Everyone can reminisce, unless they have total amnesia or do we need someone we can reminisce with? Often the other person does not remember the event or recalls it totally differently, but shared memories are fun. Shared memories also have an expiry date unless they have been written down. As the eldest sibling I am now the only one who remembers The Twickenham Years. My brother and sister were toddler and a six month old baby when our parents bought their first house.

My six and a half years in the rented top of the Victorian terrace where I was born were happy, but then I was blissfully unaware of what else was going on. By the time my brother was born my mother had lost three babies and both her parents. When my sister was born Mum nearly died and all I remember was the Black Magic chocolate orange cream. When she came out of hospital after the ‘eight pints of blood’ that were to become family legend, her best friend brought round a box of chocolates and I had the orange cream. I had told my teacher that Mummy was in hospital with a bad back.

An internet search reveals the row of houses looks much the same as I remember, snapping pictures from the computer screen gives the pictures a suitably nostalgic hazy appearance. Now turned back into the elegant large homes they were originally I was surprised how easy it was to pinpoint information about our old home via ‘Mouseprice’. In a surreal moment back in 1990 we took the children to look at my place of birth and the night before I had a psychic feeling there would be a For Sale board up – and there was. I took the number of the estate agents and rang them up to ask the price, which was a quarter of a million, astonishing at the time. No chance of us buying it! When I say my parents moved out to buy their own home it was not in this area, there was nothing they could afford. How much might it be worth now?

Welcome to 295 St Margarets Road, Twickenham, a charming and spacious terraced type home with 4 bed in the TW1 1PN area. This lovely residence, which comes with the freedom and stability of a freehold ownership, and sits comfortably in tax band .

This classic property was built before 1900 and has a reported internal area of 178.0 internal square metres in a neighborhood known for its allure and prestige. This home stands out for its value and character – with a market valuation of £1,042,000 and a rental potential of £3,209 per month, and a 5 year CAGR of 12%, it represents not just a residence but a worthwhile investment in a sought-after area.

You can discover more about this property by reading the Mouseprice attributes tables in the next section, or if you are the owner and would like to update this property, for example if you’ve built an extension, you can do so at the top of this page.

Meanwhile, back to the past.

A dreadful old lady ( Mum’s words ) lived on the ground floor with a kitchen a scullery and no bathroom. The rental agreement was that she could come upstairs once a week to use our bath. She used to come up with a pack of Omo, a brand of washing powder claimed to make clothes whiter than white. Our bathroom was scary with the hot water provided by a monstrous noisy boiler looming over the end of the bath. It was called a geyser. It would be many years before I realised geysers were real geothermal features hotter, more dangerous and even older than ours.

In the kitchen a more modern and elegant Ascot heater over the sink provided the hot water. After hand washing clothes and boiling nappies Mum would lean out of the kitchen window to hang them on a pulley washing line attached to a post at the end of the back garden far below. The garden was part of the old lady’s rental and we never set foot in it.

I have a vivid memory of staring out of the living room window on a sunny day desperate to be outside, but in fairness to my parents they were constantly taking me out for fresh air and exercise, down by the River Thames and to various nice parks nearby. Later Mum would look back and wonder how she managed to push the pram with two children and me on my tricycle and get across the main road to Marble Hill Park. Indoors there was fun to be had as Dad made me a rocking horse which sat in the bay window. It did not look like a horse, but was a smaller version of park rocking horses with a proper rocking mechanism and I really felt like the Lone Ranger.

At some stage my parents acquired an old ‘jalopy’ which I thought was its make, not its nickname. Small and black it needed to be cranked up with the metal handle inserted in the front of the engine. In this we were able to go on outings to Kew Gardens and Richmond Park. One time I was convinced I had stroked the nose of a deer with huge antlers. When I told my parents and aunt and uncle they did not believe me and I am beginning to wonder myself…

The jalopy lived in a garage in someone’s garden in a house across the main road we lived on. Dad drove it into London to his office and on summer evenings when he came home Mum would see me across the road to run and meet him. As The Woodentops were my favourite puppets on Watch With Mother, one time I ran to him calling ‘Hello Daddy Woodentop’. This caused amusement as Dad, like all the men in his family was bald.

It was at Penn Ponds in Richmond Park that I did not learn to swim, but did love wading around. I have always thought hot weather means you should be immersed in water of some sort. One time I found floating in the pond a brightly coloured feathery creature and picked it up, only to look up and see an angry man trying to fish and telling me off.

As my brother got mobile and Mum had a baby to deal with, I would sometimes be locked in the front room with him. This might sound bad, but the alternative was presumably him falling down the steep staircase and fracturing his skull on the tiled floor below. On one occasion I credit myself with saving his life, though at the time I thought I would get told off for making him vomit. He was choking on a plastic rose from his toy watering can. As I did not know the Heinrich manoeuvre, I stuck my hand down his throat to pull it out.

By this time I was at school. I had begged to go to school and Mum got me in to The Blue School in Isleworth at four and a half years. I started just after my baby brother had arrived so probably thought I was being ousted. It was a long walk and I had to be dragged crying with the promise of Robin comic at the weekend, or threats of no Robin comic at the weekend. Thanks to the internet we know this Church of England School is still flourishing after nearly 400 years. It looked pretty old when I went there, but they were building a new school building right next to it as we left the area.

It was Mum’s friend Pam at the bank where she worked who had led to my parents finding somewhere to live and being able to get married in the post war shortage of homes. Her parents rented a downstairs flat in the same row of terraced houses and knew the landlord who had a vacant upstairs flat for rent. Pam lived with her parents and as there was only one bedroom she slept on a ‘put me down’ settee in the front room. As far as I know she never left.

After we moved away we did go back to visit the old couple, Pam’s parents. In their garden was a fish pond and enough room for us to run around and play while the grown ups were having boring conversations. I did get told off for getting the poodle excited and risking him having a heart attack. But worse was to follow. Nobody had told me I was acting as life guard. While I was playing round the corner my sister fell in the fish pond, luckily seen by the grown ups through the window. I was soon alerted to the drama, wondering why all the adults had rushed outside. The old lady said I would get a black spot in heaven.

Mum and Dad were glad to get their own house with a garden, but missed the lovely area we had lived in which is still highly sought after. In Farnborough, Hampshire Dad joined the other fathers on the new estate who commuted up to Waterloo  on the steam train.

Have you vivid memories of your early homes or been back to visit?