75a Frith road

Demola from the TCC family first started out here.

A humble second floor flat on Frith road in Leyton, east London.

When we were both around eight years old, him and I would tear through the door on the left, just about visible up that garden path, and run up the stairs and into the front room where we used to stare at the TV situated within the upstairs bay window you see until Knight Rider vanished into thin air in the closing credits, where we used to share out Mc Donald dinner mats which came in a set of four to make up a complete picture... Where we would make Lego spaceships and float them in the bathroom sink full of water, where we would watch He-Man and hiss at Skeletor, his nemesis, and where we would smash about toys and trucks that were part of the MASK trademark.

The funny thing is Demola and I would always ensure we both had a mat that held if not the main door to Mc Donald's, at least it would bare half of the door... (Our theory was if you had a dinner mat that had no door on it, you could not get into Mc Donald's! Even though we never actually ate Mc Donald's on these mats).  Yes, even at the ages of around 8 years old we had an unspoken loyalty to each other that no one else could penetrate.

Anyway, there were four place mats that made up a picture scene of Mc Donald's, and me and Demola always had access to the fast food joint. We would happily swing our feet from the chairs that we sat, eating our lunches and dinners.

The cruel thing was a third friend, who at the time was basically a third wheel. He always had the mat without the door on it. I mean always.  His name was Mark.  Mark only lived on the next road and had no obvious reason to be demoted to a non-entry dinner mat to the holy temple of fast food.

Poor Mark, Happy us!


Kids can be so cruel.


Joshua, TCC