I've been talking to the wall.
Early this morning I had a word with one or two folks at the market stalls, later I phoned a woman and listened for fifteen minutes, and after making the stew I spoke to the wall.
It struck me this wall had something to say about the life that had passed by since 1812 when it was erected, possibly as cottages for workers at the 'Big Hoose' behind us.
The 'Big Hoose' has long since gone and been replaced with the Police station, hence the regular sirens you hear while reading this. Whether the owner of the 'Big Hoose' remains there is unknown.
So I asked the wall about previous residents, mostly in recent years short term tenants of a few months to a couple of years, except me obviously.
The landlord took over the place from the doctor. He moved in during the thirties and used the house as it then was as his surgery. Scratching around it appears to me his dad lived round the corner in one of the expensive houses there, dying in 1944, and the doctor happily practiced for many years until selling out to my landlord. Why I ask did he have to practice? Did he not study enough? Anyway I have the feeling he served in the Notts & Derby regiment during the Great War, being 'gazetted' in 1918. This a regiment that was billeted on this town during that war but would they be billeted on such a house as this was then? My neighbour heard tow women mention this as 'that used to be the doctors house' as they passed. Doctors appear to be something women do not forget. This however makes me wonder how the house was set up then. Certainly it was changed when the landlord converted it into flats and rebuilt the back end with little major change since. Did he live upstairs and operate, if you see what I mean downstairs? Not much room and lots of nosey people looking in as they pass too.
Before this a couple married in 1930 moved in. No idea what he did but to buy or rent this place at that time he must have been well paid. Too little time at the moment to investigate and relying on details I discovered a long time back. Certainly he moved out when the doctor needle arrived and lived until 1981 somewhere cheaper in the town.
Before him, at least during 1926, a woman describing herself as a 'corsetiere' worked from here. She knew how to get around women! I suppose that explains the whale bones that turn up every now and again.
The wall saw them all.
It saw some strange things when the doctor was here, his examinations, his explanations and the often tearful response of his patients. The couple with a possible family may have been more fun of course while the wonders of corsets and the sight of those requiring them may have made the wall look away!
During that time the town was lit by gas, the street lighting until 1956 indeed. The houses may have had electric light but did they have bathrooms by the first world war? The wall saw, or heard, bombs fall during two wars but remained unmoved, horses clip-clopped past while folks ran out to help their roses grow. Gas lamps and more often oil lamps, candles and roaring coal fires lit the house during the hours of darkness. No radios until the thirties, no TV, no noise for most of its life bar human voice and movement. A occasional phone when the doctor was here perhaps.
The original dwellers may have had a family of up to a dozen children running around. Possibly a senior employee of the big house moved in, maybe a manager on a farm, there were lots around.
Just how many folks have lived here intrigues. Their ups and downs would make a better TV show than that shown today. The wall however will not reveal if any buried treasure in the garden, it claims he could not see from here! Bah!
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The high quality block in which I dwell has only one real problem, the folks next door! By that I do not infer the folks next door are a problem, I mean the fact that someone is next door is a problem! Only two of the six flats here actually connect with me in a real way, the others are situated so that I am not really disturbed by them. Now we face a dangerous and problematic time, that is the actual folks next door have left and this means we must await replacements. The question is what will they, he, or even worse she, be like?
Nowadays the landlord whom I have known for twenty years gets local agents to do most of the paperwork for new tenants, he himself being in his seventies he spends his time in his Rolls Royce or travelling the world to find warm places. His mind is always on the houses mind, and he has hundreds of them! His staff of two lovely young ladies and two ageing fast handymen, 'bodgers' as they are known and excellent men and I get along with them well enough. Also my rent increases every couple of years or so rather than steeply every year. The empty flat next door will no doubt see an increase on the price charged but what that price may be I can only guess.
The tenant get along reasonably well. Not too much noise, unless the old girl gets drunk and brings out the romantic music records, and the man downstairs makes almost no noise at all in spite because I make noise by generally living life. The problem is that while we can ll get on what will the new tenant be like? Consider this, who can afford to rent these days? Who can afford to buy? Either way who can guarantee having a job tomorrow to pay for it? Banks, including those this government has a hold over by shovelling cash into them do not wish to lend either to housebuyers or businesses. They can however give huge bonuses to those at the top! The Co-op Bank has a loss of £1.5 Billion yet the new boss has been awarded £3.5 million in wages and shares. Very Co-operative that! Therefore a young couple (and we don't want any of them here) must rent, and the money spent on rent reduces the savings made for a house. For me the housebuying thing is a Thatcherite problem she demanded everyone buys a house with little thought to the needs of the people or the problems involved. Her rich friends of course went along with this, and profited greatly. She sold off all the council homes, homes built after the war to house homeless people. Today we are building 'social housing,' which is the same thing but councils do not run them, private organisations do. There are not nearly enough. Add to this the weakening of marriage, easy divorce, kids living together and females getting priority over males simply by being pregnant and homelessness grows.
What I mean by this is that the likelihood of a suitable male or even female tenant being able to afford the rent is rare. If they apply for Housing Benefit, something pensioners and others can receive, they may be able to move in. So far two young girls and two probably suitable males have turned it down, clearly the cost is too much. This increases the chances of a young couple arriving and splitting the costs, if they have jobs. With them comes what all young folks have, noise, parties, hassles, rows, babies. Not that I am one to complain but if people want to have fun they need not come here! The last couple were working, well he was, and both were about 21 years old. Once indoors they were OK but there were constant faults found with the building, OK she fell through the rotten wood in the kitchen I'll give you that, twice actually, but there was an inability to keep the shared stairs clean, though spreading muck was easy for them and general human attitudes were missing, caused by age.
Mind you one or two elder statesmen we have had here have not stayed long, I suppose the police knocking on your door at six in the morning might hasten your removal, and drink does make some folks a bit oblivious of their duties. Overall the crumbling somewhat stinky building has its benefits. Everything is near, the view is tolerable, mostly we live amicably, and the landlord is OK and repairs, when required, get done eventually, even the window man might turn up soon. However we live on tenterhooks awaiting the newcomers, this could of course take six months. I care not who moves in as long as they are quiet and get on with everyone, the days of suffering loud noisy folks are passed for those of us here now.
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