We fled Balham after the result, having been outed as the only Leave voters in Lambeth. The builder boyfriend and I packed our possessions into the Volvo and headed for the safety of a friends’ house in Hampshire.
‘Come on, quick, leave the bloody third pair of wellies, just bring the essentials,’ said the BB as he lifted the spaniel into the boot.
We took bedding and towels and baskets of tinned goods in case we decided it was too risky to return, and that the only option was to keep fleeing. Maybe we would just keep driving until we found a cottage for sale. We might put in an offer and camp until the sale went through, and I would take whatever I could get for the flat and sod the loss of equity.
Clearly, we could not stay a moment longer in the People’s Republic of South London, which is about to declare itself a European satellite state.
In Lambeth, where the tofu-munching, solar panel-toting, blueberry and quinoa smoothie-slurping liberal intelligentsia classes delivered an 80 per cent Remain vote, we were truly out on a limb. As far as we could ascertain, the entire Leave vote was us and a little old lady in a house two streets down who stuck a Leave sign in front of her net curtains. And she turned out to have way more balls than me.
The builder boyfriend sellotaped a Leave poster in my front window early in the campaign but after a few weeks I had to take it down. Every other day he would put it back up and I would take it back down again.
It must have pleased the tofu-munchers no end, and given them all sorts of opportunities to congratulate themselves on shaming me into submission with their sea of ‘I’m In’ signs.
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