Warning. Contains nudity. May not be suitable for minors or those of a nervous disposition

My mate the Baron was, and I hope still is a smashing bloke. He lived with me and the rest of the gang in the old LCC tenement blocks hard-to-let flats, alongside the Bow Bridge flyover. He worked in the Crown Suppliers dodge uptown and like all of us, he enjoyed a drink or seven. He was quite partial to having a few scoops of the old falling down water on a Friday night. If not saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday and thursday come to that. In fact, all the years I know the Baron, he never refuses a drink.

Well what happens one friday night is typical of the kind of thing the Baron gets up to when he has been squeezing the hops since early doors. He is drinking since lunchtime with his work pals and has unfortunately forgotten to eat anything, so as you can imagine all that grog on an empty stomach naturally leaves him feeling a little tired and emotional.

Now being the sensible sort, the Baron figures the best thing to do is to go home and sleep it off; it being only five o’ clock in the afternoon. So this he does.

It seems he has a pretty good snooze, because before he knows it he is awake and it is already ten to nine. Late for work! The Baron hot foots it out of the door, down the stairs, across the courtyard and out of the estate onto the Mile End Road. He is headed in the direction of Bow Road Underground station, when he becomes aware that cars driving past him are tooting their horns and flashing their lights. The Baron also becomes aware how dusky the sky is looking for such an early hour.

Slowly it dawns on him that it is not nine a of m, but nine p of m. Nightime in other words. And not only that, but he has sleepwalked the whole way, and moreover has done so wearing only his Y-fronts.

Sheepishly the Baron retraces his steps, gingerly now on bare feet across the courtyard, enduring the cat calls of the kids who hang around there and for whom he has provided much merriment minutes earlier, up the stairwell to the flat door. Now here’s a problem. Of course the flat door is locked now, it having closed on the yale lock earlier when he “leaves for work”. This is where the story gets interesting on two counts. One: unbeknown to the Baron while he was in bed reading the insides of his eyelids, flatmate Peadar had arrived home in a similar state, as our hero , having forgotten to eat his lunch too. Two: the Baron decides in his wisdom to knock on the flat next door and borrow some kind of implement which will allow him to gain access. (His preferred route being through the toilet window – see “Look on the brightside, its Norman Whiteside“) Now, just put youself in the position of the neighbour for a minute. There you are, minding your own buisness on a friday night in your flat on a grubby East End estate. There is a knock at the door which you go and answer to be greeted by the sight of a deranged skinny white nobleman dressed only in Y fronts and apparently talking in tongues. “Hammer!” He pleads – and they give him one!

But the lunacy doesn’t end there. Oh no. As the Baron makes a bit too good job of demolishing the toilet window, he wakes up Peadar, still sleeping up to that point inside. Peadar thinks he is being burgled and begins to shout, taking a variety of voices in an attempt to trick his would-be assaillant that there is more than one person inside.

Finally, the two realise who each other are and as the Baron returns the hammer, Peadar opens the door.

“Jesus what a shock” says Peadar “I need a drink” says the Baron “Fancy a pint?”

And the moral of this little tale? Well if neither of them had forgotten their lunch, none of this would have happened.

Bow Bridge Estate

© Andy Daly 2012

Steve, in the unlikely event you should ever read this, I know you’re not from Barking, but Basildon didn’t scan as well.