A bit off-topic but...
Smudger and John make some interesting points about memory. It never ceases to amaze me how little some people remember about events they have shared with me; and then, even more so, how much they remember about things of which I recall absolutely nothing! It's all very patchy. I have certainly found that the harder I think about events and things of the past, the more comes to light which I haven't thought about in 75 odd years. I think you have to work at it. Then comes the problem of filtering out things possibly imagined, things dreamt about, things you have been told about but not actually experienced yourself, things in the wrong chronological place (as John suggests), then resisting the temptations of poetic licence if you put the memory down on paper. All you can do is try and be as analytical and honest as you can. You owe that first and foremost to anyone reading it; and also to your own conscience. But back to the subject in hand.....
Why this thread is so interesting and useful is partly because the home we grew up in is probably one of the most significant parts of our earliest memories. Of course school and Christmases and holidays and other events are important but the one place where we spent so much of our childhood time was the home we lived in. Memories of it are likely to have stuck. And home for many of us was the house which was the result of the 1930s building boom in and around Birmingham. I was born in the house I lived in and stayed there right up until the time I was married at the age of 25. A bit spasmodically after the age of 18 because of National Service and then a bit more education. Not too surprising therefore that I can remember quite a lot about it. I imagine that it can have changed little in the 10 years or so after my birth because nothing really altered anywhere between 1939 and the post-war years. And of course I have the advantage (?) of being old enough to be able to fix some memories fairly precisely to the very static period of the war years. I can remember a little bit about the house prewar and a fair amount more between 1939 and 1945.
Our house was built in 1930/31 (by a local builder named Brockington) as part of a ribbon development along the Chester Road in Streetly. Every mod con: internal plumbing, electricity supply, gas, back boiler to heat the water, fireplaces in two downstairs rooms and one bedroom, fake Tudor beams on the front, leaded lights in the front windows. What more could anyone want? Just one or two not very satisfactory images of it from those times survive. Here is my father and me in the front garden in 1938. By that time Dad had completed most of the things he wanted to do on moving in. Front garden and, especially, back garden with extensive paths, an ornamental pond, garden swing, Wendy House, borders, rustic work, rockery, wireless aerial mast, flower borders, vegetable patches and all the rest. Not to speak of the interior, partly Tudorfied, which is another story. Apart from the odd bit of border and terrace and lawn you can see in this picture, the other significant achievement is the wooden lean-to garage which he built down the entire depth of the house. All in timber with a glazed window in the roof (which never seemed to leak). And like everything else done entirely without a single power tool. When this picture was taken he was probably about to embark on the final prewar enhancement, not one that he would have anticipated having to construct – an underground air raid shelter in the back garden. After that, not a single change, inside or out, until an extension in 1946 to accommodate my returning soldier brother; and then for a while thereafter, still essentially a 1930s house.
The one room inside this house which stands out most in my memory is the dining room/living room. Life revolved around it and I can walk into it today in my memory and know almost exactly what is in it and the significance of much of the stuff. (I'm sitting three feet from one of its bits as I write, an oak bookcase – made, of course, by my dad, somewhere between 85 and 95 years ago. It still works). Many memories of this room but no early images of course. No indoor pictures then. Flash photography? The preserve of the professionals. Just a view of it from the outside. The bay window of the dining room overlooking the back garden. A sunny summer morning in 1934, my brother and sister enjoying the sunshine, their life wholly untroubled by my future existence.
I've written previously about this room in the Christmas thread. It'll probably happen again here. Sorry.
Chris
