In 2003, two years after my daughter was born, I bought my first house, in Crouch End, north London. At the time, I was married to my now estranged wife, Meg, and living in a small rented flat in Peterborough, but the arrival of Elin, now 10, meant we had to search for a larger property.
After months of endless viewings, we fell in love with a house in Uplands Road. It was a beautiful Victorian house: three storeys, with an emerald-green garden. The previous owner, an architect, restored most of the original fixtures and fittings, including a large Victorian fireplace and diamond- shaped kitchen floor tiles. But it was the extension at the back that did it for me. During the summer, its floor-to-ceiling windows would bathe the living-cum-dining room in natural light. It has a special place in my heart, because it was the first house I’d ever owned.
Compared with my previous homes, it was like Buckingham Palace. Growing up, we didn’t have much money and moved from council flat to council flat. I was even born in one. Our first home was a concrete-clad property in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, where I lived with my parents, aunt, uncle and grandparents. I don’t remember it well as I was five when I left, but my mother would use it as an example of how far we’d come.
It has a special place in my heart, because it was the first house I’d ever owned My mother was a housewife and my father was practising medicine at the time. After he qualified in 1984, we moved into a grotty little flat in Manchester. I remember it being horrible and cramped, but the location was great — only a stone’s throw away from the hospital where my father worked.
Six months later, we moved to a lovely little cul-de-sac in Cardiff, where I stayed till the age of 18. It was a beautiful, two-bedroom property; spacious and very clean, with a tight-knit community. Each morning, I’d wake up to the heavenly scent of the rose bush in our back garden — mother was a keen gardener — and weekends were reserved for playing street football with the neighbourhood kids.
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The best thing about living in Uplands Road was that we were opposite Weston Park primary school, one of the best in the area. Due to intense competition, only those living within an 800-metre radius could apply. Living just across the road, Elin was among the select few that got in.
My happiest memory was when I first got the keys. It was totally unfurnished; I remember eating fish and chips off the floor the day we moved in. The place went through a huge transformation in two years. We installed a patio in the back garden, which overtook the living room as the main social area. We also fitted new carpets, revamped the bedrooms and painted every nook and cranny.
Meg and I hosted some strange parties, one of which was a painting party where each of our guests was assigned a wall or floor that they had to paint. We got so much done, and saved a lot of time and money on labour. As a thank-you, we treated our guests to copious amounts of food and shots of tequila, although afterwards we realised that alcohol and paint do not mix.
After four glorious years, we decided to sell: I had a gut feeling that the property market was about to crash. We had mixed feelings about putting it on the market because of all the blood, sweat and tears that we poured into it, but in 2007 we sold the property for £780,000, making a profit of £280,000 — not bad for four years’ work!
Jimi supports the Unforgettable Moments child sponsorship campaign; actionaid.org.uk/moments