In 1851 the Middlesex County Pauper Lunatic Asylum opened on a hundred and forty acre site near New Southgate. Planned as a self-supporting institution it had its own farm, water supply, gas works, laundry, brewery, tailor and graveyard. In its day it was seen as a model for care of the insane and a kinder alternative to places like the Bethlehem Hospital, better known as Bedlam, and now the building that houses the Imperial War Museum. The Middlesex County Pauper Lunatic Asylum adopted the name of the surrounding area and became known as Colney Hatch. Eventually the words "Colney Hatch" became synonymous with the loonies in the "Hatch", so the area adopted the name of its neighbouring village, Friern Barnet. The hospital was renamed The Friern Hospital, and presumably the locals admitted defeat.
Streetgeezer called in empty and the controller sent him to an address in one of the streets just opposite the now deserted hospital in Friern Barnet Road. A social worker dressed in Muswell camouflage: faded drab and plaid, pushed his charge over to the car and poured him from his wheelchair into the front seat. 'Back in five.' He announced, and then disappeared, leaving Streetgeezer smiling benignly and wondering what to say to the strange stranger by his side. Luckily the passenger broke the silence. 'My mum died last week.' He mumbled.
'I'm sorry.' Streetgeezer commiserated. What else could he say?
'I used to live with my mum but someone kept setting fire to the house.' The passenger continued. 'It turned out it was me, well it couldn't have been anyone else, someone saw me do it.'
With the social worker and passenger dropped at Tesco, the driver drove away; relieved the job was only a "bucket". The previous day a railway maintenance man had told Streetgeezer how one night he had found a young woman dressed in night clothes walking along the tracks. She had told him she used to live in the Friern Barnet hospital but could not remember where she had been moved to. He took her to the Station Master who told him just to put her on the first train......care in the community.
Streetgeezer's next pick up was Steve from the Strawberry Vale Estate behind the Green Man in East Finchley. He wanted to go to the Magistrates' Court in Colindale.
'I 'ope I don't get sent dahn, I only just got outta the nick.' Steve whined, as they passed under the Edgware Road Flyover, still closed for repairs to the damage inflicted by the IRA bomb that had destroyed the B & Q warehouse at Staples Corner.
'Why were you in the nick?'
'I beat up the landlord of the pub.'
'Dare I ask why, just as a matter of interest?'
'Well he insulted me mate dit en ee, an ya don't let people insult ya mates do ya?'
'Well what did your mate do?' Streetgeezer just had to know.
'He'd only been fucking the landlord's wife, that's all.'
'Oh, that's all.' Streetgeezer sarcastically imitated. He never ceased to be amazed by the sensitivities and mores of pub habitués.
'Wouldn't you hit someone if they insulted your mate?' Steve replied.
'Probably not.'
'Well would you 'it me if I called your mother a whore?'
'But she isn't.'
'NO... but just supposin I said she was?'
'But you've never met my mother.'
'No but maybe I heard sumfink an' said she was.'
'Well if I was inclined to hit people for being misinformed and not knowing what they were talking about, I would never get any work done.'
'Think your clever, dontcha?' Steve slammed the door and shouted 'Wanker!' As the car pulled off and turned left into Kingsbury Road.