‘Smoking a lot and loving life’: Bob Mortimer shares a flashback snapshot at a homeless shelter after living there in the ’80s
Bob Mortimer has shared a snapshot of his time living in a homeless shelter in Peckham in the 1980s.
Taking to Instagram on Tuesday, he posted a snapshot of himself sitting on a couch smoking in his apartment as the TV played in the background.
At the time, he was working as a lawyer for the city council, and although he wasn’t really a bum, he liked the hostel.
He captioned the snap: ‘Living in a homeless shelter. Peckham 1985. Smoking hard and loving life.’
Speaking on the Desert Island records in 2019, he revealed that there was a cockroach infestation in the district’s flats and took the district to court over it.
‘Smoking a lot and loving life:’ Bob Mortimer has revealed that he lived in a homeless shelter in Peckham in the 1980s while working as a solicitor, before taking up comedy.
The comedian, from Middlesbrough, said: “I was on the front page of the local paper, a picture of me as the king of cockroaches.”
He explained: “I had nowhere to stay in London, so the Council said I could stay in their homeless hostel until I found a place.” I ended up staying there for four years.
‘I did a very good job of playing with the system. I could more or less guarantee people that they could rehouse them, which is what they wanted. They lived in dumps and I could take them out. It really changed their lives.’
While living at the homeless shelter, her life changed forever.
One of her friends from Middlesbrough came to her flat and asked if she wanted to go to the Vic Reeves Big Night.
That’s where he met his comedy partner Vic, whose real name is Jim Moir, and the men soon became a successful hilarious duo.
It comes after Vic and Bob recount how they were held at gunpoint during a “doomed motorcycle ride” through California in 1992.
The comedy duo revealed that they took a “wrong turn” and ended up in the city of Compton, Los Angeles, famous for its gang culture at the time.
Speaking on his new podcast with Jools Holland in 2021, Vic said they stopped at a red light in the city before another driver threatened them with a gun.
Significant: While living at the homeless shelter, her life was forever changed when a friend came to her apartment and asked if she wanted to go to the Vic Reeves Big Night (pictured in February)
The comedian, whose real name is Jim Moir, said: “We did a doomed motorcycle trip in California in ’92. We got there, we rented a couple of motorcycles.”
“I had been reading a book about the Bloods and the Cribs and the gangs in Los Angeles, and we made a mistake.
We made a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of Compton and a big truck pulled up next to us at the light and this guy pointed a gun at us through the window and said, “Get out of here.”
“We said, ‘We’re just waiting for the lights to change and we’re off.'”
Speaking to Bob, he added: ‘You were very casual about the whole thing. She had read this book and was terrified.
“We didn’t actually go anywhere because it started to rain. It was the floods of ’92. We stayed in a house in Laurel Canyon for three weeks with our motorcycles outside.
Added Bob: “We were going to go across the West Coast to the East Coast on motorcycles, but when we returned them to the rental place, I think we had done 19 miles on them.”
Two’s Company: While living at the homeless shelter, her life was forever changed when she met Vic Reeves’ real name, Jim Moir, and the men soon became a hit fun duo (pictured 2021)