FRAGMENTS 2:Childhood - Flint House.

 Flint House was my home up to the age of 6. It was near the Common. It was built in the year of Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, 1897 by Mr Flint who manufactured tarpaulins. My parents had bought a shop in the last years of the war, hardware and bicycles and bought what was a prestigious but run down house after demob. As a Warrant Officer he may have had a substantial severance.

The front had a tiny garden, although its current appearance may be a refurb building out a reception area to what is a B&B/small hotel. The back garden I remember more, my secret garden. There was a tennis court to the left, then a rose garden, a small pond with a naked lady in the middle (small boys notice these things). Then a door to the outside world, not openable by me, a shed containing dangerous chemicals which could have killed me and did kill the goldfish. These gardens were sold off after we left,  the tennis court surviving for a while, and eventually demolished to make way for housing.

Up the stairs to the house was an outdoor toilet on which I spent many happy hours reading my books. It was from this vantage point I saw a barrage balloon being taken to the Common around the time of the 1953 Coronation.

Indoors I remember the Victorian encaustic tiles in the hall that I ran my blue police car over. I had whooping cough here, my siblings had scarlet fever. There were three of us at that point born 1944,1946 and me 1948. We slept in the same room upstairs, and had a living in lady, Mrs Kyme, with a daughter Ann. I assume but cannot confirm that she was a war widow who was offered accommodation for some light household duties.

There was an indoor bathroom/toilet because I remember getting up early and making my parents a cup of (pretend) tea with water taken from the toilet since I couldn't reach the sink. I remember their horrified faces to this day.

For the Coronation my aunt had arrived from Ireland with her two daughters (father was from Dublin) and they had coronation frocks made by mother and aunt who went to sewing class. My mother's sister and daughter also were given a room but in the coronation photograph she wore ordinary clothes. Mother's sister an family moved to a wooden house my uncle built, near an RAF base where he worked. Father's sisters family moved to a council flat above a shop which became part of the family chain of hardware shops run by my uncle who had severe mental health problems. To fund all this Flint House was sold and the family, soon expanding to five children, moved to an out of town semi wholly inadequate for family needs. Four years later we all moved to a more roomy house in a village quite a way out of town.

I remember school close to Flint House as being a terrifying place. I could already read and write so copy-writing onto slates was not particularly enthusing. These were the days of 40 to a class so education was rudimentary