Area S.E.15.

Taken from a yet to be published autobiographical work,

The Stargate Chronicles: Book 1. Limited Experiences of the Infinite.

Copyright © G Osborn. 2005. All Rights Reserved

My brother Paul and I were both brought-up in Peckham, South-east London. There is almost five years between us. I was born at 5:00 a.m., on April 6, 1957 at St Giles Hospital – once an old Victorian Workhouse in Camberwell a few miles away from Peckham.

  Legend has it that Camberwell was the site of a battle between the sexes . . . a Celtic tribe known as the Iceni under the warrior Queen, Boudicca and the Romans under the Governor General, Suetonius Paulinus.

  Writing this, I’m struck by the thought, that just like the modern struggle to turn a parallel-processing computer into a ‘quantum computer’ by trying to evolve its two-value binary code processor into a fusion of the two – resulting in a qubyte - on the Camberwell site where I was born, a similar struggle in consciousness commenced between human ‘bit-units’ carrying ROUND shields and STRAIGHT spears and swords . . . ones and noughts. And on the larger scale and staying with the same analogy, we see the same duality-problem being fought out in the battle between Celts using round shields . . . O . . . led by a woman, and Romans using rectangular shields . . . I . . . led by a man.

  Such is the evolution of consciousness – which on any and every scale we observe it – depends on an endless series of frictions – as between thesis and antithesis and brief fusions – synthesis – as we find in the coital sex-act between the two genders to drive it along. It would seem that the end result of this entire evolutionary struggle, will be a quantum computer through which we will be able to break into other worlds.

  According to Timothy Leary and Eric Gullichsen:

‘ . . . we are learning to experience what Nils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg could only dream of. The universe, according to their cyberdelic equations, is best described as a digital information process with sub-programs and temporary ROM states, megas called galaxies, maxis called stars, minis called planets, micros called organisms, and nanos known as molecules, atoms, particles. All of these programs are perpetually in states of evolution, i.e., continually “running.” [1] (My emphasis.)

Well be that as it may, as soon as I was born I caused my father grief:

  On the afternoon of April 5th and while my mother was in the pain-throes of a long drawn-out labour – to comfort her my father (Eric) whispered in her ear, “Don’t worry June . . . just think of that lovely tax rebate money.”

  I won’t repeat what my mother said.

  However, as luck would have it, I was born 5 hours into the new tax year – not something I decided to do, but it was nice and cosy in there. My father never really forgave me for that and would bring it up whenever an issue about money reared its “evil head” – bitterly claiming that I’d cost him money before I was born.

Two years after suffering a stillborn baby boy, a year after a stillborn baby girl, and some five years after I had come into the world, my ‘world mother’ gave birth to Paul William Osborn on January 9, 1962 at St Thomas’s Hospital, Westminster, London.

  Just before 8:30 that evening and just as his little body had finished its nine-month-long download onto this ‘Hard Drive’ we call “reality” a problem occurred . . . the umbilical cord had wrapped around his tiny fragile neck. In later years, Paul would often say that this might have been due to the fact that he never wanted to come back to a physical existence and that he had desperately tried to strangle himself. Like me he was also two weeks late, as his calculated birthdate was actually 25th December.

  The rumour has always persisted, and with good evidence, that on our Mother’s side, we are descendents (two generations removed) of that Irish, aristocratic family known as the Dukes of Leinster - the FitzGeralds.

  True or not true, for many years there has been a rumour on my mother's side of the family that my Grandfather, John William Gerald Day (1913 - 1991), was the illigitimate son of the 7th Duke of Leinster, Edward FitzGerald (1892 - 1976). Edward was famous for his infidelties and affairs. He frequented the theatres in London and actually married a chorus girl - which is telling, as my Great Grandmother was a Music Hall singer and dancer in the London theatres. Edward also had an affair with Mrs's Wallis Simpson - the mistress of King Edward VIII who abdicated. I now hear that there is a guy in California asserting his right to the title of Duke of Leinster - the grandson of another illigitmate offspring no doubt.

  However, despite our rather dodgy select ancestry - and there's no real evidence that the above is true - Paul and I were brought up in not so normal “working-class” family – living above my mother’s parents in a back street in the Lambeth Borough of Peckham.  

