Was a German allowed to live in one of these houses in 1987?
I am staying with my eternally-un-named friend’s friend Rudiger in Nuremberg. In the 1980s, he lived in London and remembers one particular house.
“It was 15 Ronalds Road,” he told us. “A little street just up from the Holloway Road in London.”
“And you were squatting there?” I asked.
“I was young,” explained Rudiger. “I knew your eternally-un-named friend… and London was the place to be in 1987.”
“It was?” I asked.
“Two of my German friends,” said Rudiger, “they were a boy and a girl. They went to London and squatted in the house; I came after them a week later and, when I arrived in the house, it was the day they decided to split up. They went back to Germany and I stayed in this house alone.
“They split up because the girl met a photographer in London. He gave her a job and threw her out of the house at the same time, because she could then get Social Security payments from the state. I think it was £60 every month.
“She told me: I will be getting this £60 and, when the cheque comes, go to the post office and take the money for yourself.
“That was my first money in England.
“The cheque came. It was written in the girl’s name, but it was a German name and the man in the post office did not realise this. I got the £60 cheque three times and then it stopped coming – I don’t know why.
“Then someone knocked on the door of the house and asked me if I was allowed to live there and I said I don’t know. Am I? and I had to go to a court. There were no people’s names written down – just addresses.
“15 Ronalds Road was on the list and about twenty other roads and numbers, but the only people there in the court were me and a very drunken Scottish man. He was muttering, then the door opened and someone took me into a court and they said 15 Ronalds Road? I said Yes and there were three judges wearing wigs and it was a funny show.
“One asked me: What’s your name?
“Rudiger Schmidt
“Are you allowed to live in 15 Ronalds Road?
“I don’t know. Tell me.
“The judge said: If you don’t know, then you are not allowed to live there. Thankyou very much. Now, next case… and that was it.”
“You had to pay a fine?” I asked.
“No,” said Rudiger. “I asked someone in the court I am not allowed to live there? What shall I do? and the woman said Do nothing. You will get sent a letter and, in this letter, you will be told whether you have to leave or not… And I never got a letter.”
“So how long did you live there?” I asked.
“After this judge told me this,” said Rudiger “I lived there maybe six or seven weeks.”
An angry man with a big hammer objected to what happened
Meanwhile, back in the 21st century, this morning I got a message from comedian Phil Zimmerman in London
I blogged a couple of weekends ago about going to his potentially dangerous annual party. It is held at his mostly-normal-looking house in Ealing, West London.
I say his parties are ‘potentially dangerous’ because, in 2011, a neighbour started taking potshots at the late-night revellers with an air rifle.
I only passed fleetingly through the early section of this year’s party.
“After you left,” he told me this morning, “there was live music on the bedroom stage and a very loud noise band came on at about 1.20 am, whereupon a very angry man with a big hammer appeared at the front door. Fortunately, we had a bigger bouncer there to scare him away. For the second year running, no-one got shot.
“Although I have been involved with these parties for about eight years now, I can’t take any credit for the weird and wonderful set up, which is all the masterwork of my Buddhist mate and landlord Johnny Fags N Booze, aka Nigel Noize – or, as my friend Robert called him, the new Andy Warhol.
“He is planning to enter the house for the Turner Prize at some point.”
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