Not your normal student digs.
Wavy lines to 1977.

I was attending Aston University and living in Acocks Green (Birmingham). Due to various misadventures I’d ended up living in a place where I had my own (lockable) room and was provided with bed and breakfast and an evening meal. The other inmates were solid chaps, Jim was a retired Regimental Sergeant Major (emphasis on mental) who was a fount of Army related stories. Ernie was a former designer who had worked at one of the many car factories in the area. Both were very good drinkers and often took pity on a poor be-knighted student and took me down the pub for beers, darts, dominoes and numerous bullshitting sessions where each would try to outdo the other with outlandish tales of their past. Good times. This was interrupted for a short period by the arrival of Frank.

In 1977 Care In The Community was starting to raise it’s ugly head and so Frank arrived. He landed on the doorstep smartly dressed and carrying a good quality suitcase. He was polite and clean but rather reserved and reticent with information. After a week without incident he arrived for dinner unkempt, unshaven and barefoot. Sitting down he introduced himself.

“Hello, my name’s Frank and I’ve got a clock. Would you like to see it?”
After which every time he appeared it would presage a conversation later to be hi-jacked by Jasper Carrott for his Nutter On A Bus sketches. It turned out that without constant supervision Frank could not be relied upon to take his meds. It got worse and worse, eventually getting to the stage where the landlady (a lovely young Irish lady with three small children) was getting quite upset and worried for their safety (luckily it emerged that Frank was neither paranoid nor schizophrenic, he was simply suffering from a form of Alzheimer’s). She managed to get Frank and his gear packed into her car and delivered him back to the residential home he had come from. And that is where I came in.

She offered me a months stay rent free if I pretended to be her husband (he was away working on building sites in London) and ensured Frank was not allowed back on the premises. Easiest money I ever earned. Shouting “No.” in a fake Oirish accent through the letterbox at Social Workers isn’t exactly hard work.

If I could remember more of that time and place I would definitely have made this a longer post, it was actually a bittersweet sad\funny period in my life but to be honest the years have taken their toll with me also.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Fri 27 Feb 2009, 12:55, Reply)