Description:"I grew up in Yardley, It’s a different country from when I was a lad. My playground was Chelmsley Woods, when it was a wood. It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. They chopped the wood down to build the estate, which broke my heart. I used to get up in the middle of the night on a Sunday mornings and jog to Coleshill through the woods just look at nature. It was my secret, an adventure.
In the late 70s I drove a two ton truck to India and back. I was in Afghanistan when the Russians moved in. In Kabul I was told, ‘Brian, it’s time to get out’. Before the Russians came you could buy beautiful meringues on Chicken Street. You’d buy your meringues and then go over the road and buy yoghurt with preserves in it, cherries and stuff. What a breakfast! I managed to get out of Afghanistan and got to Teheran and they were throwing the Shah out, the Ayatollah was back. That was scary.
I moved here in the winter of 1997. When I got up here I quite liked it – it’s the top floor, you don’t get people walking on your ceiling. I face south which is lovely – good light and nice views. I took the units off the walls in the kitchen, put a table and shelves in, made a place you can work in.
This area used to scare me. I’d heard rumours because a friend of mine had a girlfriend called Lee Bank Sue. I think she was a working girl but he was too young to know. I used to like this block because there were people here who’d been in since the block was first up. But most of them have left. What they should have is a little bit of extra rent and a concierge 24 hours a day, and on your buzzer you should have a camera so you can see who’s there. I call it my vertical street, I live in a vertical street.
It works for me up here. I’m not on a housing estate, I’m on a main road. It’s just a shame about some of the people in the block. But then it’s a walk into town, you don’t need a car. The scavenging is good in the city, the car boots, the library. I’ve worked my world out here, I’ve made everything to fit in this flat. I’ve got some mahogany and some sycamore and some cherry ready to make things from. Everything in here is bespoke. It’ll take me at least two years to sort out the next place. A home is a working machine. I saw this place as temporary when I moved it. I have a feeling that the unemployed and disabled will pretty much get thrown out of the city. If you knock down the slums where will the poets live?
All art is based on poetry, a painting is a poem. But never tell your friends you’re a poet. The old one used to be ‘I’m an artist, I draw the dole.’ A lot of people say to me, ‘Are you the artist?’ and I say, ‘I used to be an artist but I’m all right now.’ That’s my line.
The blocks house people of all ages, from babies to OAPs. All want a good quality of life, but for the young mothers in the block the situation is particularly acute – they can see the future their children may have to face all around them.