area. Poor bastards. We must have annoyed them by climbing over their fences, ringing their doorbells and running away and being generally noisy during the long hours we'd be playing out in the area. Kids who didn't live right next to The Green rarely used it, not out of fear, more apathy, but when they did, we didn't like it. Kids get territorial, like dogs. We didn't piss on The Green to mark our territory though. We only pissed on it when we were bored and thought no one could see.
The great thing about The Green was that it was big enough to play football on, jumpers for goalposts OBVIOUSLY; and when the ball went into the road, which it always did, because there was nothing fencing us in, we would just continue playing in the road. Few cars drove past, it was a quiet, leafy suburban set of streets, away from the nearest main road which linked Southgate and Oakwood tube stations. And in the summer, The Green attracted bees, butterflies and wasps, which we'd catch in fishing nets. We'd let the butterflies go, and the bees usually; but the wasps we'd keep in jam jars and then find garden spiders to put in with them in order to see who would win a gladiatorial contest. The spiders usually did.
There weren't any trees bigger than saplings on The Green, but there were two small, conspicuous round bushes, which you could sit in, push each other onto or piss against. Usually it was just Philip from next door who did that. His hobby was pissing or snotting everywhere in the local area.
Saturday 28 March 2020
Tuesday 24 March 2020
Stupid Things I Remember about Growing Up (Part 4 - Seamus' snot-drop, vomit-inducing milk and Janet and John's Special Needs)
I went to nursery in Gospel Oak and all I can say about that was that it had a big sandpit. And after that I started at The Rosary Roman Catholic primary school in Belsize Park. My teacher was called Mrs Morgan. For some reason, years later when me and my brother were in the bath together (obviously not a LOT of years later) we had a running joke in which one of us would put a wet flannel on our head and say, "I'm Mrs Morgan". I have absolutely NO idea why. My memory of my first teacher was that she didn't walk around with a wet flannel on her head. In fact, the only time she might ever find her head soaked would be if she went too near Seamus when he shook HIS head. Seamus had a permanent snot-drop hanging off his nostril. I say permanent, but I suspect it dropped (or flew) off at times, but then it was soon replaced by another snot-drop. His head was like a leaking bucket of glue.
Seamus is the only kid in my class at The Rosary that I can recall, but the faces in an old photo that my mum has mostly look familiar. For some reason, in that photo, everyone is sitting on the floor listening to the teacher telling a story, everyone in their own clothes. And behind them, sitting on a chair and in full uniform is me. Arms folded. Standing out a mile. I don't remember being bullied, but I certainly looked like I should have been.
School milk was still available (although Thatcher had 'snatched' it away in 1971, for some reason we still had it in 1974, so maybe the church paid for it). But it wasn't stored in a fridge, so by the time we got to drink it, late in the day, it was warm and full of cream. Cream in milk makes me want to throw my guts up and from that point onwards I refused to drink milk (except in milk shakes) until I reached adulthood and discovered semi-skimmed. I was quite a fussy eater too and Mrs Morgan's assistant used to swap her 'grown up's' chocolate sponge cake and custard dessert at lunch time for my vomit-inducing (and vomit-looking) bowl of rice pudding.
My favourite reading material at this time was the 'Topsy and Tim' series of books. Topsy and Tim were a cooler version of 'Janet and John'. They were 70s kids. Janet and John talked to each other like they were pensioners living in the 1930s. Or as if they had severe learning difficulties. Outside of school, I'd get books from Primrose Hill library, like 'Meg and Mog' and 'The Mr Men.' Years after moving away from the area, I found a 'Meg and Mog' book which had a Primrose Hill library label in it and I worried for ages that I'd get into trouble. I walked past that library just a few years back on the way to a restaurant with staff from Haverstock School and even then I felt a bit anxious, like I'm still on their 'Wanted' list with a fine that has since increased to something like my annual salary.
Seamus is the only kid in my class at The Rosary that I can recall, but the faces in an old photo that my mum has mostly look familiar. For some reason, in that photo, everyone is sitting on the floor listening to the teacher telling a story, everyone in their own clothes. And behind them, sitting on a chair and in full uniform is me. Arms folded. Standing out a mile. I don't remember being bullied, but I certainly looked like I should have been.
School milk was still available (although Thatcher had 'snatched' it away in 1971, for some reason we still had it in 1974, so maybe the church paid for it). But it wasn't stored in a fridge, so by the time we got to drink it, late in the day, it was warm and full of cream. Cream in milk makes me want to throw my guts up and from that point onwards I refused to drink milk (except in milk shakes) until I reached adulthood and discovered semi-skimmed. I was quite a fussy eater too and Mrs Morgan's assistant used to swap her 'grown up's' chocolate sponge cake and custard dessert at lunch time for my vomit-inducing (and vomit-looking) bowl of rice pudding.
