Prince's Garth

By the time we’d escaped the lecture about how our lives had been ruined by not having been in a position to buy somewhere ten years ago we were running late.  The snow and the early evening traffic made getting from New Cross to Forest Hill even more laborious than usual, but fortunately the agent’s offices were moments away and so she wasn’t a frozen husk waiting for us on the doorstep.

Of course, the reason it was so close to their offices was that the property we'd gone to see was on Forest Hill’s High Street.  I was quite hesitant about going to look at the place; it was outside the criteria for what we wanted.   It was a flat when we were increasingly leaning towards a house.  It was on a main road, and not just any old main road, but the South Circular – that traffic clogged, smogged up hell hole of intersecting major roads that tries to link Richmond with Woolwich even though neither wants much to do with the other.

So it was something of a surprise when we both absolutely loved it.

Being the ground floor of a mansion block it was both reasonably set back from the road, but, more crucially sensibly sized.  Scratch that, it was massive.  Flats only seem to be pokey when they’ve been carved out of something designed to be a house or were built from 1980 onwards.  Old school mansion block flats were from when living spaces were generous.  The living room and main bedroom seemed to go on forever.  There were stripped wooden floorboards throughout, with original coving and traditional fireplaces in every room.  Off the smaller second bedroom was a little extra space, probably intended to originally be a servant’s room now pitched as a nursery, but with the windows on two walls looking out on the garden it was the perfect study.  Light and not too big, it was a space to gaze out from, but not become totally submerged by the view.

‘The thing is,’ the agent helpfully explained in that slightly condescending way they have, ‘these flats are really rare and this is one of the few with a garden.  It’s already had loads of interest and, to be honest, Forest Hill is just heating up all the time.  It's a property hotspot.  And these mansion blocks are the pick of the lot.  Right in the centre and packed full of history.  Someone said there's a connection to the Sex Pistols, y’know?  That band?’  She said this final point in a way that suggested she had no idea who the Sex Pistols were, but my ears picked up and I , for a moment, imagined channelling Rotten’s youth through my own life.

Sadly no evidence has been found to support this half-conceived comment.

1905.  ‘Foster,’ yelled the young master, with a slight slur showing already. 

‘Yes, sir?’ Albert appeared at the doorway of the bedroom, an iron in one hand and a freshly laundered shirt in the other.

‘Where the hell is my- oh,’ he took the shirt from his man servant and slipped the crisply folded cotton over his too flabby belly.  Only twenty-three and already his paunch was beyond his control.  He should, he surmised, do something about it.  Take some exercise.  Drink a little less.  But neither of those options was particularly appealing.

‘And where is it tonight, sir?’ asked Albert politely. 

‘Tennyson’s birthday, I think.  Somewhere Chelsea way.  Dashed long way. Why Father couldn’t have found me a flat in the centre of town I’ll never know.’

Albert didn’t point out the blindingly obvious that despite the young master’s pretentions, his Father was cash poor.  Chelsea or Marylebone or Kensington were all far beyond his reach.  ‘I for one am glad you came here sir, else I’d never have had the pleasure of working for you.’  A bit of flattery and the idiot would no doubt forget that he was running late because Albert had forgotten to boil the water for his bath.  Property was not the only thing beyond the old master’s wealth; good staff were too.

‘Oh I know you were born near here, Foster.  New Cross, wasn’t it?’

‘Peckham, sir.’

‘And it is nice being closer to the country.  The air is significantly cleaner, but it is still a damnable way from everyone else.  How I am supposed to socially advance myself when half my life is spent on the train or looking for a Hansom prepared to come this far, I don’t know.’

The young master departed at a rapid waddle and Foster retired to the kitchen.  He made himself a cup of tea and set a couple of eggs and a solitary bottle of Forest Hill ale to one side for his dinner.  The young master would be back late, if at all, and worse for wear.  Foster had never known a man to get so wilfully drunk, but then he had never known a man with such an attitude to money.  Despite his lack of actual funds the young master seemed to find credit easy to come by and had no concern that anyone would actually call in any of his debts.

