I had a friend at my first school called Niall. He was probably my best friend for a couple of years, in what would be Years 2 and 3. He had two older brothers and a baby brother.
They lived, to start with, in a fair-sized house in Ealing. They had an au pair, which was quite a thing to have. The dad was an Irish businessman. I remember Niall and I, two Anglo-Irish boys, found it funny that his baby brother had a bit of an Irish accent.
I remember us singing "Satsumas, robots in disguise" and that being hilarious, and playing our own version of "The Adventure Game" (Doogy rev) in the snowy school playground.
We went to The Royal Tournament at Earl's Court twice, some peculiar piece of military triumphalism which was pretty entertaining and where no one died. First in 1985, then in 1986. In 1985, we travelled there and back from Ealing. By June 1986, Niall and his family had moved to Kensington.
Now, look, I went to posh schools and friends had big houses. But there's big and big. My family had moved, post-divorce in 1983, into a terraced two-up two-down in South Ealing, then my mum got a loft conversion in 84 which meant all four children had their own bedroom. Niall definitely came to stay a few times at ours. Our house was a good house; certainly it felt full when there were five in it, fuller when there were more than five.
For a lot of friends with well-to-do parents, all through my childhood, in London, you could tell their houses were fine and fancy, but there was nothing disproportionately spectacular compared to ours. There's only so much space in London after all. Maybe they were detached, maybe they had three floors, maybe a basement, but mostly, they weren't a whole thrill in themselves.
Niall's house in Kensington, though ... that was something. I think it was Kensington Church Street, in that ridiculously wealthy rectangle between Notting Hill, Holland Park, High Street Ken and Kensington Gardens.
It was white, I think, and was on 5 or 6 floors. All those floors. And it had a roof garden of sorts. You get the picture.
So, one weekend in June 1986, I went to stay there for, I think, two nights. The thing about staying with Niall is I don't remember his parents being there. There was the au pair, brothers passing through, but mostly it felt like we had the run of the place.
The Saturday, which was the 21st of June, we went to the Royal Tournament at Earl's Court, watched the soldiers and the sailors and the pilots doing spectacular battle in which no one died, then had a meal at Tootsie's, that fancy burger place on Holland Park Avenue which used to have a couple of other branches, but endures in its original location.
So far, so excellent. Then we went back to Niall's to catch the end of the Brazil-France World Cup quarter-final (which had an epic penalty shoot-out), then we went to the park and played football, on the longest day of the year, til the sun went down and I still remember that game of football, all the disparate kids in the park, young and old, joining in, how it felt like it went on for ever, then we went back and watched the Germany-Mexico QF, which began at 10pm UK time, can you imagine, and we just watched all of it, probably with a couple of beers, who knows, we felt so grown up.
I've always had in my memory that that's the last time I saw Niall, but that can't quite be true. It was the 21st June (the evening of the 22nd I remember being at home to watch the England-Argentina QF, a little-talked about game of football that no one remembers) so there'd still have been a couple more weeks of school.
But I left that school then, and never saw him after that, and have no idea what happened to him. I saw lots of other boys from that school down the years, maybe just around Ealing, or at Ealing Cricket Club, or when my new school played that school at sport. But I didn't see Niall. I remembered that day, for a very long time, as just the best that a day could possibly be, the longest day of the year, out and about in London like grown-ups, staying up past midnight in this huge mansion of a townhouse. And I missed him the most of my old friends, and always assumed I'd see him again some day. Maybe, since he'd moved to Kensington, he left that Ealing school as well. I must have asked someone. I must have known at some point.
There's a name that pops up on twitter occasionally that is similar, but the surname is one letter different from what I remember, and, anyway, it's not that uncommon a name, really.
I just noticed that two of these blogs, this and London Place 13 are about 21st April and 21st June 1986, and I remember both days in precise detail, which is a weird feat even for me. I looked up to see if I could continue the series, and yes, 21st August, I remember it well, I was watching test cricket all day, Ian Botham breaking the test wicket record.
For days that were half a lifetime ago, they sometimes seem pretty close.
* A few days later now, something was bugging me up, I looked up the 1986 Royal Tournament and I realise I got this wrong. It took place in July, not June. So the Royal Tournament was not on the same day as the football. Makes sense now. I had definitely thought there'd been more than one sleepover, and I'd definitely thought that one of them was the last time I ever saw Niall. So I was right in some sense. There we go. My memory's not what it ever was.
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