My favourite reading material at this time was the 'Topsy and Tim' series of books. Topsy and Tim were a cooler version of 'Janet and John'. They were 70s kids. Janet and John talked to each other like they were pensioners living in the 1930s. Or as if they had severe learning difficulties. Outside of school, I'd get books from Primrose Hill library, like 'Meg and Mog' and 'The Mr Men.' Years after moving away from the area, I found a 'Meg and Mog' book which had a Primrose Hill library label in it and I worried for ages that I'd get into trouble. I walked past that library just a few years back on the way to a restaurant with staff from Haverstock School and even then I felt a bit anxious, like I'm still on their 'Wanted' list with a fine that has since increased to something like my annual salary.
Monday 23 March 2020
Stupid Things I Remember about Growing Up (Part 3 - London rooftops, Getting kissed 40x and the Spastic Box)
Bridge House was 6 storeys high and you could access the roof. The view from there was amazing. You looked down onto the top the Roundhouse, across Camden Lock market towards Camden Town, the West End, the Post Office Tower. Early 70s rules on Health and Safety decreed that a waist high metal bar around the perimeter of the roof was sufficient prevention against a young child falling to his death. So my parents let me go up there on my own. Or at least, didn't stop me from doing so.
At ground level there were scary concrete sheds for residents. It was unusual for anyone to have a car. Dad had a bicycle which he kept in our concrete shed, but I wouldn't go in there due to the infestation of killer spiders. I say 'killer'. They were daddy-long-legs spiders and tended to remain static. But I was sure that if I'd gone in there, they'd jump on my back like in that final Jon Pertwee storyline in Doctor Who.
Next to Bridge House was a pub. And my parents must have known the managers, because I was allowed to go round there and play with their daughter outside of opening hours. It was an intriguing and exciting play space for kids, full of scruffy luxury with its dark red interior, strange sofas and beer-soaked carpet emitting an enticing odour. The daughter was slightly older than me and far more forthright. She once pinned me to the carpet in order to kiss me, then proceeded to count each kiss. She got up to 40. So it wasn't just my first kiss with a girl, it was my first 40 kisses.
We didn't have to walk far to the shops, just across the road and next to the tube station. The sweet shop obviously held the biggest attraction for me, especially the bubble-gum machine outside. You needed the wrist strength of a weightlifter to turn that bloody knob on the bubble-gum machine. There was also one of those large charity boxes chained up outside the shop, a figure of a boy in callipers, a sign encouraging you to give to 'spastics'. Spastic was such a 70s word, but got banned later, because of its association with people who had disabilities; but we tended to use it just for people who were a bit crap at something. The sweet shop was run by Monty, one of those friendly chaps who enjoyed talking to kids. Nice bloke, but come the 1980s he probably had to stop being friendly to kids as people started to get paranoid about that sort of thing being a bit noncey. Most of the time it wasn't.
There was a grocery shop where there had been a dairy on the corner next to the tube, where Chalk Farm Road split into Haverstock Hill and Adelaide Road. We were in there quite a lot. Sometimes I was in the barbers over the other side of the road. And on a rare occasion, Marine Ices. I couldn't get over Marine Ices. A restaurant just for serving ice-cream. I've never known the like of it. It was still going 40 years later when I was working in Haverstock School, but it moved location during that time. The barbers was still there too, but under different management, a right moany bastard. As for Monty, well, he'd also gone by then. Hopefully into happy retirement and not paedo-jail.
At ground level there were scary concrete sheds for residents. It was unusual for anyone to have a car. Dad had a bicycle which he kept in our concrete shed, but I wouldn't go in there due to the infestation of killer spiders. I say 'killer'. They were daddy-long-legs spiders and tended to remain static. But I was sure that if I'd gone in there, they'd jump on my back like in that final Jon Pertwee storyline in Doctor Who.
Next to Bridge House was a pub. And my parents must have known the managers, because I was allowed to go round there and play with their daughter outside of opening hours. It was an intriguing and exciting play space for kids, full of scruffy luxury with its dark red interior, strange sofas and beer-soaked carpet emitting an enticing odour. The daughter was slightly older than me and far more forthright. She once pinned me to the carpet in order to kiss me, then proceeded to count each kiss. She got up to 40. So it wasn't just my first kiss with a girl, it was my first 40 kisses.