For those who come from a more privileged background, Peckham is considered a farcical “blot” on the South-London landscape – its name synonymous with the most commonest of cultural upbringings now made all the more famous by the popular British comedy TV series, “Only Fools and Horses”.

  In this comedy, Peckham is the cultural background for “Del-Boy” – the jovial, “ducking and diving” ‘Cockney con man’ played by actor, David Jason. Due to the influence of this popular TV series, having been brought up in Peckham is now considered to be humorously funny – like comparing a Rolls Royce to a three-wheeled, Robin Reliant owned by those who “don’t know any better”.

  The street we lived in was just another dingy backstreet off Commercial Way – close to where it joins the gas works in the Old Kent Road – the road made famous by Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Our's was the same street that the actor Michael Caine lived when he was a boy. With its two rows of sandy, russet-bricked terraced houses; occasioned by drab curtained windows and topped with terracotta chimneys, our street seemed two-dimensional compared to the expanse of sky that shrouded the sharp-angled roofs of its two opposite rows of houses.

  As I grew older, I knew that beyond the fluffy blue and white sky which blanketed our little part of the world, there was always the mystery of infinite space with its millions of stars and galaxies, super-novas and distant quasars – a strange contrast indeed to the daft and ridiculous human activity we engage in on this side of the sky. Sometimes I would imagine reaching up so as to rip the veil away – wanting to expose the mystery which most of us forget is always there.

Peckham is the place where Peter Collinson, a notable figure and friend of Benjamin Franklin, lived during the eighteenth century. Apparently, Franklin, who with George Washington was instrumental during the American Revolution and was also a high-ranking Freemason to boot, got his passion for electricity from Collinson who foresaw the vast potential that could be gained from harnessing this natural form of energy. No doubt, Peckham was an ‘electrifying’ place. To think that Peckham has a connection to the people behind the “All Seeing Eye” in the Pyramid symbol – now seen on the American Dollar – amuses me no end.

  The location of Peckham, London, was once actually considered for the 0º Prime Meridian – which now runs through Greenwich. Amusing to think that the world would have had to refer their time to ‘Peckham Meantime’ - and indeed one can and often does have a 'meantime' while living there.

  In recent years, Peckham – otherwise known as ‘Area S.E.15.’ – has become a less than savoury place to live in compared to other areas of London – not the country Shire it had once been. Notorious for its drug crime and drug-related violence; Peckham’s unfavourable reputation has now exceeded that of Brixton – only a few miles away.

  Throughout the early ’80s, and during the violent street riots that were widespread at that time, some parts of Peckham had become run-down “no-go” areas. There were stories of people being “mugged” in their own homes: thugs kicking down front doors and stealing television sets – even as people watched them!

  Places to avoid like the plague were North Peckham Estate and other high-rise block estates that were built during the ’60s and ’70s. This was the site, when in days of yore, (early 1980's) stories were told of yonder postmen and milkmen being escorted by armoured police vehicles; a place where one false move could upset the “loose-wiring” inside the brains of those who had been forced to live there and who were ready to reap retribution on anything that moved . . . but alas! . . There were of course other ‘more salubrious areas’ of Peckham – having been redeveloped in the late ’80s to cater for the so-called middle-class “yuppies” who thought it “hip” to live in such a place – often viewing Peckham like another Chelsea, south of the Thames.

However, I remember a time when you couldn’t drive through Peckham without someone getting beaten-up on your bonnet . . .

. . . Reality is something that just happens to you

One rainy evening in 1974, two friends and I decided to drive across the river to one of our favourite weekend haunts – a nightclub in the West-End. To get there we would have to do a sightseeing tour of London by driving the length of the Old Kent Road from Peckham to the Elephant and Castle where the occult artist, Austin Osman Spare once lived. From the 'Elephant' we would drive towards Westminster Bridge – which we would cross to get to Whitehall. From Whitehall we would drive through Trafalgar Square then through Piccadilly and then up through Shaftsbury Avenue towards the nightclub in Leicester Square.

