‘Junkies, criminals, artists, some are still my friends’

We all have stories to tell about our past but the tales we read about in books are often about people who have had the power, money and resources to let us know their history. This is a different story, writes Deborah Price.

My story has the universal themes of subculture, coming of age, teenage rebellion, heartache, good times and bad choices.

I knew that it would resonate with people who had been a teenager and explored life during the 1970s and 1980s.

I was young, broke, working in pubs and cleaning but also having a wonderful time – some of the time.

The Peanut Factory is set between 1976 and 1983, in a period when I lived in squats in Crystal Palace and Gipsy Hill.

Named after a warehouse building in Bristow Road, Gipsy Hill, which when broken into had a sack of peanuts on the floor, the Peanut Factory became an unofficial community centre for locals and squatters in the area in the early 1980s.

Because it was a warehouse the people squatting there lived in a tent. The building does not exist anymore.

I lived in Sainsbury Road around the corner for a year in the early 1980s where the surrounding roads were largely made up of squatters in each house on the street. It was a real community.

All the original residents moved out because it was substandard housing owned by the local authorities, so people just broke in and changed the locks.

Legally it was a time when squatting was widespread and possible. Landlords had to pay double rates for unoccupied properties, so it was in their interests to come to a deal with squatters.

In my case, in the place where I stayed the longest, we agreed to pay the rates and utilities, keep the house in as good an order as we could, and leave when we were asked.

That meant we had the run of a huge crumbling Edwardian villa in Gatestone Road, Crystal Palace, with cold water and one toilet.

Nowhere I lived had any degree of the amenities we have now – no heating, often outside toilets, sometimes damp – the list goes on.

But in exchange I got to live with friends – an ever-changing cast of artists, criminals, junkies, runaways from home or justice, musicians, politicos, sex workers, drug dealers- some of whom are still my friends today.

The experiences I had, good and bad, uplifting and tragic, took away remnants of childhood innocence but also shaped me as the person I am today.

I mainly wrote the book for my daughter, so she would understand what life was like then – a time of social unrest, the Brixton riots, bin strikes, hot summers, punk, new romantics and clubs.

It was so different from their youth that I wanted to open a window on that pre-internet, mobile phone world where I spent a lot of time in smelly phone boxes or just looking for people who I couldn’t contact.

When I lived in Crystal Palace it was a thriving village on top of the hill.

I worked in The Queen’s Arms in Westow Street in Crystal Palace, which then became Black Sheep bar and is now Walker Briggs.

I also worked at the Crystal Palace Hotel, which was on the corner of the roundabout in Anerley Hill and now it’s just derelict.

The nights out were incredible, we went to The Fridge, a nightclub in Brixton Road and the Ritzy cinema and clubs in the West End like the WAG and Le Beat route.

The book has been described as “a beautifully grungy coming of age memoir – a must read for anyone who was there or wishes they had been” by author Nikki Sheehan.

The book can be bought at The Bookseller Crow in Crystal Palace or go to www.gutspublishing.com/the-peanut-factory

 

Pictured: Deborah Price in the Gatestone Road squat – Picture: Deborah Price