After a great Easter – and a landmark Johnnie Walker radio show – I was locked out of my home

Homeless in London part 3: Easter Weekend 16-19 April 1976

The big event of Good Friday was, perhaps surprisingly, a one-hour radio 1 ‘special’ with Johnnie Walker. During the afternoon there was quite a build-up to a ‘mysterious journey’ that would commence at 16:01. I was intrigued enough to unwrap a C60 cassette and cue up my deck to record. I was glad I did – it was the best radio show I had ever heard, and that tape would be played many times over the next few years.

Sadly I no longer have the tape. It would have disappeared some time in the 80’s or perhaps as late as the 90’s, but I treasured it and it was a touchstone for what I would want to do if ever I became a radio DJ rather than just Funky Genghis, the university DJ. The show was essentially themed around summer, sunshine and relaxation and included tracks I would not normally have listened to, with brilliant segues and fades. For example, I was not a fan of the Beach Boys, but within the context of the overall ‘feel’ of the hour they sounded great. George Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun was, of course, featured and sounded great. An astonishing show. I wonder if it is still available somewhere today?

When I say that Saturday was spent mostly on the top of a variety of London buses and was very enjoyable you might think I had mislaid a marble or two. But this was a most enjoyable journey along a scenic route I had been planning for some time, starting with the 73 from Clapton to Hyde Park Corner and a walk down Buckingham Palace Road.

I rejoined the 73 at Victoria and on to Hammersmith, not to stop but to switch to the 33 to Hounslow and then the 281 to Kingston-upon-Thames. After a bit of window shopping – it seems I was searching for C80 cassettes but with no success – I was on the 52 to Richmond for a quick wander before getting the 33 and 73 back home.

What a trip! It was a beautiful sunny warm day and I was able to take in my favourite part of London – on the Thames around Kingston and Richmond. I did not know it at the time but that combination of bus journeys held me in good stead for the Fuller’s Silver Jubilee challenge in 1977, where visiting every Fuller’s pub would be essential, most of which are in south-west London.

Easter Day was quiet and spent mostly in front of the television. Easter Monday was also pretty quiet and was, so the radio informed us, the warmest easter for 24 years! My flatmates had been away all weekend and were supposed to arrive home on the Monday evening, but there was no sign of them by half-midnight so I turned in for the night.

After a great Easter, I found myself with no home

Tuesday, 20th. April 1976

Everything changed on Tuesday and, it seemed, my flatmates had not returned from their Easter trip away. My diary entry for Tuesday, 20th. April reads as follows:

It is 2200 on 24th. April. I have not been able to get to my diary before now so I shall have to think back to Tuesday, as well as the other days that constitute this totally outrageous, depressing and agonisingly drawn-out saga sparked on Tuesday evening. I had been in the Legal Advice centre in Bethnal Green to find out about getting or £96 deposit on the flat returned. I have no idea why but I was very lucky to have my rent book on me, the one piece of evidence that we had paid the rent up to date.

On returning to our flat in Durlston Road on the 253 in diminishing sunshine I found my landlord had locked the door on me and passed a note through the letterbox: “was (my flatmate) back and gone off somewhere to stay for the night?”.

I have no idea what she meant. Was she expecting an answer? We were locked out and my flatmates had no idea – yet. Why this apparent concern on her part?

I was in a state of shock. The realisation that all of my possessions – everything from clothes and toiletries to lecture and essay notes – were on the wrong side of a locked door, dawned on me slowly. I had the clothes I stood up in and that was it. How was I going to survive? Where could I go? Can this be really happening?

I had no frame of reference for this situation. I had never been homeless and I did not know anyone who had. I felt weak and clueless and was beginning to experience fear. And this was only the beginning.

I had to overcome shock and work out what to do next.

To be continued…