DO YOU LOOK BACKWARDS FOR A LAST LINGERING LOOK OR FACE RESOLUTELY FORWARD

A photograph I took of my Great Grandparents house, they lived here when the 1901 census was taken.


Friday, was the end of an era for me. The last bags and cartons were taken out of my Mother's old flat. My son brought them in a van to the cottage where my husband stacked them all over the barn and the house so I can sort through them in peace. Anyone want to cook meals in a kitchen with a large Scandanavian Birch Wardrobe in the middle? [It will be moved upstairs shortly]. I stayed at the flat to hoover the carpets and check all cupboards etc. My son will go up today and get rid of the zillions bags of rubbish and that's that. So Friday, was the last time I would be at the flat, and probably, I will have no reason to be visiting that area of the town again.

In only eighteen years there has been a lot of drama, happiness and sadness enacted in that flat. No wonder buildings seem to hold residues of happenings. Will someone see one night shadowy glimmers of my father moving from room to room, or even the rest of us, I sometimes think that these residues are not always of people who have died. Maybe we all leave a sort of image on surroundings like an old negative of a photograph

My Mother standing at the front door of my Grandparents 1920 Semi. This photograph would be about 1950

So, how did I leave for the final time, as I leave everywhere for the last time, not with a long lingering look backwards through a car window, but resolutely facing forward, the building already locked in my head as a memory. The way my life has been, thinking of the houses I have lived in, there are only two that I have ever passed by again. They were both on the way to my mother's old flat, so now no reason to see them again. When my mother was in respite care before Christmas, the bus went through an area I lived most of my childhood in, and I had never been that close to my old house for 34 years. With being on a bus I began feeling disorientated as I approached what would have been my old bus stop, would find myself trying to stand up to get off the bus. How deeply ingrained in my psyche must that stop have been. I nver gave in to the temptation to view my old house.

I have some friends who were my next door neighbours years ago, and at one point they just moved house to the other end of the road. I remember thinking how very strange having to pass your old house everyday and see what people were doing to it.

The two old houses of my own that I passed on the way to my mum's old flat were the one I was born in and lived the first two years of my life. It is a house that features a lot in my dreams. We moved out when my parents managed to get a new house of their own. Houses were in very short supply after the baby boom of post war years, and there was a huge building programme started and it took time for houses to be completed for people to live in. Even after moving I was constantly visiting that house of my grandparents. It has always been my favourite house. I feel sad when I used to pass it by, it was a beauiful semi-detached house built to a high standard after World War One, and my grandfather was the proud purchaser of it, it had front, side and rear gardens and I loved it. The people that bought it in 1973 covered the front in the most unappealing plastic faux stone cladding that quite spoilt the art deco look of the house. I cringe and feel sad when I pass it.

Me, in the vegetable garden of my Grandparent's Semi, see what I mean about unusually large gardens.

The other house I pass is one we lived in with the children, now this one doesn't bother me at all, I never liked it, it was what I called a rebound house. We came up from Manchester and the house we were buying fell through and had to search quickly for an alternative , we found the rebound house. I thought we might be able to do things with it, but more and more flaws became apparent in it. I hardly turn to look at it as I pass it. Now not returning to that area, I won't be passing them again. Another house I lived in as a teenager no longer exists, it was demolished to make way for an out of town retail park.

The houses that feature most in my dreams are my grandparent's house, and my brand new house of early childhood, plus a house I have never been inside in reality, my great grandparents house. I have seen the outside it was a substantial semi-detached Edwardian Villa, with an enormously long front garden and drive and a garden, kitchen garden, greenhouses and a paddock behind. I often dream about wandering round this house, and my mother tells me that I have got the layout completely correct, isn't that a strange thing?

My other Great Grandparents substantial Edwardian semi-detached villa. Just look at that fantaastic garden. The window that is open is apparently the drawing room.

The cottage I live in now, I remember over the years going on the road through the village on the way to Newcastle and thinking this looks like a nice place to live, never dreaming we would end up here. There are another two houses I have dreamt of quite a few times but I have no idea where there are or what they are. I think one of them is something to do with one of my children, it is a large flat in a city and we find these hidden rooms above it with some beautiful furniture stored in. The other house I just know the inside of and that many renovations are being done in it.

I never forget houses I have lived in or even enjoyed renting for holidays, I store them safely in my mind. How does anyone else feel about houses they have lived in and the leaving of houses where events in their life occurred?

Remember, a couple of postings ago when I wrote about these rather odd overalls children were put out to play in in the early 1950's well here are my friend and I modelling them. You know which is me, yes the one with the closed eyes, of course.

I have not been able to find photographs of some of my houses, one or two I know I don't have any of, but somewhere in this pile of bags I am sorting are many more photographs of my other houses. I will post them when I find them. All the time I am sorting I am finding weird and wonderful photographs, which bit by bit I will post.

Just to close, take a look above that's a very slim me in 1978 with my son, then 10 weeks old sitting on my knee. I have forgotten how dark my hair was, that's actually its natural colour when I was younger. It wasn't often that colour though. It is big curly perm for big hair time, obviously!!!!

This photograph was taken with one of those Kodak disc cameras, anyone remember them? Your negatives came back on a circular wheel. I have noticed that the colour quality of the photographs taken with this camera have deteriorated quite badly, they have all gone this strange pinkish hue.