Banners of Persuasion

In 1983, the year after I graduated from art college, my girlfriend at the time, Jennifer, and I felt that it was imperative to move to London, because that’s where it was happening. Someone friendly with Jennifer’s sister, Christine, was squatting in this house just up the road from Mornington Crescent Tube, and said the basement was empty.

No 43 Crowndale Road. a big Georgian council house, was in pretty poor coadition ii fire had smoke-blackened the entire flat and it was partially flooded. It was so damp, mushrooms were growing, but we were desperate. I’d been booted out of my previous squat in Portsmouth and had been staying with family and friends. So we moved in and rigged up the power. I’d learnt by then how to bypass the meter.

The whole block was quite derelict, a mixture of squats and council tenants, and our house seas divided into three flats, with insalubrious cohabitees. Marilyn, the popular, was in the middle one, although he might have just been at the point of moving on and having his brief pop career. We scrubbed and dried out the basement, and got things working. There was some furniture we either trashed or cleaned up and a 1940s GLC gas cooker, like an iron box with gas rings, a grill and an oven, all assembled on top of each other. They’re probably very sought-after now. We had a sitting room, a kitchen, a bedroom and a loo - although there was no hot water so we used the upstairs bathroom. We were on the dole, so everything was basic.

It was a great introduction to London because we were right next door to the Camden Palace and market — although now it’s like a horrible youth-culture supermarket. And I was lucky to have friends in the area.

Within a year, the junkies moved — I think one of them got pregnant— so we took possession of the whole house. There were six of us, including the artist Cerith Wyn Evans and the film-maker Sophie Muller, It was very much communal living; the whole house had on interest in making films.

A few years before, there had been a famous squat in the Warren Street area, near Camden: Boy George lived there, Stephen Jones, the hat-maker, and the film-maker John Maybury. They were all successful, and I’d witnessed that first-hand. Now, a lot of young people going to art college live at home, rake second jobs and don’t get the chance be trainee bohemians. We had lots of parties. I wouldn’t buy any drugs, but I’d take anything offered to me, except heroin. I quite enjoyed LSD, although I realised it wasn’t very good for me.

I never questioned that I wanted to make it as an artist. Christine was going to pottery evening classes off Tottenham Court Road, so I went along. It was cheap (about ₤2 a term if you were on the dole) and the teacher was nice. There was a pretty mixed bunch of people, but most didn’t stick it out after the first term. I really got into it.

It was an important time for me. I wAs doing a lot of drawing and collage and watercolour, and made things out of detritus. But it’s tricky getting that first exhibition. The gallerist James Birch came round to the house and saw some of my plates I had lined up on the mantelpiece. For me, at that point, pottery was a sideline, but he casually asked me if I’d like an exhibition. It took about a year of evening classes to get my first show together, for Christmas 1984.

At the time, I was a trannie, although still quite shy about it. I had a few housewifey clothes that I dressed up in. Being young and slim, with thick long blond hair, I was pretty passable. I wandered about town looking dowdy: I used to think I looked like an off-duty nurse. Jennifer tolerated it. Tolerance is a co-created situation: if you are relaxed about something, other people are relaxed about it. I used to be shy, and I think other people picked up on that.

Finally, after three years, we got the notice to quit, We sold off our stuff and had a big party. At sonic point in the evening, I wandered into our bedroom, and there was Jennifer in bed with some other guy. The next day — my birthday—I woke up homeless. It was a pretty harsh combination, but I was philosophical. The people next door took me in and I stayed there for about a year. That was it forms and Jennifer - although I was really bad throughout our relationship, so I don’t want to paint her as the villain of the piece.

I didn’t meet my wife, Philippa, until 1987, and I got a studio in Leytonstone, east London. After Camden, it was a bit of a shock to be right out in E17.

Demons, Yarns and tales will be shown at the Dairy, 7 wakefieldstreet, WC1, November 10-22