We didn't have to walk far to the shops, just across the road and next to the tube station. The sweet shop obviously held the biggest attraction for me, especially the bubble-gum machine outside. You needed the wrist strength of a weightlifter to turn that bloody knob on the bubble-gum machine. There was also one of those large charity boxes chained up outside the shop, a figure of a boy in callipers, a sign encouraging you to give to 'spastics'. Spastic was such a 70s word, but got banned later, because of its association with people who had disabilities; but we tended to use it just for people who were a bit crap at something. The sweet shop was run by Monty, one of those friendly chaps who enjoyed talking to kids. Nice bloke, but come the 1980s he probably had to stop being friendly to kids as people started to get paranoid about that sort of thing being a bit noncey. Most of the time it wasn't.
There was a grocery shop where there had been a dairy on the corner next to the tube, where Chalk Farm Road split into Haverstock Hill and Adelaide Road. We were in there quite a lot. Sometimes I was in the barbers over the other side of the road. And on a rare occasion, Marine Ices. I couldn't get over Marine Ices. A restaurant just for serving ice-cream. I've never known the like of it. It was still going 40 years later when I was working in Haverstock School, but it moved location during that time. The barbers was still there too, but under different management, a right moany bastard. As for Monty, well, he'd also gone by then. Hopefully into happy retirement and not paedo-jail.
Sunday 22 March 2020
Stupid Things I Remember about Growing Up (Part 2 - Doctor Who, a Golliwog, Stuart Hall)
My cuddly toy collection reflected the one in 'Play School'. Almost. I had a Big Ted, a Little Ted and a Golliwog. My bedroom in Flat 29, Bridge House was downstairs. Upstairs was a long rectangular lounge, the caramel brown settee in the middle, dividing it in half, creating an area for a dining room table. That also meant that it was easy to hide behind the sofa during Doctor Who. Everyone talks about hiding behind the sofa during Doctor Who, but I imagine most people had theirs pushed against a wall, so really I was one of the few who lived up to that urban myth. And Doctor Who was really fucking scary. The earliest I can remember was one story with dinosaurs, when Jon Pertwee was in the role and also his final episodes before regenerating into Tom Baker, in which spiders jumped on people's backs. Pretty scary. Then I can remember everything about Tom Baker, from his first storyline with the giant Robot onwards. I became obsessed and played it constantly, going into a wardrobe and pretending it was my TARDIS, collecting the cards that came free with Weetabix at that time. And I had my earliest crush, on Sarah Jane Smith.
Of course, none of the above has changed even to this day. Except the Golliwog, I don't have a Golliwog anymore. And the teddies. I grew out of teddies after the head fell off Little Ted when I was seven. But everything about Doctor Who.... that's the same.
I can't picture much more about the inside of number 29, Bridge House. We had a gold fish, which Dad must have won from the Bank Holiday Fair on Hampstead Heath. I fed it once and most of the tub of fish food fell into the bowl. The poor fucker ate himself to death.
We once had an evening visiting our neighbours, whose flat I can't picture now nor then, as it was thick with cigarette smoke that evening. But we played the board game version of 'It's a Knockout'. I loved that TV show. Who would have thought Stuart Hall was a nonce? You could have knocked me down with a large foam hammer into the water.
There was another neighbour a floor or two below, a boy about my age, called Rodney. My mum reckons he was a spiteful little bastard, but I don't remember that. I just remember his huge jar of sherbert lollipops. Mum warned me not to eat too many as they would give me diarrhoea. Once, I ate too many and had diarrhoea. I was round Rodney's flat at the time and created carnage in his toilet. More carnage than I could cope with, so I shouted to him to go and get my mum, quick. Mum came with Aunty Sharon, which made the whole thing even more embarrassing. I stayed away from sherbert lollies for a good while after that. Weeks probably.
Of course, none of the above has changed even to this day. Except the Golliwog, I don't have a Golliwog anymore. And the teddies. I grew out of teddies after the head fell off Little Ted when I was seven. But everything about Doctor Who.... that's the same.
I can't picture much more about the inside of number 29, Bridge House. We had a gold fish, which Dad must have won from the Bank Holiday Fair on Hampstead Heath. I fed it once and most of the tub of fish food fell into the bowl. The poor fucker ate himself to death.
We once had an evening visiting our neighbours, whose flat I can't picture now nor then, as it was thick with cigarette smoke that evening. But we played the board game version of 'It's a Knockout'. I loved that TV show. Who would have thought Stuart Hall was a nonce? You could have knocked me down with a large foam hammer into the water.
There was another neighbour a floor or two below, a boy about my age, called Rodney. My mum reckons he was a spiteful little bastard, but I don't remember that. I just remember his huge jar of sherbert lollipops. Mum warned me not to eat too many as they would give me diarrhoea. Once, I ate too many and had diarrhoea. I was round Rodney's flat at the time and created carnage in his toilet. More carnage than I could cope with, so I shouted to him to go and get my mum, quick. Mum came with Aunty Sharon, which made the whole thing even more embarrassing. I stayed away from sherbert lollies for a good while after that. Weeks probably.
