Durham Buildings

A Memory of Battersea.

The pub over the road did a singalong every Saturday night ending in a very long finale of "Hit the Road Jack - Don't you come back no more, no more ,no more, no more", and so on. I don't know about the pub but I doubt if anybody actually misses the buildings. It was a slum.There was the stink from the neighbouring factory too but that was only on an occasional day, not often, but when it was there it was nauseating. This was what was called at that time "Half-way housing" for the homeless.

If you were to stand facing the buildings from the other side of York road the furthest windows to the right on the ground floor were my living room, kitchen (sort of) and bedroom from 1959 to early 1962.

There were no doorways that gave onto the road the hovels were reached by entering through the big arches. Once through there was an area that must have once been an interior courtyard but a concrete air raid shelter from the war was still there all locked up but us kids kicked footballs around it and sometimes we climbed onto the flat roof to kick around on it. The whole shelter was half sunk into the ground so the roof wasn't very high. Anyway I don't remember any of the kids ever falling off. Also there were outdoor washing lines strung about. On the inner side of the building was where the stairwells to go up to the hovels were. I don't remember how many stairwells there were. There were four hovels per landing and the shared toilet. The toilet on the next floor up was permanently closed so the neighbours on that floor also came to our bog hole.

Inside, our hovel had three sections: a living room that as I remember it was dull but otherwise alright; the kitchen was long but narrow like a corridor, I didn't go into it much, once Mum was there there wasn't any room for a second person and my Mum wasn't overweight; One bedroom for the four occupants (later only three because we lost Dad during this time) and we only just fitted the beds in. There was no bathroom, I went to the public baths once a week, only had to cross the road and go around the corner. On Saturday nights in my bed I sang along with the singalong, that was going on loudly over the road.

It was during the time I was in Durham buildings that I entered my first year of secondary school, I went to St William of York which was a walking distance away. that's probably gone as well now.

What has remained is that I've been a Ray Charles fan all my life.