Reminiscence

~ tidalscribe.com

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?

34 thoughts on “Reminiscence”

  1. I was born on an RAF Base in Germany. I was brought back to the UK as a baby and we lived in a Council house in Reddish, Stockport.I loved that house and the garden.

    when I was 12 we ( including a brother aged 5 born in that house and my 17 year old sister moved to Wales( my father was Welsh). I had to travel by train to school in Llandudno. We loved in Conway on the Morfa which was a beautiful place and then in Gyffin in an old rectory split into flats. The building was a delight. By the time yi was 15 we must have moved twice more and then yi left school and got a job in Llandudno as a bell boy in a hotel. That didn’t kast for more than 6 weeks before I started work in a bookies. At 16 I was living in a bedsit in Colwyn Bay and working in a family owned shie shop of distinction. At 17 the itchy feet moved me back to Stockport and a bedsit in a fantastic Edwardian house. At 18 back to Wales to the family who had settled in Colwyn Bay. At 20 I joined up in the RAF and moved to Lincolnshire then Hereford.

    Though I’m fully Welsh I still have affection for Stockport but North Wales is my home, and nowhere is prettier. I’m 75 now and currently in Hispital in Chester but hope to be back in Wales (home) next week.

    Always loved your blog posts.

    Cwtch

    David

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    1. Hello David, we had a little holiday in north Wales in 2019 and loved it, even though it was November! My husband was Scottish, but lived in England more years. Our children are in Lincolnshire, Cheshire and Kent. This home now is the longest I have ever been in one house.

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      1. so Janet, you’ve lived the gypsy life too. I left out a short stint in Hackney from my list as I xould not adjust to the inability of people to talk there. They alwsys seemed to be living at speed. Stockport may have been in Cheshire when xou lived there, it was in my day but became part of Greater Manchester at some point. I’m glad you liked North Wales even in November.

        of you ever come back the kettle will be on.

        cwtch

        .

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  2. Cheers to eldest daughters who keep siblings from falling down stairs! I do have vivid memories of every home I ever lived in, since I was three–and pictures, too. I have pictures of all of them. Lots of good memories.

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  3. Hi Janet, this is a wonderful post. A scary accident with your sister. My mother nearly drowned as a child in the care of her siblings who were swimming in the river. I jumped in a swimming pool and sank straight to the bottom when I was about 4. My dad pulled me out. I’ve lived in 21 houses and have only ever driven past two which are both in the same street on the other side of a large park from where we currently live. I have a way of easily moving on from places and people, perhaps because of my nomadic childhood.

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    1. Thanks Robbie, it’s a wonder we all make it to adulthood! I have always left homes behind eager to get to the next one. The new house my parents bought in 1964 in Australia was demolished by the time we visited with the children in 1990! Two Quarter Acre blocks cleared and replaced by half a dozen houses. My high school also replaced and I could not recognise anything or get my bearings. Strange that my first home hasn’t changed on the outside.

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  6. I have a vivid memory of a house in Twickenham where my brother and I rented a room each when I moved to London in my days as a gay divorcee! It looked remarkably like the house your parents rented… It Southfield Gardens near Strawberry Hill.

    I joined a dating agency and an adventure club called Spice during those single days, and had immense fun. I was stood up waiting for a date to meet me in a pub in Twickenham on the same day as a rugby international. I remember all the men clocking me as I came in. The only female. They watched me in between bouts of rugby on TV as I tried to down two drinks really slowly by myself at the bar to pass the time as I waited for my date to turn up. Then clocking me leaving, alone, quietly acknowledging, “She’s been stood up!”

    The adventure club was more successful. I cuddled tigers, flew with the British aerobatic champion, and rafted the Zambezi. I am still friends with so many people I met on those events, most notably the one I married 27 years ago 🙂

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    1. I love reading everyone’s reminiscences. There must be many houses and roads like ours in and around London. The Victorians were great builders. The moral of your dating story, just do the things you enjoy doing to meet Mr. Right!

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  9. I have a memory from the house I was born in. A short, fleety, sensorial scene since I was about one year and 4-6 months old. Of course, it involves the pigeons/ doves (I never know the difference) our neighbour there had, it seems I was fascinated by them and their many colours and they used to take me over the fence and get me to watch the aviary.I moved from then at one year and seven months, in an appartment at the second floor. I went from there to get married and move with my husband and his mother, at thirty four. Then, two years later, we moved in a studio/ garsonniere to live alone. After my mothers death, in 2021, I emptied and sold the appartment of my childhood and we bought another one, „20 years younger”, how I use to say, the one we will get old in. I still did not manage to sell the garsonniere, but it will follow, maybe next year…So this is my life, almost 60 years in five houses.

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  10. Those are quite some memories, Janet! Ha! You definitely did not have a boring childhood! Ha! I loved these stories that you shared! Our childhoods seemed so magical and exciting in so many ways, and I wondered, as I was reading your stories, if kids today experience childhood in the same way (now that technology plays such a huge part). Thanks for sharing such sweet memories of you and your family! A real joy to read!

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    1. Thanks Anita. My brother and sister read the blog and they remember the fish pond incident! Hopefully all children will have memories they love to recall. My childhood and teens was neatly divided into the three very different places we lived so perhaps that helps. I expect I shall write about our next home soon.

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      1. Often siblings have different memories from childhood, so the fish pond incident must have been quite memorable, for all of you to remember it, Janet! Ha! It reminded me of one incident in my childhood when I saw something very colorful floating on the water in Bermuda, so I asked my sister to get it for me. It ended up being a Portuguese Man of War, and it stung her. I don’t think she has ever forgiven me! Ha! I also changed houses several times in my childhood, as I grew up in a military family, and have only been able to get back to one of them, but I have fairly vivid memories of all of them. I’m looking forward to your stories about your next home!

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    1. I feel quite nostalgic looking our road up again. Strange that houses can start as one home, change to flats and then back again into large sought after houses. I’m popping over to look at your blog now.

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    2. I think that St Margaret’s house was actually the biggest home my parents had, despite it being an upstairs flat. The back of the house was actually three stories, with steps and funny lofts all over the place from what I remember.

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  12. I enjoyed this look back at your past, Janet! I lived in the same house from the time I can remember until I graduated from high school, so I remember it well! When back in my hometown, I would always drive past to see how it was doing. I no longer have any relatives living in that town. And I miss seeing “my house.”

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    1. My aunt and uncle stayed in the same suburb where my parents both grew up. My uncle was Dad’s best friend and they married two sisters. Aunty and uncle moved only one road away from his childhood home, where his parents lived out the rest of their lives. Nearby was the house Dad grew up in so I saw it frequently. When my aunt and uncle dies it was farewell to that place.

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  13. Thanks for sharing your memories with us Janet. It’s funny they say for memoir writers, that if you have siblings, they will all have a different perspective on their childhood – even though we may have all lived under the same roof and experienced same good and bad.

    It’s funny the things that stand out to us in our memories from our young ages. 😊

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  14. Lovely stories Janet! My oldest granddaughter, who now lives in China, has asked her parents and me to record memories each week in a site called Remento for a year. She chose prompts which we respond to and our videos are stored for her but also transcribed to text and at the end will be made into a book. Rather cheekily I forward the videos to my daughter for her children too! It has been interesting to be taken down Memory Lane!

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