Places I Have Lived – part three

Wednesday 18th November

Number 8   Patmore House, Mathias Road, Newington Green.  A pretty grim old GLC red-brick mansion block.  It was Carol’s parents flat, and pretty awful it was too.  Why was I living with them?  Oh, usual story.  Carol was pregnant.  We had made a stupid attempt at running away to Scotland and had returned in shame. After a few weeks her parents were half-reconciled to me moving in. Life was hard here but we were together, at the time that seemed all that mattered.  Her father, Wally was a drunk and would come home in a foul temper many nights.  Carol regularly fought with her mother, her sisters, and me of course.  A night-mare really.  We decided to move out once…

Number 9 – a basement flat somewhere in Stockwell.  We moved in with three crazy Canadians I worked with.  It was alcohol every night.  Carol and I got married from this flat at a local Registry Office.  A few nights later I woke to find her snogging one of the Canucks.  I was pathetic, pleading with her.  She laughed it off, and said it was just a joke.  The only good thing about living there was that they played Leonard Cohen’s first LP almost constantly.  Anyway, we were only there for a few weeks and then we were back at her parents flat until one night after Justin was born, he was just a few weeks old, Wally came home drunk and tried to beat me up.  Ended up with Carol, Justin and me tramping the streets.  We went to the Police, who drove us to….

Number 10 – Halfway House, Archway.  This was a reception centre for homeless families.  Apart from an Irish family we were the only white people there.  Each couple had a hardboard boxed-off room.  But the partitions only went to about 6 feet high and you could hear ever word spoken by every family.  It was absolutely squalid. Next day and we had an interview with officials from the GLC.  One of the questions we answered was “Do you have any furniture?”  Well, yes I answered.  We had bought a double bed, now back in Carol’s parent flat and little chance of us ever getting it.  Thank Goodness I said yes, as within six weeks we were rehoused….

Number 11 – Hornsey Rise Gardens.  Well, I say rehoused.  This street was full of houses waiting to be demolished for new flats, and full of homeless like us waiting for something permanent.  We had the ground floor of a big house, three large rooms – no bath but a toilet and a cooker in the kitchen.  I spent every penny on second-hand furniture trying desperately to provide a home for my wife and child.  But in no time at all Carol was again pregnant and far worse, she had started going out in the evenings with an Irishwoman who lived upstairs.  They used to go to the Irish pubs on the Holloway Road, and left me at home with the baby.  Well, the inevitable happened and Carol met someone else.  He was a member of Sinn Fein, and just after the baby was born she left me, going to Northern Ireland with Seamus.  (Well, who can really blame her – it was 1971 and she wanted a quiet life.)  Thank God she left my son with her mother, but I was in pieces, my marriage and my life seemed over and I was only 19.  As I read her goodbye note, Justin started crying and I bent down to pick him up.  He probably saved my life that day.