The guardian angels in one's life: 10 (The old man in the street)

In my 16th year living at Belfiore Lodge, a Victorian house in Highbury converted into eight self-contained one-bedroom flats, it got sold to property developers.

    The landlord and landlady had become too old to look after themselves.  I’d looked after them for almost a year, unpaid, popping down every two hours from my flat above theirs, seven days a week, morning to bedtime.  Long story short:  the son found out and decided to move them to an old folks’ home near him in Devon.

    Belfiore Lodge looked like it’d come out of a Dracula film set:  turrets and a wind vane on the roof; Virginia creeper across the whole of the front wall with sparrows constantly flying in and out of the foliage where they’d built their nests; honeysuckle and sweet peas all over the side wall (giving off intoxicating fragrances on a summer’s evening).

    I’d stop just outside the gate whenever I came home, to stand and admire the house first, and say to it, “House, House, I love you!”  A boyfriend in the 80s in a long-distance relationship said, “When we’re not with each other during the gaps, I know that I can trust you where other men are concerned, but I know that in your heart, your house comes first, I come second!”  Whenever I told this story to my students, those who’d been to my house (for my two annual parties) would immediately say they agreed with him.

    So, when the landlord and landlady did eventually move out and the place got sold, I was heartbroken.

    The property developers said that the place needed work done on it (true), that they could move us to another property of theirs while the renovations were being carried out, then we could move back in.  Well, at the market rate for our rents, of course — which was the bit they didn’t say.  We tenants had been living there at something like a third of the market rate, which was why we were happy about the run-down state of the place.

    To me, it added to the charm of it:  a time-frozen house with a payphone on the wall in the ground floor foyer, and the flats furnished with items from the 60s, if not earlier.  The basement flat was a fairly typical layout of a Victorian manor house kitchen, similar in spirit to Upstairs Downstairs (a British TV series aired 1971–75).

    It was my spiritual haven — to the point of being a rival to my then-boyfriend, poor man, as I wouldn’t up sticks and move to Switzerland.

    It was a devastating time for me.  A student was giving me hell at work.  I had my savings account totally drained by a scam (someone creating a sister account and transferring everything across).

    Legal advice sought said that we didn’t have tenants’ rights as we shared the same main entrance as the landlord and landlady (I’m putting it simplistically for this blog).  I couldn’t afford market-rate rents anywhere, unless / even if I moved out of London — not an option really as I was an evening programme teacher, finishing at 9pm; train fares would also eat up what little I earned as a part-time teacher paid by the hour (if I had any money left after the market-rate rent, that is).  Panic, panic.

    

    With a very heavy heart, I started to pack up (to go where??), taking rucksack loads of possessions (mostly books accumulated over the years) to the charity shop on Highbury Corner.  Back and forth, back and forth, heavy load on my back, heavy load in my heart.

    One day, just after midday, as I was returning from having dropped off yet another load at the charity shop, I saw a man in his 60s standing on the pavement a few yards from the gate to Belfiore Lodge, two bags of beer sitting on the ground by his feet, resting his fingers from carrying the eight cans of beer bought from the off licence in the high street about 200 yards away.

    I mention his age only because people of that age group don’t usually buy alcohol at that time of day — or such was my experience at the time anyway.  This is significant because it weaves into the uncanny timing that makes him a guardian angel chosen to turn up in my life at that point.

    As I walked past him, I said, nodding towards the beer cans, “Hard work, isn’t it?”  I don’t usually talk to strangers, yet I did to him on that occasion.  Another significant contribution to this story.

    As I went up to the gate of Belfiore Lodge, he called out, “Do you live here?  What’s happened to the old couple who live here?”  This man turned out to be a retired electrician who’d done the wiring of the house.

    We got talking about the latest developments.  I said we had to move out.  He then gave me two telephone numbers to ring for accommodation.  So it came about that through talking to this stranger in the street, I found a roof over my head four streets away, where I was to spend three very happy years.

    The final uncanny thing is:  this retired electrician, George the Cypriot, had been living one street away from Belfiore Lodge, for something like 14 years of the 16 that I’d lived there, yet never once had I ever run into him at any time of day.

    He had to be a guardian angel sent along to save me.

    Thank you, George.  You’d saved me from a huge panic.  Rest in peace.  I’m eternally grateful to you.

(London, 2003)

Indelible stamp on the brain (USA / Czech Republic / UK)

I heard last week that a friend who’d lost her husband recently still hears his Parkinson’s-induced shuffling footsteps around the house, nearly two months after his demise.

    This reminds me of my own experiences of the brain retaining sounds after the event.