He supped his tea and read his Daily Herald.  He hated working for the jumped up tyke.  He was a carpenter, trained to be good with his hands, not to follow around pillocks who were too lazy to dress themselves, but ever since Selby’s Yard closed down this had been the only work he’d be able to come across.  In service; a man servant.  Was there anything so demeaning?  The way he was spoken to, the way he was expected to be on call all day, every day, the way he was expected to sacrifice his life for those economically superior, all of it.  He hated it all. 

Lately, Albert had been attending meetings about equality and workers rights.  Passionate men advocated the right for all men to be equal, for fair pay, for the right be sick without fear of losing jobs.  It sounded good to Albert and, in a moment of optimism, he’d tried to establish a degree of equality in the house.  He was happy to be a worker, or reasonably happy anyway, and for the man seven years his junior to be the boss, but some mutual respect would be nice.

‘Sir,’ he began tentatively.  ‘Might I ask that you call me Albert rather than Foster?’ and I call you Sebastian he had hoped to be able to follow it up with.  After all the young master was, in many ways, an enlightened chap.  Ambivalent about the church and the notion of Empire; at least being solely interested in money and pleasure was more honest than the hypocrisy of all the retired colonials in the rest of the building harking on about glory and God.

The young master’s eyes burned and Albert had thought he might be struck.  If that happened he was off.  After giving the pompous tit a good kicking, of course.  No-one, but no-one, would raise a hand to him again.  That’s what he’d promised himself after burying his Dad, the no-good drunken prick.

But instead the young master simply growled:  ‘Have you gone mad, Foster?’ and for a moment Albert wondered whether perhaps he had.

He finished his tea and sat back in the little wooden chair at the small table, more designed for a child than an adult.  He thought about opening his beer, but decided to save it for later.  To savour it like he savoured his Sunday afternoons off.  There were two more days to go.  Only two more days to wait until he saw Mary again.  He was getting sweet on her and they both knew it. 

Maybe they’d go for a walk in the park again, maybe down to Sydenham Woods and he would pick her bluebells from where they grew by the train track.  Free flowers were still flowers.  Her loveliness and interest in him overwhelmed Albert at times.  It was as though he simply couldn’t accept such good fortune as to have such a delightful girl on his arm.  He’d like to propose to her, to take them both away to a little cottage in a Kent village where they could do more honest work than pander to rich men’s needs, hers old and dying, his young and preposterous.  But he didn’t know how to.  He didn’t know how to free himself.

Afterwards we walked along the high street.  The Sainsbury’s directly opposite would be greatly helpful; we’d never have to do a big weekend car based stock up again.   The Dartmouth Arms always used to be a nice pub, but it had been years since I’d been in.  Almost immediately next door to the block was the old cinema now converted into a Wetherspoon’s, a nail parlour and an international money exchange.  Forest Hill is a funny collection of shops; a high street that doesn’t always belay its middle class housing stock.  Up the other way, towards the swimming pool, which we already used frequently, there’s a prevalence of scruffy newsagents, cheap off licences and fried chicken shops.  Once upon a time there had been a deli, but I think that’s been gone for a while now.

But, on the other hand, it had received a government Mary Portas regeneration grant.  A butcher was to the first to open and there was a genuine excitement about the future.  The problem is that the high street hangs on the connection of two major A roads and while there’s a good service to the station if the trains aren’t running the nearest alternatives are something of a hike.

Plus, as its name suggests, it’s a top of the blooming great big hill.  Great for views, less good for cyclists.

We put an offer in anyway.  An offer fairly close to the asking price.  It was beautiful.  We were quite excited about the idea of living there, even if I was a little wary of the commute.

Someone offered more and, well, that was that.

A few weeks later we in were having dinner with a large group of friends at a house in Stanmore regaling them, boringly, with our tales of property woe.

‘It’s so hard,’ one sympathised, ‘a friend of mine has just bought somewhere in Forest Hill.  She’s moving down from Islington and it was such a battle.  You’ll find something.  Her place is lovely.  Nice wooden floors and fireplaces, handy for the station and so big.’

‘It wasn’t in a mansion block,’ I said hesitantly.

‘Yeah, Prince’s something or other.’