Still, we did nothing to enhance the living conditions ourselves - we used to keep a shopping trolley parked in the bathroom and the kitchen area was constantly steamed up with the earthy smell of boiled spuds and turnips (one of the lads used to bring large sacks of them from home every couple of weeks - we more or less lived on them, again saving our punts for the liquid pleasures of the nearby hostelries...). There was no TV, but for entertainment we had the rehearsals of the rock band upstairs to listen to ( The ? cowboys I think - the Leptard probably knows them).
I have many memories of that place but none more miserable than the couple of weeks of darkness and cold we endured after the electricity meter got jammed with a dodgy 50p piece on the same week that the landlady fucked off on a two week holiday. At one point I nearly burnt the place down with some 'candle's that I improvised from cooking oil and old rags exploded (after which, the others decided to veto my proposals for doing a bit of rewiring around the meter) - and I guess it was only through the charity of friends and perennially warm welcome of PJ's barstools that we came though those dark days with our health and well-being intact. Alas, the original house is now gone - recently replaced by a new more gleaming gray construct of investment favourable apartments. Let's hope the damp-proofing is flawless because the bricks and mortar may have been leveled and replaced, but mould like that which I encountered there may live for ever.