Stupid Things I Remember about Growing Up (Part 1 - Self indulgence, burnt cushions and a horrific knee injury)
In a futile attempt to avoid the vanity and self-importance associated with an autobiography, and fully aware that for years I have been posting many absurd childhood memories on this blog, I've decided to fill some time during this period of COVID-19-avoiding self-isolation by amusing myself (and possibly about 3 or 4 others) with some kind of self-indulgent chronological (and probably unreliable) narrative of (other) stupid things I remember about growing up.
Part 1 then. Begin at the beginning. My earliest memory? Just an image of our front room in Flask Walk, Hampstead, when I was about 2 years old. I can picture the caramel-brown settee we had there. I'm told that I took a cushion from the settee and put it next to the electric fire, causing the vinyl on its underside to melt and burn. I don't recall doing that. But I remember the burnt cushion, as we kept the settee for several years afterwards. Me and my brother would joke that someone had just sat on it and farted really badly, that's why it was all burnt and melted. As you know, most of our humour revolved around farts, poo, bums and lavatories.
My next memory was moving into Bridge House in Chalk Farm (I was 3) and my Dad and Grandad struggling to get that brown settee upstairs to flat number 29. They tried the lift, but I don't think it would fit. I was scared of lifts in those days. Justifiably, as they did often break down. You'd have to wait to be rescued and you'd climb out of the opening where the bottom of the lift overlapped a bit with the external door, and you'd look underneath to see the lift shaft plummeting down into the dark and you'd believe it went all the way to Hell (thanks to a Catholic upbringing, but more of that later).
Around this time, possibly even slightly before, I have another memory of being told that my brother had just been born and we were to go to the hospital to see him. I was hugely excited. But unfortunately I was also at the top of a slide. So instead of sliding down (which would have been too slow, as those slides sometimes were, you know, when there'd be too much friction and you'd stall and have to drag yourself down by pulling the sides) I unwisely decided to run down it. I fell knee first onto the concrete at the bottom, cutting myself, but in my mind this cut was magnified into a huge flap of skin peeling off to expose a few square inches of flesh. It was only the promise of an ice-cream that prevented me from continuing to wail as if in the throes of dying of crucifixion; but I suspect that in reality I had a graze on my knee.
For the next 3 years we lived in Bridge House, moving to flat 2 at some point and there is a whole load of stupid things I remember about that time; so I'll keep that for parts 2 onwards in order to keep this bite-sized enough not to bore you to oblivion...
Part 1 then. Begin at the beginning. My earliest memory? Just an image of our front room in Flask Walk, Hampstead, when I was about 2 years old. I can picture the caramel-brown settee we had there. I'm told that I took a cushion from the settee and put it next to the electric fire, causing the vinyl on its underside to melt and burn. I don't recall doing that. But I remember the burnt cushion, as we kept the settee for several years afterwards. Me and my brother would joke that someone had just sat on it and farted really badly, that's why it was all burnt and melted. As you know, most of our humour revolved around farts, poo, bums and lavatories.
My next memory was moving into Bridge House in Chalk Farm (I was 3) and my Dad and Grandad struggling to get that brown settee upstairs to flat number 29. They tried the lift, but I don't think it would fit. I was scared of lifts in those days. Justifiably, as they did often break down. You'd have to wait to be rescued and you'd climb out of the opening where the bottom of the lift overlapped a bit with the external door, and you'd look underneath to see the lift shaft plummeting down into the dark and you'd believe it went all the way to Hell (thanks to a Catholic upbringing, but more of that later).
Around this time, possibly even slightly before, I have another memory of being told that my brother had just been born and we were to go to the hospital to see him. I was hugely excited. But unfortunately I was also at the top of a slide. So instead of sliding down (which would have been too slow, as those slides sometimes were, you know, when there'd be too much friction and you'd stall and have to drag yourself down by pulling the sides) I unwisely decided to run down it. I fell knee first onto the concrete at the bottom, cutting myself, but in my mind this cut was magnified into a huge flap of skin peeling off to expose a few square inches of flesh. It was only the promise of an ice-cream that prevented me from continuing to wail as if in the throes of dying of crucifixion; but I suspect that in reality I had a graze on my knee.
For the next 3 years we lived in Bridge House, moving to flat 2 at some point and there is a whole load of stupid things I remember about that time; so I'll keep that for parts 2 onwards in order to keep this bite-sized enough not to bore you to oblivion...
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