Residents give their building a unique name

Britain's bristling with Mandela Houses and Shakespeare Avenues. But a group of 'active seniors' have had their own idea. Stuart Husband visits the one - the only - Cliff Richard Court

The road leading out of Cheshunt, a Hertfordshire commuter town at the non-business end of the Lea Valley, is, well, average suburbia - nondescript. Parades of rather drab shops - an Iceland here, a hairdresser called Clipso there - vie with standard-issue apartment blocks bearing even more standard-issue names: Clarendon House, Conifer Close. Then you turn a corner, and suddenly, behind a screen of leylandii, fluttering flags and double-takes from passing motorists announce the advent of something rather miraculous; an oasis of glamour and showbiz in this otherwise colourless hinterland. For here is a redbrick building not immediately distinguishable from its neighbours until you catch sight of its name: Cliff Richard Court.

Behind the façade is an apartment complex for active seniors - don't, on any account, call it a retirement home - and the residents are alternatively amused and bemused by their building's title.

"Some people were a little, well, unhappy about the name at first," says Ernie Jones, a spry ex-forces gent who was one of the first people to move into the block along with his wife Betty. We're talking with a group of the residents in the reception area of Cliff Court, having already noted the flower-bordered name-plaque outside, as covetable to female fans of a certain age as VW badges once were to Beastie Boys devotees.

The faux-Cliff gold disc hangs in the entranceway - which, with its pile-carpets, Louis XIV side-tables, and framed still lifes, is certainly more country house/hotel than death's waiting room.

"You see," says Ernie, warming to his theme, "when you tell people the name, they laugh. You have to insist that it's not a joke."

"Especially when you phone up people like the electricity board," says Betty, enthroned in the corner by the tea table, now groaning with bowls of chocolate Rich Tea biscuits. "When you tell them your new address, there's this silence on the other end. They think you've gone a bit doo-lally."

"And as if that weren't enough, our postcode is 0BE," adds Ernie.

"Somebody said to me, I thought you had to be dead before you got an OBE," says a mordant woman named Jean, who came to Cheshunt from London's East End and has thus been christened 'Hackney Jean'. The whole Cliff thing has become a bit of a local cause celebre, she continues: "Even Tesco's gave me a bit of a look when they asked where I lived."

Cliff Richard Court is a radical step in the annals of apellation. There are numerous Nelson Mandela Streets, and blue plaques for everyone from John Logie Baird to Joe Orton, but this is thought to be the first case of Cliff being civically honoured in this singular way. The name was actually the result of a competition held by the local Cheshunt & Waltham Mercury News - it was suggested by 68-year-old Nina Thorp, a neighbour of the complex - and isn't as arbitrary as it might seem.

Sir Cliff lived in Cheshunt, attended the local comp, and, as he told the News, "I first heard Elvis in Waltham Cross, playing through a car window, and I have many happy memories of the area."

Sir Cliff may have just turned 65 himself - and be more than eligible for a place in his own Court, where residents are required to be 55-plus - but how did he feel about having a retirement home - sorry, apartment complex for active seniors - named after him? Wouldn't he rather have a more cutting-edge homage, like an eponymous cocktail created by a trendy mixologist?

"He said he was very flattered," avers Dave Thomas, one of Cliff Court's newest occupants. "He said he was very happy to have his name associated with this kind of place - after he got over the initial shock, no doubt."

"I think he was rather tickled by it," says Betty.

So tickled that he agreed to come and open the complex at the end of October . So, on a rainy Monday morning, 100 fans gathered on the forecourt beside the sagging flowerbeds (including a woman who'd flown from Cyprus for the occasion), and the residents donned best-bibs to greet the inspiration for their Court made flesh. "It was quite surreal," says Melanie Beels, the chipper live-in manager - never say warden - of the complex. "I'd been saying his name down the phone and reading it on the mail every day for weeks, and suddenly he was standing right in front of me."

Betty and Ernie were part of the official welcoming committee; in fact, Betty, who lives on the ground floor, was deputised, Home Guard-like, to keep an eye out for over-enthusiastic interlopers tramping down the Court's herbaceous borders for a glimpse of their idol.

So would the residents say they were fans of the man whose name they collectively bear? "No, we weren't," says Hackney Jean emphatically. "I was," puts in Betty, who produces a Cliff greetings card that plays "Congratulations" when you open it to bolster her case. "But I think we all are now that we've met him, aren't we?" she adds, shooting Hackney Jean a meaningful look.

"He is a nice person," concedes Jean. "He was a proper gent. He stopped and talked to everyone, signed autographs and that... If all the stars were like him," she adds, warming to her theme, "it might be a better, you know, was'name, hit parade."

"Everyone's changed their minds about him," puts in Ernie, "if not the music." There's a bit of a silence. "Well, I'm not a fan of some of his stuff," he maintains stonily.

"It's better than all that boom-boomin' though, innit?" says Hackney Jean, who's quickly becoming Cliff's chief cheerleader. "Well, he's been around a long time, you've got to give him that," says Ernie grudgingly. "He must have something, mustn't he?"

What Cliff doesn't have is a place in his own court, though it's not for lack of availability - "I'm a third taken at the moment," says Helen, the local representative of agents McCarthy & Stone, "so there is prime opportunity remaining". One-bedroom apartments go for £165,000 and up, and the "prestige" two-bedroom numbers feature dining alcoves and cosy bureau-provisioned nooks. And Cliff wouldn't need to worry about security - Beels maintains an eagle eye on the comings and goings, and helps bewildered new residents like Phyllis, newly ensconced from Devon, find their way to the chip-shop or to Fishpools, the local all-purpose emporium; she can also be summoned via the discreet ring-pulls in every room, should he have a little local difficulty in rising from the bathtub, say. There's even a guest apartment in the Court that can be booked for overnighters. Granted, there's no tennis court, and the view over the neighbouring blocks in Cheshunt High Street may not be as exotic as that from Cliff's boltholes in the Algarve, Barbados, or even, perhaps, Weybridge.

A resident, who'll ask to remain nameless, pulls me aside later to confide that, during Cliff's visit, they'd had a good look at his hair and concluded that "it was thinning a bit at the back" - but Betty & co. remain sanguine at the prospect of becoming a part of the Cliff Heritage Trail for his fans.

"We have had a couple of women in the car park, looking for him," says Betty, pulling a face. "I don't know if they were, what d'you call them, stalkers."

"Maybe people will come and have their photos taken under the sign," ventures Dave.

"Maybe we should charge them," says Betty, to general approbation.

It's almost time to go. As befits an apartment complex for active seniors, there's lunch to get on the stove, jigsaws to finish, and unspecified appliances to be procured at Fishpool's - but one last, and potentially delicate, question remains. Cliff, I say hesitantly, is famously a bachelor. So, did he take a special shine to anyone in Cliff Richard Court?

There's a group look of, if not horror, at least mild unease, before the residents recover themselves sufficiently to answer. "He's just as nice to everyone," says Betty, flintily.

Hackney Jean draws herself up to her full commanding - if diminutive - height. "I don't know if I'd fancy being his missus," she says, with a flourish. "But he can come to tea any time."