Writer's Block: Places to Lay Your Head
When I was younger I moved around endlessly as my Dad worked on what were generally 6-month contracts. I started out in Tyneside, living in North Shields in a huge house with my parents and grandparents and then a small house also in North Shields with just my parents. Each move until I get to about 8 is punctuated by moving back to my grandparents house again. When I was 2 we moved over to Holland, where we lived in flats in Schaveningen and then Den Hague. We then moved to Guisborough on Teeside in what must have been a very trendy 60's house. After that it was over to Canada, to a couple of different flats in Montreal before moving back to England, down to Fawley on the south coast. I remember this as a quite big new house, very leafy surroundings on the edge of the New Forest. A complete contrast next, a terraced house in inner-city Manchester while my dad went to university. From then I start living in two places while I go to boarding school near Filey for the next 6 years. We moved on to a small village near Huddersfield, to a stone built detached house which was on a hill surrounded by fields; on a recent visit back there it's now completely built up around there which is rather sad. We stayed there for three years, which was the longest I'd lived anywhere apart from school, but moved up to a suburb of Newcastle when I was 15. This was another stereotypical 70's house and I stayed there until I left for university. Then follows a whirlwind of moving around London, staying only a few months at each place. I started with student halls in Camberwell, moved over to a tiny flat in Wormwood Scrubs (next to the prison, not inside), then a grotty room in a shared house next to Arsenal football ground. After that I moved to Camden, to a room in another shared house which was architecturally beautiful but full of fleas. I exchanged fleas for mice by moving to another house share in the Old Kent Road. The only way after that was up so I went for a squat at the top of a block of council flats in Wollwich, overlooking the Thames Barrier and with the most wonderful city views I've ever had. Out the other window was Millwall football ground though ... I left the city to live under plastic at Greenham Common for a couple of years but stored a few possessions at my parents house, which by now was in Banstead in Surrey. When I felt the need for a roof over my head for a few months I moved to a house share in Nottingham, a terraced house in a place called Forest Fields which is utterly unlike it's name. I then returned to Greenham for a while before moving back to London, to a selection of squats in the vast Victorian houses of Brixton. I was working but rental prices were such that I stood no chance of finding a legitimate place to live. London tired me though, so much wealth and poverty side-by-side, so I managed to get a new job in Nottingham and moved back to Nottingham, to Forest Fields where I first had another house share and then bought my own terraced house. Suddenly the tale stops ... I stayed there for 19 years! It was only 2 years ago that I finally moved again, a mile up the road to a bigger, taller terraced house. It seems likely that I'll be here for a few years given the state of the property market right now. My favourite? Probably roofless (but not homeless) in the woods of Greenham Common, although the house I have now is really nice, it just needs moving to a different area! My least favourite, hands down, is the room in Camden with the fleas and an obnoxious landlady.