FLAT LAND
It’s 1974, I am 26. On coming to London (streets paved with gold, and all that) I lived in a dark, damp, basement flat-share with three girls, under a prestigious Edwardian mansion block of flats in an up-market area of West London. It was so dark the lights had to be on permanently, and gobs of damp plaster were falling off the walls; there was broken down second hand furniture from the 1950’s. It had been advertised in the ‘Evening Standard’ and I was interviewed (along with about 20 other males) by two of the girls. Three days later I was told I had been chosen. Twenty years later I was told by the girl not present that the other two had made lists of the men they liked, and then they had compared lists - I was the only one on both lists! The physical location was superb, and the rent to Desmond Harris the freeholder of the whole block was minuscule; basically we were the damp-proof course for the flats above with gold plated taps, inhabited by T S Elliot; a minor stage, film and TV actress Isabel (Dean) Fairchild; and an ex Moscow cold war ambassador Sir Frank Roberts. The situation was very anomalous, and the owners of the upstairs flats when we passed them in the hall regarded us with disdain tinged with fear. They never acknowledged us and we never spoke.
Except once - I arrived at the locked front door to find a rich middle-aged lady with pearls and a blue rinse, who asked me to let her in as she had forgotten her key. I knew that if the situation had been reversed she would never have let me in, so I said I couldn’t let strangers into the building, “But I’m Mrs Basil Holmes!” she cried (and the name was on the board inside); “That’s a very strange name for a woman, don’t you have any identity separate from your husband?” I replied, but I let her in.
Eventually after 12 years it became necessary to think of having somewhere else to live. I had got on the council housing waiting list, but as a single person it became clear I was never going to be offered anything, however they they suggested I join a new government scheme called ‘Shared Ownership’, where you bought say 50% of the property and rented the other 50% until you could afford to buy another tranche, eventually ‘stair-casing’ to full ownership. Eventually I was offered a flat under this scheme, a first floor ‘studio’ (ie a bed-sit with kitchen and bathroom) in a newly converted Victorian four storey house in a gentrifying area of the borough. I bought 75% and rented 25% in 1986.
I did not actually enter into occupation until April 1994 - it was a terrible wrench to leave the beloved haunts of twenty years, and have to furnish a bare but newly decorated first floor flat, but it was flooded with daylight and had central heating and no fellow tenants! No one really wants to share their living accommodation with people they haven’t chosen. I worked for the council Town Planning Department, and the housing officer who had handled my case phoned me up after I had bought it. She sounded young and wistful; she asked how it had gone, if I liked it, and then said “I’ve dealt with dozens of these flats, but never seen any of them, I really wish I could see one”. To my eternal shame I said “It’s just a flat” (I was feeling very upset at having to leave the basement one) - she obviously wanted me to invite her round and I’ve felt guilty ever afterward. I presume she wasn’t thinking of a ‘Last Tango in Paris’ moment!
Eventually I bought the remaining 25% and paid off the mortgage after 21 years, and one by one the original tenants stair-cased and then cashed in by selling or sub-letting, so eventually I am the only original shared ownership purchaser still in occupation after 39 years; the ‘Shared Ownership’ scheme turning out not to facilitate getting on the house ownership ladder, but on the landlord ladder. The two ground floor flats went to AirBNB, three were sub-let and two lived in by their owners. Not an ideal situation, as sub-letters don’t care how high the service charge goes and temporary people have no commitment or interest in the building. Three changes of freeholder; two new roofs; two water through my ceilings; two burglaries; Elizabeth Conboy getting herself a genuine pop-star partner Feargal Sharkey; one drug dealer death; one threatened suicide from a window; one in-advisedly planted Leyland Cyprus cut down.