Pat - the best next door neighbour you could ask for - born in 1930 (a good vintage)

I don’t know where to start when I think about Pat.

She was such a part of my life for the best part of three decades, that there are so many memories - but they’re all entwined in the day to day melee of the children growing up, and us getting on with our lives. 

I guess I could start at the beginning. 

I was a teacher when we first moved here. I’d just had our third son, and we moved to Addiscombe to our house which needed major renovation, and I had six months maternity leave. 

The house to our left was divided into two flats, and the downstairs flat was empty and we had no expectation of it ever not being so - it was a wreck inside!

At some point (after doing the essential structural stuff in the house), we moved onto the garden. The fences were rotten, and the next door garden was just an overgrown tangle of weeds and brambles. We decided to rip out all the fencing (I still have no idea which fence was officially ours!) and we piled everything in a huge heap and had a massive bonfire. Along with the fencing, were all the brambles and overgrown tangled shrubs which had been attached to the fence. 

The outside space was consequently double the size - we moved the childrens climbing frame onto the space next to the bonfire ash and made a start on clearing and tidying our garden up in the process. 

All was going well. I spent weekends working on the garden, and was quite pleased with how it was going. None of this was easy with three small children, (and a dog) I might add. I was at work Monday to Friday. So all garden work  had to happen at the weekends.

I was at work one day when our school secretary let me know that there had been a call from the childrens nanny, Sarah. In a panic, I rang home - to be told that there had been a visit from a lady in tears. She had stood at the front door crying and saying something about “her tree”. 

To my horror, I discovered that the downstairs flat next door had been sold to a Mrs Power, who had come along to have a little look and see what needed doing to the flat before she could move in. Apparently, she had come along with a friend - and had said “Don’t bother to look at the inside of the house....Ken’s going to sort that out..... but come and see the garden. Such potential!” And they had gone outside to discover......... our climbing frame, no fences, a pile of ash..... and a BURNT TREE! This was a little evergreen, cypress in origin, that Pat had delightedly decided would look very fetching in the festive period, decked in super colourful lights. She had apparently burst into tears, and come straight round to ‘tackle the neighbours’ .

Sarah relayed all this to me with a woebegone expression when I got home. I was horrified. 

I went straight round, and left a card and a box of chocolates for the new neighbour. In the card I wrote an essay promising that honestly, we were really lovely people, and truly wouldn’t be problem neighbours, and that we would sort out the disastrous garden damage forthwith. 

I was very nervous about actually meeting this upset little old lady who was destined to be our neighbour.

Because the flat needed so much work, Mrs Power didn’t actually move in for a few months. But she did come to work on the garden. We had hastily erected new fence panels, and I had cleared all evidence of bonfires from the centre of the plot, but the tree..... there wasn’t much i could do with that! It was seriously scorched on one side, and no amount of tender stroking was going to sort that - it just had to grow out - rather lopsidedly.......

Over the few weeks that summer of 1993, I tentatively started conversations with Mrs Power over the garden fence. Well....’over’ is probably not the best preposition, as the fences are five footers....and Mrs Power wasn’t. So, we started chatting THROUGH the fence, and I couldn’t really see her, only through the slits of the fence....... but I delicately endeavoured to try to discover a little background behind this little lady.

I decided one Saturday to just ask....... “So, Mrs Power. I know that you’re going to live here on your own....... how long ago did you lose your husband?” I asked with compassion. 

The voice through the fence was indignant. “Oh no! I didn’t lose him. He’s not dead! I left the bastard!!!!” 

We both laughed hysterically. And that was it. Our friendship was forged.

Pat also made friends with the neighbours on her other side. Another family, also with three young children. I thought she would hate it - as the children used to climb on the climbing frame, or, in the Smiths’ garden, up the cherry tree - and yell to one another across Pat’s garden! She adored it. She loved young children. She used to tell me that it made her feel alive to hear those children, even early in the morning.

Pat was like a social secretary here in Addiscombe. Once in her flat, she got to know everyone around and about. She often used to tell me what others had told her. I mostly had no idea what, or who, she was talking about! 

We used to have neighbourly gatherings. In our gardens, or sitting around our big kitchen table until late into the night, after the kids had been put to bed. We had a wonderful camaraderie, and I know that this was due to Pat. She had the ability to be an utter social butterfly. She was a great listener, she had a wonderful memory and could tell a hilarious story. Those were very happy days. She saw me through some tough years - always on hand to offer comfort, or realtime physical help. She often looked after the boys for me. They have memories of being taken out for the day - to the beach - to Gatwick Airport to watch the planes (and have imaginary flights to far flung exotic lands) - into central London. She was a perfect surrogate Nanny - in fact was known as ‘Nanny Pat’ by my boys and their friends. 

Her Christmas grotto was legendary. The boys adored it - from the life size Santa in the hallway as you entered her flat, to the myriad twinkling multi colour lights decked on every available surface throughout the her home. They were never allowed to see it until the day of Pat’s Christmas Party, which she did for the children every year. (Well, she must have stopped at some point, (probably when they were teenagers)....... My boys loved her decorations and frequently used to come home and whine that our smart and cool white lights were “SO BORING”!!

She certainly loved colour in her life! Anything with a bit of bling and glitz was essential in Pat’s world. Her garden had butterflies, and dragonflies, and windmills, and glittering crystal bits and pieces all over it!

She was known far and wide! One time, we were getting on a bus at Trafalgar Square, when the driver saw her and said “Hi Pat! You’re a long way from home!”

The tales go on, and on........ best part of three decades. 

Life will never be the same without here. But we were so blessed to have her. That lovely lady will be remembered by many. SO full of life, and love, and colour and BLING. 

Dear Pat. I can hear St Christopher asking why he had never thought of putting that glitter on his wings before now. 

Cheers Pat.