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Apart from an acquaintance of mine who lived in the side car of his motorcycle for two months and then proceeded to live in a deserted Badger run, lined with aluminum foil for the winter, the smallest living space that I ever encountered was in a place called a bed-sit.

Bed-sits are quite common in England, as they provide a handsome return on a home owner's investment. The bigger the house, the more rooms there are and the more people a land lord can squeeze into it.

So, if you buy a twelve roomed house (not including the kitchen and bathroom), you can rent out twelve rooms to twelve couples, everyone shares the amenities and the land lord makes out like a bandit. Unfortunately for me, looking back, I must have rented the broom closet!

This was back in the early 1980's during my first divorce and I was desperate to find accommodation on a budget. The location was very central and the house was Georgian and very attractive.

It was during these burnt toast and scraping days of my life that I met my second wife. She was a vacationing American in culture shock. When she met me and lived with me for six months, in that broom closet, the shock numbed her into submission and we got married.

Living in a large broom closet with someone for six months, sort of over-rides the plumage displays and the tip-toeing of frivolous dating procedures, as one either becomes completely bonded with that person or one feels like killing them. As it turned out, the latter did not apply to us as love had taken it's toll and two people in love, tend to overlook their circumstances, however grim.

The single bed, or twin, that we shared for those six months, was probably engineered for that particular room, or squeezed in by an assortment of shoe horns and crow bars. The bed was pushed up against one wall and the foot of it, fitted tightly against it's adjoining counterpart.

The door opened against the bed and the remaining area of the room was just big enough for our piles of clothing and a stereo in there somewhere. To be more accurate, I really don't think that a double bed would have fitted into that room without having the large Georgian window open at all times.

Bathing was a thrill as we had to stalk the bathroom constantly, waiting for a lull in activity. The kitchen was a similar deal and it was extremely interesting as there was one couple that would use all the saucepans to make cannabis tea and they never cleaned up after themselves, same with the bathroom.

Upon reflection, I must say that the experiences in that bed-sit are very memorable in many ways. The thought of living in a shoe box at the bottom of a pond, as the Monty Python team would put it, was somewhat comparable to our situated, but much dryer.

Learn more about this author, Jon Coe.
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