    I was visiting an American friend who was living in Hartford, Connecticut, at the time.  During my fortnight-long stay there, I’d hear police car sirens frequently throughout the day and night.  

    After my return, I’d continue to hear those sirens for a while.  I lived in a cul-de-sac in a residential part of Highbury (a suburb in Zone 2 of London), therefore not exposed to traffic sounds, not even police car sirens.  Also, this was 1983, with British police car sirens having a different pitch from American ones.

    I went to Prague at Easter 1992, staying three nights at a Brit’s flat in Dejvická, a residential area of Prague that has a tramline a few hundred yards from the flat.  I could hear the keklunk-keklunk of the tram at night.

    Back in Highbury, where there isn’t a tram line, that same keklunk-keklunk that I’d heard over only three nights would play in my head night after night for a while after my return.

(USA, 1983 / Czech Republic, 1992 / UK, 2025)

Sanity-challenging conversations: 11 (London)

I was waiting at the Brent Cross bus terminus for the 189 bus when an old lady with an Irish accent (in her 70s; or early 80s?) sitting next to me asked, “Where does Finsbury Park go to?”  She had a big shopping bag of food bought at Sainsbury’s.

For a moment, I couldn’t process what she meant.  I said, “It doesn’t go anywhere.  It’s a place.”  Then, I saw that bus 210, going to Finsbury Park, had just pulled up, which must've been what prompted her question.  I said, “Oh, you mean where can one go from Finsbury Park?” as she must’ve been trying to establish if she could take bus 210.  “From Finsbury Park, you can go to Highbury, or to Stamford Hill.”  It was obviously not what she wanted, for she went off to ask someone else before I could give her more place names, entering into a long, gesticulating conversation with a young lady.

Bus 189 turned up, the old lady came back to ask the driver, “Do you go to Edgware Road?”  Driver said yes, so she boarded and sat in the seat by the door, facing the rest of the bus.  I got on after her, stopped by her seat, and said with a smile, “So, you’ve found your bus!” and sat in the seat the other side of the doorway, facing the front and facing her.

After taking a back route — down back streets, around housing estates — the bus got to Cricklewood, just before turning into Edgware Road, joining it about two-thirds of the way up Edgware Road.  

The old lady looked at me across the doorway and asked, “Should I get off here?”  

I said, “I don’t know where you’re going, so I can’t tell you.”  

I then got up and went over to her,  “Where do you want to go?”

Old Lady:  I want to go to Edgware Road.  I asked the driver, and he said this bus goes to Edgware Road.

Me:  But Edgware Road is a very long road.  Which bit of Edgware Road do you want to go?

OL:  I want to go to the end.

Me:  There are two ends.  Which end do you want to go to?

OL:  (getting cross and tetchy by now) END END!!

Me:  (still trying to be helpful)  This bus is heading for the Marble Arch end.

OL:  (still tetchy) Oh NO, I DON’T want to go to Marble Arch!

She got off when I did, but wandered off up the road before I could ask her any more questions to try and establish how I might help her get on the right bus.  

I had to cross the road to change to a bus going to the north end of Edgware Road to get something, so had no time to run after her.

Thinking back about it now, I think she might’ve been wanting to go to Kilburn, which is an Irish* area further down on Edgware Road, so bus 189 would’ve taken her there.  (*Remember the lady had an Irish accent, so perhaps she lived there.)

I also think now, from her behaviour and her communication style, that she was suffering from dementia.  How, though, did she manage to buy a whole bagful of food, when her brain was in such a confused state?

(London, 2019)

Oxymoronic situation: 01 (The pay phone) (London)

I moved into Belfiore Lodge in Highbury on 28 December 1985 after waiting for a year and a half for one of the attic flats.  

It was a Victorian house that looked like it’d come out of a Dracula film set, with a Virginia creeper covering the front wall, honeysuckle and sweet peas covering the side wall, and turrets and a wind vane on the roof.  

The interior was equally time-frozen with, among other things going back to the 1940s–1960s, a pay phone on the wall in the ground floor hall.  There was a bell on the ground floor, and another on the attic floor just outside my door, so that all eight flats (from basement to attic) could hear the ringing of any incoming call.

One day, I was at home all day, marking 200 ‘O’ level Chinese exam papers when the phone rang.  Not expecting any calls, I ignored it.  

The ringing went on for a long time, then stopped.  A few minutes later, it started again, going on and on and on.  This happened at least half a dozen times, each time ringing for ages.  It was driving me to distraction.  

I wanted to run downstairs, pick up the phone and shout at the caller, “Will you stop ringing!  You’ve been ringing non-stop.  Can’t you tell nobody’s home!?!”

(London, 1986)