David Bowie's landlady: 'He cooked me dinner, played his favourite music, we smoked a spliff and then we had sex'
19:22, 11 Jan 2016
Updated
22:16, 11 Jan 2016
By Mary Finnigan
Mary Finnigan was Bowie's landlady and lover and describes a scruffy hippy with a runny nose who liked fry ups before he became a superstar
David Bowie was 22 years old and still living with his parents when he met Mary Finnigan by chance when visiting her neighbours.
She took a shine to him and offered him somewhere to stay while he pursued his musical dreams.
The pair where briefly lovers until his future wife Angie arrived on the scene and he moved on to become a global rock phenomenon.
As the news of his death at 69 of cancer is still being taken in by fans Mary, now 77, and living in Bristol shares her memory of that time.
She said:
I first met David in April 1969 when I was living in south east London
I was separated from my husband and in a ground floor flat with my two children.
One day the window was open and I heard David playing and it sounded very interesting and I shouted up 'who is that playing?'.
He stuck his head out of the window 'hello I'm David” and I invited him to come down and have a cup of tea with me.
We talked well into the night and I invited him to be my lodger and a couple of days later he moved in.
He was a very scruffy hippy with dyed and permed blonde hair and had a runny nose.
He was very thin, as thin as a racing snake, and very friendly, open, natural and lovely, a really nice person with big intentions.
You got the impression he was very street-wise and someone who knew where they wanted to go and who was very dedicated to his music and hard working.
He kept the energy fizzing along wherever you were and enormously fun to be with.
I certainly didn't have designs on him when I met him, I was seduced by him which was delightful.
It was a few days after he moved in and a work of art and took me totally by surprise one evening when I came home after a shift at a newspaper where I was working.
Usually I would return to a messy kitchen and sink full of dishes, showing evidence of baked beans, fried egg and tomato ketchup.
That night the kitchen was clean and tidy and fully of interesting cooking smells.
The table was laid for two and plus flowers, candles and incense and the kids were fed, washed and tucked up in bed.
After a spliff and a nice dinner David created a nest of cushions on the floor of his room which he settled me into and put the speakers of the stereo close to my ears.
He played me a selection of his favorite musical influences – Jacques Brel and Jimi Hendrix.
Snuggled up, stoned and together, inevitably one move led to another.
He was attractive because of a look in his eyes, a presence and charisma but he wasn't a hunk – he was thin and gangly and undernourished and slightly aloof.
He was a hopeless lodger and never paid any rent but I knew he wouldn't when I asked him.
We spent our evenings sat in front of my fireplace and played music and entertained friends.
There were a lot of people coming around the flat because of the music, talking and smoking dope but it freed me up to do things that otherwise I wouldn't because they were willing to help with the children.
It was a very 60s phenomenon and not traditional family life at all.
We did everything together though, we shared the space, we ate together, we socialized together, we ran the folk club together and we were a functioning unit, not an item because we weren't lovers for very long just a couple of months.
I'd cook him fish fingers and all day breakfasts and lots of take-aways and curries, on the plate and down the hatch, not too sophisticated.
I was very upset when we parted but these things happen and he's met Angie.
As soon as the folk club started he became the centre of attention and that is where the bedrock of his life of stardom was made - that following was the launch pad of his career.
When I knew David I wouldn't have predicted his success but then we lived for the moment back then.
He went on to great things but we didn't go with him.
He threw a party after one of the Ziggy Stardust gigs in 1973 and he invited all the Beckenham people to that gig and we had very nice seats at the front.
He had a party at Haddon Hall in Kent where he lived and that was the last time I saw him.
There was a brief exchange of letters in 1989 on the 30th anniversary of a Free Festival we put on but that was it.
We were friends right up to when he became a pop star and became infected with the level of self importance you would expect one to have.
I love the music up to an including some Stardust but after that he lost me but I didn't like the Glam period and then the stuff after that I found inaccessible with the exception of Heroes.
Heroes is one of the best pop songs that has ever been written and I think it's formidable.
I think it's on a par if not superior to anything that has been written.
He had a genius and it's sad when someone like David dies.
It was an extraordinary period of my life, one I will always remember. He is just amazing, and I am devastated he's dead.