The flat at 11 Scarborough Road in Finsbury Park is a landmark in my life, because it’s where I had so much fun with people who are still my friends today. I lived there 20 years ago with my boyfriend — now husband — Stephen, when we were young and irresponsible and too busy enjoying ourselves to think about mortgages.

It was originally Stephen’s flat. He was the guitarist in Altered Images, but we didn’t get together until we disbanded. I stayed in Glasgow and he moved to London and was in another band called Flesh. He lived at Scarborough Road with his best friend Keith Band, who was also from Glasgow and in a group called Bourgie Bourgie. Keith’s record company had found him the flat to rent and it became a crash pad for lots of musicians — the Bluebells, Hipsway and Gary Kemp all passed through. I moved there in 1985, after I began getting acting and presenting work in London.

The flat was in a tall Victorian house and on four floors. There were four bedrooms and usually people sleeping in the lounge — the record was 18 overnight. We were in our crazy twenties, partying all the time and thinking ourselves terribly creative and bohemian.

On the ground floor of the house there was another flat and our front door. Our door opened on to a flight of stairs that went straight up to three bedrooms. Stephen and I slept on that floor and so did our friend Douglas McIntyre, who was in the band Love and Money, and his girlfriend Nancy. The other bedroom belonged to Gill Auld, the only one of us with a proper job. She worked for Time Out and had to get up early every morning while the rest of us were lounging about, considering breakfast television to be the one o’clock news! We felt sorry for her.

Up a half flight of stairs was the bathroom, with horrible lino and a shower curtain covered in mould. Next to the bathroom was the door to a roof terrace, where we used to have firework displays. One night, we thought we’d have a bonfire — just a wee one. Of course, it got completely out of control and there was a massive panic. We thought we’d have to call the fire brigade, but luckily we were near the bathroom and able to get water to put it out. The roof terrace was on top of the ground-floor flat’s kitchen. How the people downstairs put up with us I have no idea, but we never had any complaints.

Up another flight was the kitchen, where we used to make vegetable pasta when we weren’t going out, and drink copious amounts of cheap red wine. We usually ate off a coffee table in the lounge, which was up some more stairs and next to Keith’s bedroom. The lounge was where we used to have parties. Around that time, I was presenting Night Network, a magazine show on a Saturday night. I got to know Patsy Kensit, who was in the band Eighth Wonder, and she would come along to our parties. There wasn’t a boy in London who didn’t fancy her.

The decor in the flat was hideous. Every room had different flock wallpaper and in the lounge it was classic Indian- restaurant red. Eight identical velvet armchairs were arranged in a semicircle around the television. They were a horrible mustard colour and looked like they’d come from an old people’s home. The wallpaper in our bedroom was lime. I loathed it and eventually whitewashed over it. Stephen had a futon, which I hated because it was so uncomfortable. We used to lie on it late at night, listening to Billie Holiday records. He had a mixing desk in his bedroom because he’d started producing — he was probably one of the original bedroom producers! Stephen had a ton of musical equipment and we were always using his drums and flight cases as coffee tables.

I occasionally did housework, usually when people’s parents came to stay — mine didn’t, because they didn’t approve of me living with Stephen. Once, when Stephen’s mother was coming to visit, I painted the kitchen primrose yellow. I did that classic thing of not taking pictures off walls, but painting round them. Generally, we all had a bit of a stand-off about the household chores. As a result, the place resembled the flat in The Young Ones. Keith’s was the only room that looked quite nice — he cared a bit more than the rest of us. He now lives in San Francisco, where he’s an accountant, and his house isn’t dissimilar to his bedroom in Finsbury Park. He has got classic 1950s taste. In 1986, Stephen went to America to work and that summer, while he was away, we got a letter from the landlord saying he’d like us to move out because he was going to refurbish. It was the end of an era, and Stephen and I went all grown-up and moved in together in Queens Park, just the two of us.

Interview by Rosanna Greenstreet

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