NOTES
There are no notes for this chapter yet. Some of the notes on other pages are based on info YOU send me. |
Trafalgar Square, hub of the known universe. Which way to turn? I knew that dossers were welcome in the crypt of St Martin's at certain times of day, so that's where I went. It was the wrong time, but the crypt office was open. On an impulse I asked the woman inside if she knew of any hostels or social work projects where I could work in exchange for a bed and pocket money. I must have had my 1965 stay in the Star Road Church Army hostel in mind. She replied that there was a rather strange new outfit based in Snow Hill in the City that ran a number of hostels of some sort for the homeless. It was called the Simon Community. She gave me the address and I walked over to Snow Hill. |
| The place turned out to be a musty, cluttered cellar. I was met by a girl of not more than 20. I took an instant strong dislike to her. I can't quite remember why, but no doubt it had to do with the fact that she was immediately recognizable as a type of young woman whose numbers were growing at the time - militantly self-sacrificing, haughtily non-judgmental, conspicuously co-existing with the lowest levels of humanity, impatient with anyone who appeared not to be a completely hopeless case. In short, domineering, self-righteous self-bashers. As I am about to name this lady, who is now quite well-known, I had better remind you that this was an impression formed in a couple of hours by a very young man of an even younger woman who simply wasn't my type. She was Sally Trench and she was even then writing a book called Bury me in my Boots, about her experiences of working with the lowest end of the dossing scene. Twenty-five years later she would bravely lead many aid convoys into Bosnia. |
| This cellar in Snow Hill was not itself any kind of hostel or shelter. It was the central office of the growing network of projects that was the Simon Community, named after Simon of Cyrene - it was supposed to be all about carrying people's crosses for them. A few years earlier Sally, then about 17, had co-founded this organization with Anton Wallich-Clifford, but a bit of a power-struggle had developed, and she was on the point of branching out on her own when I met her, so I never saw her again. For some reason I was kept hanging about in the office for a long time before being dispatched with a note to the Kentish Town 'unit' as the individual projects of Simon were called. |
| I walked the two or three miles to Kentish Town and arrived at 129 Malden Road, part of the many run-down early Victorian terraces of the area. It was soon apparent that the note was entirely superfluous - you just walked into the general mayhem and no-one knew or cared who you were. The whole place, though fairly tidy, was dark and smelly and sparsely furnished with battered junk and threadbare carpets. In the hall, a middle-aged man, stripped to the waist, was angrily ordering all passers-by to regard the large holes in his torso caused by war wounds. Screams were coming from the cellar - there was apparently a cold-turkey cell down there. From the kitchen came the violent tones of a fierce argument. When I located the lavatory I found that the walls were smeared with blood from a junkie habit of drawing off some blood when fixing up, and playing with it. There were used spikes in there, too. I think they were for communal use. Extraordinary music was coming from what turned out to be the sitting-room. When I wandered in there, a wild-looking character of about 50, wearing a Panama hat and with very little face to be seen among vast amounts of grey hair and beard, was playing weird, scary harmonies and rhythms on a piano and intoning satanically. I later discovered that when he wasn't doing this, he was discoursing non-stop in unconnected phrases. |
| I sank into one of the smelly, tattered armchairs and waited to see what would happen next. What happened was that a bell rang, and people came into the room and placed food from the kitchen on the table. It was supper time. Someone said grace, and we all tucked in. Or rather, I tucked in while others picked at the food unenthusiastically. It transpired that there was military order in the general chaos, as regards meal times and other daily and weekly rituals. In fact, there were notices around headed 'daily routine notes', 'weekly routine notes' and 'standing orders'. This was due to the fact that Wallich-Clifford had been in the RAF. His name (always his first name, Anton) was frequently invoked in reverential tones to settle disputes or simply for the sake of eulogizing him. It was soon evident that he was regarded almost as a deity, and this stuck in my throat from the start. |
| There was no bedroom space for me, so I dossed down in the living room. Over the next few days the philosophy and structure of Simon became clear. In retrospect, it could only have been a product of the Sixties. (For me the term 'the Sixties', means the period 1965-71, not the whole decade). 'Rehabilitation' was a dirty word. You were supposed to accept people for what they were, provide space for them to be what they had to be and do what they had to do. You tried to identify with them and suffer with them and for them. At the same time you hoped that this environment would help them overcome their problems to a degree sufficient to enable them to function within the Simon Community itself. This meant providing different types of unit for people behaving in different ways - the 'tier' system, in Simonspeak. There were basic shelters for meths drinkers or other rock-bottom dossers, hostels like this Kentish Town one for people who could cope to some extent but had various problems such as schizophrenia, drugs or a tendency to 'freak out', and there was Simonwell Farm in Kent, which doubled as a rest home for Simon 'workers' and an experimental commune. People could be moved up and down between these tiers according to how their behaviour changed. |
| The whole thing had a strong religious and mystical undertone (Anton was a practising Roman Catholic) and a military overtone. It was run on a shoestring. No one was paid, not even Anton, and the survival of Simon depended almost entirely on various forms of begging. Anton had a formidable lieutenant called Tom Gifford (more about him later), but otherwise the whole organization was run by 'workers'. These were simply residents promoted by Anton and paid ten shillings (50p) a week pocket money. They had some authority and had to go wherever in the country Anton posted them, either hitching there or travelling in the battered old van that was Simon's only vehicle. They were the only people obliged to work at the day-to-day running of the places. It was drummed into them, however, that they were no better than the lowest no-hoper to whom they ministered and they were, indeed, a pretty mad, bad and sad bunch on the whole. |
| Although I had gone there with the intention of working for my keep, I for some reason (probably genuine depression) immediately latched onto the freedom that appeared to be on offer, of behaving exactly as you pleased. In my case, at that particular time, this meant sitting in an armchair all day doing nothing at all except occasionally talking to people and eating three meals a day. Beyond that, I simply observed the other residents. This in fact proved to be a fruitful occupation, in retrospect. I was able to study the more sinister characters, such as the sado-masochist couple about whom there were very dark rumours (Simon resembled a gigantic confessional in that nothing must ever be reported to the police) and I was profoundly influenced, in my sedentary way, by the hippies who were also there. For example, I've already recorded in previous chapters my frustration at the absurdity of the strict rules governing the length of men's hair up to that time. These rules were now rapidly being relaxed in London, but nowhere near enough to satisfy me. I wanted no rules at all regarding this and these hippies - the first I had encountered - obviously agreed. They had hair down to their shoulders or further. I decided that I would never go near a barber's shop again. It is a measure of the impact of these two or three weeks in the armchair in Malden Road that I have in fact only cut my hair about half a dozen times since, and always in strange and uncharacteristic moods. The last time was in 1987. |
| In my first few days at Malden Road I learned that we were all 'inadequates', including Anton, and I liked this badge of office very much. I had a qualification at last - something to be proud of. I asked myself how I wished to use this qualification and came up with the armchair plan described above. Furthermore, I had every intention of pursuing this career in upholstery for the rest of my life, with my hair growing and growing (and my beard, too, for good measure). I had found my niche. The Simon Community, however, had other ideas. My treasured qualification of inadequacy fell under suspicion, and I was found wanting even in that.
The occasion of my unmasking as a fraud was a visit by no less a mortal than the great Anton himself. |