Category: A Knight’s Tale

In March 1968, two and a half years after the death of Vivien, my first wife, Jackie and I were married. Nine months later, our son Matthew was born. This second marriage was to last a little less than four years. So distressing was the ending that it took each of us seven years to wed other spouses. Jessica, whom I married in 1980, was herself to die in July 2007.

Tess then came into the picture. Tess is Matthew’s lovely wife. In December 2008 she held a surprise 40th Birthday Party for the son Jackie and I shared. On other such special occasions a choice had clearly been made about which of us, who had not met for years, to invite. This time we were both to be at the event in The Plough at Upper Dicker.

With some trepidation I travelled down on the train, walked from the station, duly arrived, and surprised our son. Jackie, however, was absent. I circulated, chatting among the other guests, most of whom I knew well. My wandering through the bars took me past the door to the car park. It was then I did a double take.

The solid door was lit by a small, head height, window, perhaps 50 cm. square. There, neatly framed, in three-quarters profile, was my previous father-in-law, Don Rivett. But, this could not be. Don had died many years earlier.

The door opened, and in walked Jackie.

We conversed a little, then joined separate groups, but somehow or other, often found the groups merging. When Sam was the last to leave one particular table and we found ourselves alone, what now seems obvious began to dawn on me.

By the summer of 2010 Jackie and I had moved into a flat together, the proceeds of sale of our first marital home providing most of the funds necessary to buy our current house.

To borrow the words William Shakespeare put into the mouth of Dimitius Enobarbus when describing Cleopatra: ‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety’. Jackie is not the reincarnation of Don, but she is of the muse of my youth.

As I write I realise that each time I have been widowed marriage to Jackie has followed.

2007 was the year of Jessica’s death and my return to London to try to set up home alone once more. My usual meticulous filing system broke down. Consequently I kept slides unidentified in the processor’s little boxes. When Jackie and I were reunited in 2009 she helped me identify the contents, although I had never incorporated them into my archival system. Jackie had remembered this process and thought it was possible that she had labelled one box Notting Hill Carnival.

Indeed she had.

Even then businesses in Westbourne Grove, Westbourne Grove Mews, and Ledbury Road would all prepare for the vast influx of humanity. All the shops put up barricades against the inevitable damage, including the use of walls and doorways as urinals.

For a couple of years I lived in Sutherland Place, very close to this corner where one of the sound units was situated. In 2007 I was one of only two residents who stayed at home for the Bank Holiday weekend. The other woman wore earplugs and, as the music shook our houses, advised me to do the same. The sound from the speakers was actually painful. 

I do hope this young lady occupying one of the floats still has her hearing.

The wonderful light on this August day, and the sparsity of some of the clothing belies the fact that the temperature was very cold. When I left my spot on the railings beside St Stephen’s Mews to go home to use the lavatory and add another layer of clothing

I was able to reclaim it on my return. Other visitors could either use the rows of portable toilets or, as some preferred, our front gardens, where they also disposed of their other waste, including takeaway meals and their containers. Two years later that would not have been possible. I couldn’t get near any of the floats, and when I left my flat I had to prove that I lived in the road in order to pass the barrier to reach home. At least our gardens were no longer accessible to intruders. 2007 may well have been the last manageable year of such a popular event drawing visitors from all over the country. I have never been back to find out.

With Jessica’s death from multiple myeloma now a matter of time, Lindum House was sold in December 2006 and I began a return to London.

Using Chestertons, a national estate agent of renown, I had rented a one-bedroomed flat in this salubrious area of Central London.  It was being refurbished.  Despite my misgivings, during the six weeks prior to my occupation I was constantly assured that the work would be finished.  It wasn’t.  I arrived in the evening to be told I couldn’t take up residence because there was no gas certificate.  Remaining firm I advised the agent to obtain one immediately because I wasn’t leaving.  This meant a fitter making a hectic trip across London.  A document was eventually produced.  My furniture was to arrive in the middle of the night.  I stayed put.  There were no curtains or blinds.  The shower and bedroom were full of builder’s rubble.  A cupboard still contained a defunct boiler which I had been assured would be removed.  Only half the new power points worked.  A live wire was hanging loosely from a wall.  I sat on one of the loos and was horrified to find a pool of water surrounding it when I got off.  Neither of the WCs had been fixed to the floor.  I decided to have a bath, turned on the hot tap and walked away.  On my return the bath was full of cold water.  The taps had been put on the wrong way round.  To drain the bath took an age. Goodness knows why. The gas cooker was subsequently declared unsafe.  I could have blown myself up.  There was no splashback to the kitchen sink, and the kickboard fell off when I was nowhere near it.  I could go on.  However, you’ve got the picture.

Most of these problems emerged during the three weeks I was there.  I would visit the agent with a supplementary list almost daily.  On one occasion, when I said I’d had enough, the agent said she’d see if the landlord would release me from my contract.  ‘Landlord release me!’, I screamed.  I went into a high-pitched rant.  When I’d finally finished there wasn’t another client in this vast open plan office just off Marble Arch.  I’d cleared it.

There just has to be a washing machine in this story.  Except there wasn’t.  There should have been.  But it never arrived.  When I’d accumulated several bags of washing I gave the agent a choice.  She could either pay for a visit to the laundrette or I would bring her my laundry and drop it in the middle of her office.  She took the payment option.

The Newark removal firm had asked to arrive in the middle of the night because of anticipated parking problems. I left warning notes for the other tenants and waited up. The removers didn’t arrive until early in the morning when it was pouring with rain.

I then developed only my second bout of bronchitis. The first had been when I moved out of Amity Grove thirty five years before.

I eventually received a total refund and a very nice three-bedroomed mews house off Bayswater Road for the same price.

During the early 1940s members of my father, Douglas Michael Knight’s, generation were doing what those of his father had done before, namely fighting to save the life of our country, and, indeed, the whole world, from the might of Germany and its allies.

My maternal grandfather, an engineer in the prison service, was attached to Leicester Prison. As such he and his family including my mother, Jean, née Hunter, were allocated prison quarters.

Dad was billeted for a while next door. The teenaged neighbour must have aroused his interest, because, on 7th July, 1942, I was born in Leicester General Hospital. The above photographs were taken around this time.

Wherever he was stationed, Mum tells me, Dad took every opportunity when in England to get home to Mum and me and, later, Chris.  If he had no official leave, this involved nipping off for what she calls “a sneaky weekend”.   Apparently he found all kinds of means to do this, often involving the railway services.  On one occasion when he couldn’t find any sort of train he walked all through the night from ‘somewhere in Yorkshire’ to Leicester for the pleasure.  Dad himself has told me about marathon nocturnal walks to Leicester.

Mum’s part in the subterfuge was to keep a lookout for redcaps, as were termed the military police, one of whom was her elder brother Ben.  I guess discovery could have been awkward.