Petal Road

I loved our little flat, crammed full of good associations: I first made love to Carly in it, our son Dylan was conceived in it, I received the call telling me I'd got the job as a clinical pharmacist at Kings Hospital in it. But now, as Dylan was about to turn two and Carly pregnant with our second child, I had to concede it was too small. Time to move on.

We first saw the house – a Victorian end of terrace – on a sunny April Morning. It was a dilapidated mess, but had that most coveted of London assets – space.  Carly was immediately smitten; she saw past the decaying detritus of the previous tenants to see the ideal family home it had the potential to be.  It had three bedrooms, a garden that was botanical bedlam and a bonus space, "Erm, I don't have a key for the cellar yet," said the Estate Agent apologetically.

On the second viewing Dylan chuckled as we walked through the door, clapping his hands in gleeful approval. The main problems seemed to be 'cosmetic.' A clear out, a good clean and a lick of paint would make it home. Our enthusiasm mounted. "The cellar, we've not seen down there yet?" I reminded the agent, as we were about to leave. He squirmed his way round an excuse, "The landlord's lost the key, but it's a pretty standard cellar," he said, trying to fob me off.  "Look, we're going to have to see it before we make a serious offer. Tell the vendor to get his finger out."

I went alone to the third viewing of our potential new home (Carly and Dylan were having Swine-Flu jabs.) I was eager to see the cellar: my music studio, my den, my space.

The door had been forced open. The agent handed me a torch and made some joke about what I might find. The bottom of the concrete stairwell gave way to a narrow passageway not wide enough to accommodate my shoulder width. Turning sideways I inched in, shining the torch along the walls – some sort of compacted corrugated material. The tight squeeze induced a momentary surge of claustrophobic panic, which subsided after a deep breath. The walls reached about head height. I moved back and up onto one of the steps, shining the torch to the top right of the wall – NEWSPAPERS – stretching back some three meters either side and about a meter and a half high. It was hoarding on an Olympian scale. I continued along the passage until it opened out into a tiny cell like space just big enough to accommodate a neatly made single bed, on which lay more newspapers, all reporting the death of Princess Diana. A bit odd I thought.

Eight weeks later and 30 Petal Road was ours – Yeah.  My dad and brother helped with the clean up. We worked out a regimented relay to clear the cellar, working with military precision. By the end of that first day we were disappointed to only have cleared about a third. It was a much bigger job than I'd anticipated.

On the 5th day I woke with a heavy heart. I could sense that my Dad thought I'd made a mistake, bought a dud. But I soldiered on and by the end of the second day we'd cleared over half the crap out. Outside I noticed Dad and Robert poring over the papers, "This is a bit weird son. All the front pages are reporting deaths and tragedies." I scanned the headlines: JILL DANDO SHOT DEAD. NURSE MURDERD ON WARD. FORMER CHILD STAR HANGS HIMSELF.

The previous tenants had been students, but the agent did mention a reclusive older man before them. In the pub afterwards we concluded that he was just some weirdo who revelled in tragedy. The following day we dumped the last of his mammoth collection.

The old lady next door welcomed me in, hungry for company. She was thrilled a young family were moving in after ten transient years of noisy students. I asked if she knew anything of the hoarder, "He was an odd fish. A good neighbour in that you never heard a peep out of him, but he wasn't sociable." She paused before adding, "Mind you, looking back he did disturb me on occasion – digging the garden in the middle of the night with a bag over his head, but then it was raining – I think?"