Moving down the generations, my sister was born in Dyne Road, 22 doors down from where her mum was born.

Me and my family have a long history in Kilburn and I must admit it now, it’s a great honour to be the local councillor. My mum was very active in Labour Party politics and I kind of took on that from her.


I’m currently a councillor for Kilburn and my mum was born on the kitchen table at a house in Dyne Road in 1920 and that was about 10 years after her dad had bought the property. It was about right at the beginning of Kilburn - Kilburn kind of grew up in the late 1890s. So my granddad bought that property in about 1910.


My mum had a very fond memory of the opening of the Gaumont State in Kilburn – I think it was in 1938 or 1939, and there is a nice little video on there that you can look at on YouTube, which was filmed the evening of the grand opening, and it was pretty grand.

Moving down the generations, my sister was born in Dyne Road 22 doors down from where her mum was born. And I remember my sister’s 21st birthday party - they invited the milkman because he was her first memory mum used to put her out in the pram in the front garden and so every day the milkman would come by. That was her first memory. He had to retire from the milk round because he couldn’t understand the decimal currency when they changed, so he took early retirement. I was born at Bart’s – my parents were living up north cause my dad worked for the civil service and he was always being moved around. But I came back to Kilburn when I was six years old, with a strong Lancashire accent. There used to be this radio show called The Clitheroe Kid with a kid with a strong Lancashire accent. And so, when I came to London, they all called me the The Clitheroe kid at school, so I had to lose it pretty damn quick. At school, I went to Malorees, which is up in Brondesbury Park and then later I went to a grammar school, which was on Euston Road.

My mum was at the opening of the Gaumont State and me and my mates used to go there for Saturday morning pictures. I don’t know if many people remember Saturday morning pictures, but it was quite a thing. When I was young, I used to like old cowboy movies and we had to boo the Indians and cheer the Cowboys - But it was good fun and it went on for hours, you know, and then we all went swimming in Granville Rd. Baths, which was a desperate old, a really old fashioned worthless swimming pool, but we had fun.