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Streatham:

 Home Was Never Still

Leaving Hove was harder than I could ever have understood at the time. I was eight years old, and once again my life was about to change.

When I left Hove, I thought I was going home. Looking back, I realise I was returning not to stability but to uncertainty. The quiet routine I had known with Sadie and Bob disappeared almost overnight. Life with my mother in Streatham was constantly changing, and it never felt as though anything stayed settled for long.

We lived in Leigham Court, but I remember very little sense of permanence there. Money was always short, though as a child I didn't understand the reasons. I only knew there was a feeling of worry hanging over the flat, as though something unpleasant might happen at any moment.

As children, we simply stood and looked. There was nothing we could do. To most people it was 

Around us, the family was changing too. My eldest sister was sixteen and had begun dancing with the Bluebells. She was stepping into a world of excitement and opportunity, while the rest of us were simply trying to make sense of lives that seemed to change from one week to the next.

The adults carried burdens that I could not yet understand. I only saw the consequences.

The bailiffs came. Our car was repossessed. One by one, the things that made a home disappeared until, in the end, all that seemed to remain was a single double bed where we all slept together. Looking back, I realise how desperate those times must have been for my mother, but as a child I only knew that everything around me was gradually being taken away.

Then one day a school inspector arrived.

I can still picture him clearly. He was a tall man in a grey suit with neatly combed grey hair. There was nothing frightening about him, yet his presence filled the room. Someone from outside had noticed that I wasn't attending school properly. Someone had stepped into our lives and begun asking questions.

I didn't understand the significance of his visit. I only knew that, once again, adults were making decisions about my future.

Soon afterwards I was enrolled at Sunnyhill School. Each morning I collected breakfast from the A.B.C. on the way, a small routine that has stayed with me all these years. Yet I was there for only a single term before life moved me on again.

I never had the chance to put down roots or make lasting friends. Just as I began to recognise faces and find my place, it was time to leave.

Looking back now, I can see that those months in Streatham were among the most unsettled of my childhood. After the brief peace I had found in Hove, it felt as though the ground had begun to move beneath my feet once more.