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The story of everyone who ever lived in our house
JULIE MYERSON
For
Elsie Hayward 1883
and
Jamie Jess Pidgeon 1984
‘Do you know what a census is?’
‘the layers of paper curled and rolled off’
‘blonde and dimpled and dungareed’
‘my kids and their scary sharpness’
‘here she is again … cross-legged and tender faced’
‘he knows the snowman will melt’
‘you’d never in a zillion years let me have wallpaper like that’
‘you can’t possibly remember anything about being there’
‘she can’t talk or do anything yet’
‘hair all slept-on, reading a story to an absorbed toddler’
‘the sleepy-ecstatic time after the birth of a baby’
‘someone else has done the same, felt the same’
‘I run my finger down column after column …’
‘the marriage was in a state and I wanted to be with my mum’
‘I bought that hat for two and six at Cecil Gee’
‘The wedding cake … costs £7.1 Os with the cake stand hired from Arding & Hobbs
‘eyes lit up with a hot, happy smile’
‘He wouldn’t drink out there on the street.’
‘Peter is family. He and Phyll were in a fix …’
‘I think the bit of trouble was me coming along’
‘She was just … a bit of a lass.’
‘Inside, the papers are crumbling …’
‘the plan shows a new street 50 feet wide …’
‘the hedge I pruned last Sunday.’
‘the white columns so familiar to me.’
‘Joan’s mother’s sister … married Thomas Spawton, Lucy’s nephew.’
‘Did she come back here to 34 Lillieshall Road at the end of that hot day in the photograph?’
‘Maslin … he’s the first occupant of 34 Lillieshall Road.’
‘That man knew all there was to know on the various ways of cooking meat.’
‘like a boy who’s been in the dressing-up box’
‘like a boy who’s been in the dressing-up box’
‘They get talking one cold February day in the Larkhall Tea gardens’
‘You know Francis & Sons, the men’s outfitters opposite?’
‘The store was busy, fully stocked and gaily decorated for the busiest Saturday of the year.’
‘She’ll never forget all those beds’
‘forty-three years old … and she’s never had a young man in her life!’
‘she was my favourite aunt, you see, Aunt Bea!’
‘Outside the air is bright, sparkling.’
‘the car-free road of sixty years ago flashes into life in my head.’