Emily Collins is a boat baby. She arrived on her parents’ narrowboat ‘freshly popped’ in June 1995. Jackie and John, Emily’s parents, bought a birth at Battlebridge Moorings in the early 1990s and lived there until Emily’s little sister came along, when they decided that living in such close quarters with two small children was going a bit overboard.
Emily did most of her growing up on land, but when she was ready to leave home, a boat on the family mooring was the perfect solution to expensive inner-city living.
Her perfectly formed floating flat now sits snugly on mooring 4, in the heart of King’s Cross. Getting it there, and getting it snug, was a family affair. Jackie and John cruised the boat, ‘One Day’, down from the Lake District, where it was built, and John insulated it so that it retained the heat from its little diesel powered central heating system. Emily was in charge of painting and interior decoration.
Like the squatters and short-lifers of the 70s and 80s, Emily’s approach to housing makes living in over-priced Central London a viable option. If you know the ropes, living in King’s Cross is plain sailing.