  As usual, along the Old Kent Road the traffic was slow, and on evenings like this, we would be treated to the usual shimmer of red-tail lights, and grey exhaust emissions – along with the drizzle caught in the dazzling bright headlights of cars going in the other direction. From the corner of our eye were the shuffling dark shadows of busy pedestrians shrouded by umbrellas; accompanied by the familiar sound of diesel engines radiating from the occasional taxi or brightly-lit, London bus that moved slowly beside us. And staring at us through circles made in steamy windows was the usual row of disgruntled passengers. It was “stop and start” all the way and as usual we were constantly being delayed by traffic lights.

  Halfway along the Old Kent Road, between the pubs known as The Dun Cow on our right and The Green Man on our left, the three of us sat – talking about the fine night we were going to have. However, on this occasion our conversation was suddenly interrupted by the jarring sound of several car horns . . .

  Stage right: a guy comes running out of the The Dun Cow. He is obviously scared shitless and it soon becomes clear why, because pouring from the same door of the pub and like a swarm of wasps whose nest had been rattled, is an angry, unruly mob of crop-headed, tattooed thugs, whose obvious intent is to catch the guy and simply kill him. Running for his life, the young man is trying to dodge the speeding cars on the other side of the road.

  While watching him, we all have that typical feeling you get when trouble seems to be heading your way. We were right . . . because out of all the cars on the busy main road – this guy has to trip and fall across our bonnet!

  As if paralysed, we sit in horror, as the mob – who like a pack of hunting dogs that has now caught up with their prey – begin laying into him – all the time pushing and pulling the poor wretch across the hood of our car. If nothing else, the bonnet was getting a good polishing. However, our thoughts about this quickly ceased as we now become hypnotically stupefied by the series of dull thuds which begin to rain down upon our car . . . it felt as if we had been caught in a storm of unusually large hailstones.

  Our evening had been ruined: all thoughts of the night's promise of 'wine, women and song' had completely left us, and like the nurds in the American TV comedy, Happy Days - which was possibly being aired at that time - I remember the three of us screaming pathetically; huddling together throughout the ordeal . . . and no one was volunteering to be "the Fonz" tonight.

  . . . Then suddenly, a miracle happens: the guy, whom a moment ago was spread-eagled across our bonnet as if about to be sacrificed to someone's personal god or demon, managed to struggle free from the rabble and continued to run across the remainder of the road. Like bluebottle flies that had just been disturbed from feasting on a freshly laid dog stool – one by one, the trolls begin to leave our car.

  Knowing that he is still being pursued, our jaws drop as we see the guy scrabble over a ten-foot wall. He jumps that wall like a cat that still has one life left.

  We never did find out what he had done, but whatever it was it carried a death sentence.

There are indeed worse places in the world, but this was Peckham in the ’70s. I had once heard someone say that if London was someone’s butt, then Peckham would be right there in the crack of it . . .

  This was the place, where news of a person getting kicked to death on a street corner was almost as regular as an Aztec sacrificial ritual: the place where one guy, who for a laugh, had unwisely chosen to have his neck tattooed with a broken line saying “CUT HERE!”, was dispatched as instructed - having had his head sawn off and stuck in a bin . . . true story. This was the place where my brother Paul and I had actually crawled home drunk one night - and I'm not proud of the fact - only having the vague memory that we had actually passed a burning car that had been arsoned and that there were two victims. And this was the place where on a Saturday, one would try to avoid the wandering tribes of Millwall football supporters who would often leave bedlam and chaos in their wake – especially if their team had lost. Like every thug who uses their support of a football team to exercise a deep-rooted, tribal instinct to slaughter anything and everything that moves, those that supposedly supported Millwall were no exception, and had the worst reputation for violence in the UK.

  These days, Peckham is a cosmopolitan hotchpotch of cultures; exemplified by spiky, purple/orange-haired punks who are still lost in the ’70s: neo-hippies, who pretend they are living in the late ’60s and body-pierced “eco-warriors,” who feebly lurk amongst the throng of one-parent families, communal “crackheads,” African emigrants, and Uzi-armoured, drug gangs.

  It’s no wonder that Peckham now has the reputation of being a “tough” place, and so being known as a “Peckamite” gives one a certain amount of respect – albeit the kind of respect given only by those who glorify in violence and who consider themselves “well’ard!” However, there appears to be something about Peckham which also attracts anti-social “oddities” from the universe next door.