Tag: Throwback Thursday

Meeting a man on Southwark Street

Between January 1995 and September 1997 I lived and worked in London in three Shaftesbury Society homeless hostels (Kilburn NW6, Camberwell SE5, and Bermondsey SE1).

Although I wasn’t paid much, I loved it. As an assistant group worker, I was paid around £40 per week (that would be around £80 today, given inflation), until I was promoted to group worker after my first few months. From that £40 I needed to buy myself a zones 1 and 2 travelcard which ate £13.80 deeper into my weekly budget. I worked with some great people, got to explore a lot of central London on foot and with my travelcard, worked a crazy nine-day shift pattern and got a ton of life experience.

Some of those experiences have remained with me, like one memorable evening’s walk home.

Continue reading Meeting a man on Southwark Street

Do you have any sausages?

Illustration from Skip Hire UK

Back in 2006, I was living and working in London. I moved in to a flat in Camberwell with my friend Jonny, whom I had met in the National Youth Choir of Great Britain. Jonny was the organist at a church on Vauxhall Bridge Road and inevitably I tagged along and made that my church too.

One summer’s evening as we were walking back from church, we passed the Camberwell Evangelical Church. There was an evening service on as we could hear singing even if we couldn’t clearly see through the windows.

It seemed clear to us that they were doing some renovations as there was a yellow skip outside on the road, stacked high with debris. The skip was also on fire.

Continue reading Do you have any sausages?

Election night 1997

Probably like many, I went to sleep the other night with the radio on so that I could follow the progress of the American presidential election through the night. Only, what actually happened was what happens every time I fall asleep with the radio on: I had a restless night’s sleep.

Each time I woke I also reached for my mobile phone which was lying face down on my bedside table, I turned it over, brushed my finger across the fingerprint reader to unlock it and tapped at the BBC News app as my face lit up from its feint glow. One question: who is winning? Please let it be Biden.

Of course, two days later and we’re still waiting.

Every election night I am reminded of that general election night in 1997, the one where Labour overturned the Conservative government and put Tony Blair into Number 10.

Continue reading Election night 1997

Walking through Brixton at night

Map of a walking route between Oval and Herne Hill.
Oval to Herne Hill via Brixton (Image: Google Maps)

I’ve missed a few Throwback Thursday posts over the last few weeks because of … reasons. This is one that I’ve had in draft form for a while.

It involves a visit to London and a surprising encounter with a stranger at night in Brixton.

Continue reading Walking through Brixton at night

“Did you see the Bears game last night?”

Me and my friend DC in Berkeley, California on the NYC World Tour 1992

It’s 1992, the National Youth Choir of Great Britain are about five weeks into an eight week world tour and we’ve just arrived in Brisbane, on Australia’s east coast.

For most of the tour—don’t ask what happened in Sydney—we were relying on home-stay accommodation with local choirs and churches, mostly. The drill was the same whenever we rolled into a new city: drop off at a church or school, meet our hosts and then head back to theirs to settle in.

My best mate Danny and I were billeted together for the entire tour, so off we headed to our new host’s house in the outskirts of Brisbane.

Continue reading “Did you see the Bears game last night?”