40 years on: My Docklands
In 1981, in the grip of what in retrospect I realise must have been a premature midlife crisis, I sold my three-bedroom Clapham semi for £65,000 and moved into a loft in Wapping. I left my Habitat kitchen and the stained-glass window depicting a galleon over the front door behind and moved into Metropolitan Wharf, a 19th-century Thames-side warehouse with 2,000 square feet of agoraphobiainducing, wide-open raw space. It was big enough for an indoor bike ride. Strictly speaking, my three-year, non-residential warehouse lease prohibited me from living there. So I built a box in one corner to hide the evidence of illegal habitation — in case of any unannounced visits from the landlord — installed a shower and hoped for the best…
