Wonder what happened to the blogger Lucky Jimm, courier / Mayfair squatter - say hi if you know him :)

On a Sunday in January 2009 a friend and I went to see Kind Hearts & Coronets in a squat at 39A Clarges Mews, Mayfair. It was part of a week long series of events and classes under the 'Temporary School of Thought' banner. As it was so close to Burns' night we took some veggie haggis from Fortnums around the corner. There were lots of people there admiring the incredible property and the ornate wallpaper etc and I got chatting to some of the squatters. One of them - Lucky Jimm / luckyjim - was hosting the film screening and I later came across his blog, which was an amazing read. Here's what I said about it in 2011.

"In an equivalent of discovering a book that you just can't put down, since coming across his blog I've been hooked, beguiled, ensorcelled (feel free to throw the thesaurus at this, as one word won't do) by the writing and can only hope he gets a shift on and writes a book. I usually read blogs because I'm interested in the topic and nice writing is a pleasant bonus. In this case the topics (squatting, gambling, cycling and drinking) aren't of particular interest to me but the (often poignant) mix of humour, angst, frankness and occasional whimsy has meant that I've found the blog electronically unputdownable." 

Sadly a few years later his blog, outlining his 'degenerate lifestyle', had entirely disappeared and none of it is available on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine either though a few of his guest posts on other people's blogs are still extant, along with a Reddit AMA he did a few years ago. 

He moved his blog to a poker site so I signed up to read them there. Literally never played a poker game in my life but I enjoyed his writing that much. At some point that site went down ('gutshot', doesn't sound very comfortable) but I chatted to him several years later on another poker site, wishing him well and hoping he'd write a book. I will have to see if I can find the site, log in and say hello* ;) I vaguely remember something about a Hendon mob and various poker-playing groups but it's not my world so I've not kept up with any of it.

I'm hoping he's still alive and well and has a life that gives him pleasure, but I also hope he's written a book or two, or that he has a career writing something. If you know him don't tell me who he is (Lucky Jimm is obviously an assumed name!) but do tell him some random from 2009 and the internet hopes he's doing well :)

Lucky Jimm's guest posts on Harry's Place blog

A Trip To The Ocean (20 May 2009) - about the Ocean Estate which, weirdly, is the bus stop I sometimes alight at when going to work, at Queen Mary University of London.

Free (4 February 2010) - writing about Katharine Hibbert's book (she was a journalist who squatted to write about it, later lost her job and started to squat in earnest)

Outside Alexander McQueen's Flat, 5pm, Thursday (15 February 2010) - as a courier Jimm had collected packages from McQueen's offices.

I squatted mansions in Mayfair, London. AMA! (29 January 2010, date of archive capture) - Reddit

Temporary School of Thought (13 January 2009) - Londonist's visit.

*I created an account on the '2+2' poker forum but I can't work out how to send a message to anyone and am very much out of my depth haha so I will probably leave it for now.

Temporary School of Thought - the Mayfair squat 2009

This is yet another example of how so many of the fun things I hear about 'off the internet' come from Ben Goldacre's mini-blog - I should really update the list ;). Two years ago, Ben posted something about a kind of school opening up within a squat in Mayfair. The Temporary School of Thought (TSoT) had a nice website, some positive media interest from my favourite media and a schedule of interesting events. It looked fun.

One of the events was on a Sunday evening (January 2009) - a showing of the film Kind Hearts & Coronets which I went along to with my friend from work. We met for pizza in Shepherd's Market and then, in keeping with the location, went to get some provisions from Fortnum and Mason to share with the squat (it was around Burns' night so we left them a couple of haggises and some wine) and headed over to 39 Clarges Mews to have a bit of a wander round the property before the film began.

It was one of those perfect evenings and I wish I could have spent longer there. The building was lovely, everyone we met was good-natured and friendly (it was never entirely clear to me who was living there and who was a visitor) and there was an eerie gloom over some of the rooms as we were there in the evening and working light fittings were a little sparse. Everyone seemed to be taking photos and having to switch on mobile phones or torches to get enough light, temporarily bathing everything in a slightly lesser gloom. I got chatting to some people while standing next to the main front door and my friend, a little braver than me, went off for further exploration.

We'd remembered to bring torches which were useful in some of the less well-lit areas - the last thing I wanted to do was trip over and break something. The previous event was running a little late and I wondered if my friend would be able to stay for the film as he needed to travel further out home than me and his trains are frankly lightweights and stop early. But about an hour after we arrived we were ushered into the cinema room which was well lit and someone had a laptop and projector set up (this is my kind of squat!) - and the film was great. I was sorry when it came to an end. You can see a picture of the room we were in here, on Dougald Hine's blog. It was like being in one of those old Stella Artois adverts (or whichever company it is that sponsors the Sunday night film) where they show some rural village getting together to watch a film being projected onto a wall or something.

I'd previously signed up to the group's email mailing list and have received one or two emails from them in the last two years. The week before last a couple of new emails appeared announcing that a new school was opening up - The Really Free School (RFS) at 5 Bloomsbury Square. Yippee!

When the first email came in I Googled, nostalgically, for information about the TSoT and one of the people I (micro-briefly) met there who was definitely a resident - he hosted the film on the night I was there, and went by the name Lucky Jimm. And that's how I discovered his blog which I've been reading all week and tweeting excerpts from.

I've already waxed lyrical about his blog when I originally posted a quick email to Posterous about the new Really Free School. In an equivalent of discovering a book that you just can't put down, since coming across his blog I've been hooked, beguiled, ensorcelled (feel free to throw the thesaurus at this, as one word won't do) by the writing and can only hope he gets a shift on and writes a book. I usually read blogs because I'm interested in the topic and nice writing is a pleasant bonus. In this case the topics (squatting, gambling, cycling and drinking) aren't of particular interest to me but the (often poignant) mix of humour, angst, frankness and occasional whimsy has meant that I've found the blog electronically unputdownable. (The blog itself covers several years, the episode on the Mayfair school is just a small part of it, lasting a few weeks).

Reading Jimm's blog about the TSoT gave a lot of really interesting background information about the school and the people behind it - I wish I'd found the blog sooner after the event. I didn't find any blogs written by the other squatmates but if anyone knows of them I'd love to read them too.

I'm not quite sure what overlap there is between the TSoT and the Really Free School, but I loved my visit to TSoT and wanted to see what RFS was about - and the next post will be about my visit to the Bloomsbury school.

You might also enjoy these posts:

• Nicholas Saunder's Alternative London - activist book from 1974
• Dougald Hine's talk at The Really Free School in the Bloomsbury Squat 2011