Back from French France

103 HOPTON ROAD SW16, the house where I was born and lived until 1951.



In the basement was the coal cellar, with paint tins, spiders, stoneware egg crock, broken things and coal. It had one bare, dim, light bulb dangling from a wire, and dangerous stairs. The coal was delivered by a black faced man, a horse and a cart, and my job was to count the sacks as they were emptied down the chute outside.



My parents, along with my brother and I, had the ground floor which had a ‘front room’, parent’s bedroom, kitchen, scullery, and outside water closet. The bedroom and the ‘front room’ were carpeted in thick black Wilton that mysteriously arrived one day from the garage where my father worked as a mechanic. I believe it was used to carpet the floor of new Chryslers. In the kitchen was a table and chairs, a gas range and a fireplace; every room had a fireplace and I was bathed in a galvanised tub in front of the kitchen fire. Monday was wash day and mostly it seemed that the kitchen and scullery were draped in wet sheets and clothes, so this day I still can’t bare the sight of wet washing.



My grandparents lived on the first floor with ‘Pandy,’ their black and white cat. They had a ‘big kitchen’, big enough anyway for my granddad to pull me around the table on a rug, which I guess kept the lino polished. I learnt to play cards in that kitchen, and it’s a skill that has served me well all my life. I also learnt how to eat a kipper up there and I liked to watch my grandma making perfectly delicious fish cakes. I have tried to make them many times since but it’s no go! Their sunny ‘front room’ had big sash windows that led out onto a small balcony but I wasn’t allowed out there because the blast from a doodlebug had caused it to be ‘condemned’. My grandparents saw a lot of me, because my mum and dad liked to be sociable, as well as being ‘film fans’.



Up in the attic were two rooms. During World War Two, my grandfather made rum from industrial alcohol, in the smaller front room, and then did his carpentry in there once peace broke out, while my brother John and I shared the ‘L’ shaped, back attic bedroom. It was a magical place with sloping ceilings, a view down onto the rear garden, and a fireplace that made the room glow red at night. By my bed was a wooden chest of drawers on which rested a fretted wireless set and a nightlight in a saucer. There were no lights on the stairs, so to go to bed in winter I carried a blue enamelled candlestick, which threw huge frightening shadows here and there in the blackness of the staircase.



At the end of the back garden path, set in the fence, was a tall wooden gate that lead into the alleyway, a favourite haunt it seems now, of perverts and paedophiles. This was my route to ‘Sunnyhill Road Primary School’, which is still there (I Googled it). On my way to school I lobbed hand-grenades over the high fence that lined the gloomy alleyway and heard their delayed explosions behind me. In summer, I could chew the shiny tar that melted on the road, and then in winter, suck icicles that hung from the toilet block gutters.



OTHER THINGS REMEMBERED: My brother’s collection of shrapnel, the air raid shelter in the back garden, the steel shed that rained rust on your head, a blackberry plant growing against the fence, the swing, my tricycle, an ant’s nest by the front door, shelling peas on the back doorstep, an old sink with tiny creatures that jerked about in the water, mint, rough grass, the sound of the lawn mower, visitors at night playing cards downstairs and laughing, mum looking beautiful in a black sequined evening gown, Francis, the freckled girl next door, and the smell of granddad’s pipe and matches.


FRANCE WAS A DELIGHT AS ALWAYS, but I only managed four pieces of work, laziness you see.

Window in Dirol

Not yet Autumn



The Aarchaeologists

Pupa

Joke for the day:   "The barman says: 'Sorry we don't serve neutrinos.'  A neutrino enters a bar."