Landor Road, SW9.
Back in the 70s and 80s, the circled part of this building, less than a 2-minute walk from my old home via Arlesford Road, was one of the go-to local shops in the area, a convenience store known as ‘Richard’s’, after the Asian owner (though I can’t recall if that was the name of the shop. Originally the shop was just half the size before expanding. Richard ran the shop with his wife, and his son, around my age, and younger daughter were often in the shop too. They used to live above the shop.
More on Richard in a moment because it’s a sad story.
For me, there are three roads in the area, all big roads, that historically, have always been very grim and grey, and to this day, walking through them leaves me dispirited. It’s the same feeling I’d get on pre-1989 Sundays when 99% of shops were closed and barely anything seemed to happen. Acre Lane (SW2) and Clapham Park Road (SW4) are two of those roads, with Landor Road making up the grim triumvirate. I still walk through Landor Road most days though rarely the Clapham North end. A walk from end to end last month shocked me because some of the promising new businesses that had opened on the road pre-Covid clearly didn’t survive the pandemic and I had never seen so many shops boarded up. These included the wonderful Café Cairo.
After the two Brixton Riots, the frontline for crack shifted to Landor Road and for years the police seemed happy to leave it there where they could try and contain it as best they could. The area from the mid-80s to early-90s, particularly from the Arlesford Road end through to Stockwell was almost a no-go. Andy the Barber spoke about this period in the area’s history when I interviewed him for my old podcast back in 2015.
I was studying at the London Cartoon Centre in the late 80s/early 90s and would get my work photocopied at a brilliant stationer’s that had opened on Landor Road at this time and if I was in there a little on the late side, the owner, a lovely West Indian Man with a big beard that never seemed to have a stray here in it, would tell me to hurry home and to make sure I came back at a more decent time next time I was in there.
Around this time too, as Video rental shops briefly became THE thing, I remember signing up for membership to a couple in the area, one of which by the old Southwestern Hospital (built for the late 19th century Small Pox epidemic that hit the area) was later done for being a front for a crack den.
The crack frontline remained in place effectively under the tragic shooting of PC Patrick Dunne in the autumn of 1990, just further south, on Cato Road just off Clapham High Street. It was only then, it seemed, that a concerted effort to clean up the area was made. I just think Landor Road is one of those roads that even gentrification can’t approve.
Let’s get back to Richard now.
We never had a housephone at 48 Mayflower and as much as I hate phones now and have my landline permanently disconnected and my mobile off for at least six hours a day/night, back then, I was obsessed with phones. The longer we went without one, the more I craved one. To this day I can still recall the old landline numbers of my greatest friends and up until the late nineties before I got my first mobile, I was always in public phone boxes making calls no matter how bad those kiosks reeked and I remember, OCD King that I am, I’d always scrub my ears clean as soon as I got home.
Some Sunday mornings though, to avoid the phone boxes in the area, I’d go with my mum to Richard’s, armed with 10 and 20p coins. At the back of the shop, in the hallways leading to his family’s flat, he had a payphone and Richard would always let me use it.
I always remember Richard as a big, imposing figure, short dark hair, barrel chested with a white overcoat on almost all the time. He only ever seemed to be able to talk as if he was barking out hurried orders but it was just his manner.
In the summer of 1985, just before schools broke up, I was at the local GP surgery, as I often am being a hypochondriac that can rival my late dad and his many imaginary ailments. I was with my mum in the waiting room. I think I had one of my occasional genuine ailments that day, a severe eye infection after an injury that morning at school and we were waiting outside Room 1 where our family GP was based. That evening, there was an almighty row coming from that room with the patient, a man, yelling at the doctor. I can’t recall the first part of it but to this day I can remember the rest of it before the patient stormed out.
“DON’T TELL ME IT ISN’T. THIS IS THE END. THIS IS THE END.”
Moments later, Richard exited, completely ignoring my mum, whom he knew well and myself.
About a fortnight later, Richard, who also worked as a black cab driver, had gone missing. Not long after, his cab was found abandoned on Vauxhall Bridge and around that time, I’m not quite sure which stretch of the Thames, Richard’s body was fished out of the river.
The family tried to make a go of the shop for a bit and it was always difficult going back to the shop, never really knowing what to say or even understanding what they must’ve been going through.
On the two podcast episodes with Andy the barber, he, if I recall rightly, mentions that Richard had got into considerable debt. Again, I can’t remember if this was down to gambling (Andy was very honest about his failings in that department) or overstretching himself financially when the shop was expanded.
I can still recall how the lighting in the shop always felt a bit on the dull side but it always seemed to be stocked with pretty much everything you needed. I’d walk the aisles with mum as she looked at the shelves or in the fridges and then wait patiently as she chatted to Richard or his wife, and I dealt with the uncomfortable stares from the son who never seemed to be the friendliest kid.
These days the shop has been converted into (no doubt) overpriced flats. Immediately to the right of that circle, there’d been some small church too, though I can’t remember what denomination it was.
That is the story of Richard’s.
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