Fitting into small spaces
..and music
My wash bag is covered in sawdust. I’ve had a stained glass window put in the bathroom door. I’m happy because the only thing I hated about this flat is the fact that there’s no window in the bathroom, and now there is. A window. It’s beautiful. I just wish the builder has said “yes” when I said ‘shall I move my stuff out of the way?’
Should have moved it anyway.
Lessons in control, and how I have none sometimes, but sometimes I just have to make the decisions.
Where ever I lay my hat that’s my home. I love a baseball cap and Ive got a trilby. I’ve lived in many small spaces - living in too big a space has never really been a problem, never had too much space - a white Mercedes 308 in the late 90’s and a Saviem Riot bus - which made it to Glastonbury one year before dying - in the early Noughties In South East London, and a friends summer house in Ramsgate the mid 20’s. I once went on a boating holiday with one of my exe’s. Never lived on one though.
Next to my riot bus converted into a home in St Agnes Place in London in 2001
Saviem Riot bus
De-cluttering my East London flat - when I was doing a lot of yoga - precipitated me to sell my decks and all my records to a plumbers assistant. White washed the spare room and put it on Air B n B. Felt like the right thing to do at the time, regret it now.
Always been into different ways of playing music to fit different spaces. Spotify, a single record player, digital radio, FM radio in cars, vans, various types. Apple music playlists - purchasing tunes individually, journeys in sound, mix tapes.
Biggest space I ever lived in was the 4 bedroom red brick family home I grew up in in Westbury Wiltshire, with Mum, Dad and two brothers - my grandparents moved in when they were old and needed care, parents made them a tiny flat in the garage - on the steep hill up to the White Horse. New white horse, not a stick one, the New Age Travellors drove up there after The Battle of the Beanfield in June 1985, after they’d been beaten up by the police, dogs killed, pregnant women threatened, bullied, and they’d had to leave being there for the solstice.
It’s officially still illegal to live permanently in vehicle. I remember my Mum saying when I lived in the vehicles and was in the circus, “why don’t you move onto a boat?” At least that’s legal.
Me and Paul, my little brother, who was 11 at the time ( I was 13), sat on the dark green climbing frame in our garden so we could see over the fence, asking them questions as they came up the hill, a raggle taggle gaggle of hippies.
We were fascinated. We asked ‘Why have you come here?’ Nobody ever came to Westbury, there was nothing to do - except swimming club - and we just wanted to get out. All three of us moved to cities up North. As far away as possible when we went to university, polytechnic aged 19.
‘We’ve come to shag the sheep’ one said. Other’s just trudged up the hill or tried to get their half broken down cars and vehicles up the steep hill, we had never seen anything like them. The hippy convoy!
It was filmed by police helicopters then and put on the local news. They stayed a while, despite the milk man saying to Babs - our Mum - ‘They won’t bide ‘ere long’ we still say that to each other and laugh (kindly), me and my mum. His accent was so strong and my parents weren’t from the West Country despite living there.
She got on television, walking into the local supermarket - its Morrisons now, can’t remember what it was then - to do her weekly shop past the sign that was being filmed for the local news saying “No travellers, no gypsies”
Eventually the police barricaded the road up to the white horse with a big concrete bollard and eventually they were all forced to leave. Dog, kids, trucks trailers, buses. I often wondered where they went next.
The room I had in halls of residence at Leeds Poly where I went when I was 19 was down a corridor and I’m still friends with one of the women I met down that corridor. There were others, we reminisce about where they are now. What they’re doing.
I’ve even created a little sideways room on a wall at Shunt, in the arches at London Bridge Station around 2009 underneath where the Shard is now, as an aerialist with furniture stuck onto the wall, Maddy Humberstone (another aerialist) and I in vintage dresses and harnesses ran along side it and tried to sit down on chairs sideways. Being underground didn’t feel scary, or claustrophobic, but the lift in the council block I lived in for nearly 20 years did. Smelt of urine. Pissy. At anytime it was liable to break down, and I could have been trapped in there with that smell of piss, and did I ever have my phone on me in those moments? No.
Grew up on the side of a hill leading to The White Horse, in a 1970’s red brick housing estate. Like Brookside but in Wiltshire. Live up another tall hill now.
Sometimes I get the bus up, because the thought of walking up is just too tiring. Don’t believe in “forever homes” because you never know do you? Once slept in a two man tent in the back garden with my little brother Paul. Ive just had a Summer house built in my back garden and I can feel the urge to sleep in that coming on over Glastonbury Weekend.
With a radio, a kettle and a bucket to piss in Ill be fine.
And the toilet and bath in my flat will be awaiting me in the morning.