The house I grew up in was built in the mid nineteen thirties. We moved into the house in the late nineteen sixties. I loved the house. I felt at home on the very day we moved in, as if it had always been home. Now there was a garden to play in, stairs to climb, an extra room to explore. As the years passed, however, I noticed I was beginning to envy my young friends who lived in ‘modern’ houses. They could look out of their windows unimpeded while I had to peer through diamond leaded panes. They had shiny, silvery door handles inside their homes – we had dark brown doorknobs fashioned from a material I could not identify. (I hadn’t, at that point, learnt the term ‘Bakelite’.) My friends’ homes had lovely plain walls which travelled from the floor to the ceiling without interruption. Strictly speaking, so did ours, but I hated those wooden picture rails which encircled the rooms and made the walls seem shorter. The features my friends’ homes lacked – the very features of our own home which I was viewing with increasing disdain – were classic features of English nineteen thirties houses. “When I grow up, I’m going to live in a modern house” I promised myself.

Photo Credit: https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-row-brick-tile-built-semi-detached-houses-s-street-gosforth-newcastle-uk-image55049188