Jeremy Lewis Prize

from The Oldie issue 421 January 2023

by The Oldie

Ask Virginia Ironside

The Jeremy Lewis Prize for New Writing

Jeremy Lewis (1942-2017) by David Hockney

A Kind of Mugging by

This year’s winner of the annual award in honour of our late deputy-editor

In 1983, younger, much poorer and between jobs, I was staying with a friend in Brixton to go to a second friend’s photographic exhibition.

I went and it was enjoyable. I met a lovely American lady who offered me a lift ‘home’.

At the end of the street, I assured her it would be fine to drop me off. I could see my friend’s house and it would have been hard for her to turn. We waved and I began walking the few yards to my friend’s door.

Suddenly a young man was right up beside me and a knife was pressing into my liver.

‘Your bag.’

I unslung it from my shoulder and handed it over. As he rifled through it, he withdrew the knife slightly and I turned to face him. I was frightened, but there was also a mixture of indignation and resentment. He was about my age and his voice told me he even came from my own area, the north-west of England. This wasn’t right!

‘It isn’t very nice,’ I heard myself saying, ‘to do this to someone who doesn’t have any more money than you. You don’t have a job but I don’t have one either.’

He looked up briefly, my purse in his hand, and thrust the handbag back to me. ‘I know it isn’t very nice, but I’m doing it,’ he said. ‘You can keep the bag.’

I mumbled a bit.

‘What?’ he said, still checking for valuables in the handbag.

‘At least you could let me have my railway ticket back home. I had to borrow the money to get it from my grandma and it’s no use to you.’

There was a snort of derision and he began to move off – and then looked back.

‘It’s in the purse,’ I offered hopefully. A big sigh. He stopped again, found the ticket and handed it over.

‘Thank you,’ I said. He turned again. ‘I hope you don’t do this to anyone else tonight,’ I added.

He stopped. Opened the purse. Took out a £5 note (£5 bought a lot more in those days) and handed it to me.

‘Now you can get to the railway station,’ he said. ‘Back to your grandma. Oh, I can’t stand here all night chatting to you.’ And ran off on silent, trainerclad feet.

I’ve often wondered what happened to him.