This isn’t a story about Live Aid… but what I did on that day back in July 1985

I was a student at Coventry Polytechnic, and buying my first house

(See recent placement on the website on the market)

17 Carmelite Road, Stoke, Coventry … 

My parents had kindly lent me the 10% deposit, and I had it all figured out, I’d rent out the spare rooms to help cover the mortgage

On the day of the move

The plan was simple: my mum and I would pop to the solicitor’s office to pick up the keys while my dad and brother loaded my worldly possessions into a van and would sit outside the house, waiting for Mum and I to turn up with the keys

But of course, life had other ideas

The seller suddenly decided he didn’t want to move anymore

Anyone who knows English law will tell you: you can’t just pull out at the last minute

But he tried anyway

Cue some heroic solicitor action to get the funds in place and a hefty bill for the seller, who had caused all the drama

So what should have been a quick key handover turned into a long wait

My mum and I didn’t meet up with my dad, brother, and the van until 2pm

And this was back in the days before mobile phones, so we couldn’t even let them know what was going on

And to make matters worse? The seller hadn’t even packed

Why would he?

He’d decided not to go!

Our Solicitor had explained to the sellers solicitor and to pass on the message to the seller that he was now “trespassing” and we had been instructed to dump his belongings onto the street

(Our solicitor was extremely annoyed)

Of course we didn't dump his things in street, but we did help him pack and move

In the end, the seller got a mate with a van, and we ended up helping him load his stuff so we could finally unload mine

It was a little tense to say the least

He was a fireman and had what would be called today a side hustle which was selling brass art-deco figurines 

We had to put a lot of the art-deco in dustbins and we left them in the front garden for him to pick up another day …. he never did collect them

We wrapped up the day with a well-earned fish and chips from the chip shop at the end of the road

It wasn’t quite the smooth start I imagined, but it marked the beginning of my nine years in Coventry

The photo was taken a few years after at my graduation, this is my mum, my dad, myself  and my Nan (my mum's, mum)