Five years on from the tragic death of Ursula Bahler -- the well-known homeless lady in Sumatra Road, where I lived for about ten years -- I shall this year be taking part in Vertical Rush, a vertical charity run in aid of Shelter, the charity for homeless people. This page records my memories of Ursula Bahler.
In memory of Ushi: Ursula Bahler, the homeless 'Angel of West Hampstead'
On Saturday 13th March 2004, I stood in Sumatra Road, West Hampstead, where I lived with my wife Deborah Marshall-Warren .. and watched as undertakers in top hats guided the funeral cortege of Ursula Bahler to Kensal Green Cemetery. It was a slow, deliberate, ponderous procession, expressive of the infinite dignity of the death of a human being. Ms Ursula Bahler, or Ushi as she always introduced herself, was made homeless in the year 2000, by being thrown by bailiffs from her home of thirty-seven years onto the pavement of Sumatra Road, along with her possessions. Ushi, however, was not one to give up without a fight. I wasn't there when the bailiffs came but according to the Camden New Journal, she was "arrested for breach of the peace after challenging bailiffs". Well, yes, if some jobsworths were to come and manhandle you and your earthly belongings out of your home, you too might be a tad challenging.
I had moved in with Deborah in her house in West Hampstead in about 1994, and I had met Ushi a number of times over the years. She was a colourful local figure who worked in a cafe in West End Lane. She was very outgoing and cheerful and widely liked. In 2000, I had just started a new job in Camberley, and used to commmute early in the morning and get back late in the evening. Normally the ony part of Sumatra Road that I saw was the stretch I walked along to catch the Tube train from West Hampstead station. I rarely needed to walk down the other end, where usho lived. It was a while before I heard about Ushi's plight.
Ushi set up her own makeshift encampment on the doorsteps of the house that she had lived in. Trying to protect herself and her few remaining belongings from the ravages of wind and rain, and the occasional vandals, she built a nest out of wood and cardboard, and canvas -- and lived like a wise-woman or shaman embedded in a modern street ... like a ghost of some primeval era reminding us of the fragility of modern urban life.
Ushi would cheerfully call out greetings to anyone passing. During this time, Deborah and I got to know her better, we would stop and chat, exchange gifts, talk about life, politics, relgion, philosophy, ... about everything under the sun. Ushi never begged. She never asked people for money and also refused it when offered. She accepted gifts in kind as a way to survive. Her neighours Lionel Haig and Pamela McInally brought her food every day. Various people helped in various ways. Obviously it was not easy for Ushi. I remember one Saturday when Deborah invited her in for a long, hot bath, Ushi said, "I feel like a human being again". Deborah treated her to some of her special soups, which were exquisite.
Cammden Council offered to re-house her in Kentish Town, but Ushi was fixed in her mind on the principle of the matter. She had lived in that house with her husband Alex Oladeinde for twenty years, brought up his children there and, on his death, continued to inhabit it as her home for seventeen years. Richard Osley, writing in the Camden New Journal, described it as "stubborn defiance" but I see it more as making a principled stand. She reminded me of Paul Scofield's Thomas More in the screen adaptation of Robert Bolt's Man for All Seasons (1966). This was Ushi's home and West Hampstead her community; her deceased husband had left a quarter of the house to her and the rest to her step=children.. Why should she abandon the house?
For a while, Ushi seemed to be losing the plot. The trauma of her ejection from her home, and the rigours of living rough seemed to be driving her to eccentricity. But then somehow she changed. Her life acquired new purpose. She began a sort of outreach programme, seeking out and helping those less fortunate than herself. She would visit the sick and the lonely and the elderly, and give them companionship, comfort, and a positive outlook. She would scavenge through skips and the household items that well-to-do households left out on the street -- items that were still serviceable -- and deliver them to individuals would benefit from them. She became so busy that we often needed to make an appointment to have tea with her.
Accompanying this period of charitable work, her personal philosophy developed and deepened. She did not subscribe to any formal religion, but had faith in humanity and in spirit. Her smile became beatific. The New Camden Journal refers to her as the 'angel of West Hampstead'. I don't know who actually used that phrase, but it seems fitting.
Ater she found out that I was half-Welsh, she always called me a "iechyd da" (Welsh for "good health") and spoke of other "iechyd das" that she knew. In February 2000, I was wearing a cherished woollen pullover that had seen better days. The cuff was almost hanging off. Ushi insisted that I allow her to fix it. Eventually I relented and she patched it up. As always, she refused any kind of payment for the job.
A week later she was dead. On Friday 20th February, Apparently she passed away in, or on the steps of, the basement flat of another well-known West Hampstead character, Redwood Fryxall the Buddhist. Redwood was at first arrested on suspicion of being involved in her death, but later released without charge. The postmortem revealed that Ushi had succumbed to pneumonia.
A shrine was spontaneoulsy set up in and amongst Ushi's encampment. Candles, letters, flowers, tributes adorned it. People can and gave silent prayer. On Friday 12th March, the evening before the funeral, 150 people gathered at this shrine and sang hymns and said prayers aloud, Among the mourners were several professional singers, whose sweet voices helped those of us with no skill in the art of song.
The gathering of people at this informal commemoration, and at her funeral was a measure of the number of lives she touched. To ceate a permanent memorial to Ushi, a subscription was raised to buy and install a bench opposite her old house. This was done, and it stands there to this day.
For contemporary accounts of these events, you can read the articles in the Camden New Journal's online archive: