A house of our own

It happened that both my parents and ourselves bought our first houses in the sixties. My parents had easily the most bizarre experience. To understand how bizarre you have to understand my father was a rather stolid “look before you leap” man. He had resisted mother’s pleas to buy a house for years. When they married in 1935 they took a rented house as a short term measure. This lasted until 1960.

Although superficially it looked a modern house in fact it was shoddily built to the lowest standards. Situated down a country lane it was completely lacking in modern amenities until minimum amenities were installed in the late fifties. We had cold mains water but that was all. -no modern sewage, no electricity, only open fires for cooking and heating

In scarce expectation my mother found a house for sale in Polesworth- a building society repossession to be auctioned off. We went a bike ride to look at it. By co-incidence next door but one was a man father knew from his work as a miner. Ray was a bluff enthusiastic man who soon said “I know how to get in”. He climbed through a back window, let us in , and easily outperformed any estate agent in saying exactly how he would set about modernising the house.

 And it needed modernising. Old fashioned kitchen, outside toilet, bathroom off the lounge on the best side of the house were just a few of the major problems. Old style rubber insulated cables meant rewiring was needed. There were a host of minor things also but Ray soon explained how he had tackled them in his own house. Ray also pointed out that another near neighbour was a local builder with a good reputation. Father called him in and with Ray again doing his burglary act George Hope allowed he could make all the changes and gave an estimate.

The sale was held in a pub in the village. To my amazement father bid successfully. It became a family legend that my parents had agreed £1500 which when reached mother nudged father to stop bidding. He didn’t stop and secured it for £1550 ( this was 1960 so prices seem tiny now ). “ I thought you were nudging me to carry on bidding” father maintained. I never knew whether he was joking or not. Anyway it was an excellent buy, all the modernising was done courtesy of various contacts and they lived there happily until the late eighties. In the event I only lived in the house for about 8 months before leaving home.

In contrast Annette and I followed a much more ordinary route. We rented a flat when we were first married ( and a slightly odd one at that ) overlooking the Dee estuary on Merseyside. Earning real money for the first time in my life I foolishly gave buying a car priority to upgrade from my old banger. However afterwards with Annette just starting life as a teacher we determined to buy a house.

A new estate was being built on the opposite side of the Wirral peninsula. This was to be a large estate of similarly styled ( and rather stylish we thought ) houses in a rather nice area of Bebington. Not only did we like the house but it had the advantage I could walk to work in neighbouring Port Sunlight.

In our naiveté we didn’t consider that as first occupiers we would have all the multitude of minor hassles, making a garden, getting faults fixed etc. Even more of an issue we were almost the first occupiers so we lived on a building site for at least six months. This was a major problem of noise and dust. I got my own back by stealing floor boarding at night and I made  shelving with the timber. Even though I say so myself I made a rather good job.

Eventually things quietened down, we got fencing and Annette’s brother sowed our ( very small ) lawn. Annette also had fun making the garden although terracing the back I remember as hard work.

The link detached house had various features which I wasn’t at all certain about. It had half tiled exterior walls although these gave no trouble ( on our return many years later they still look as good as new).

The central heating was by gas fired hot air.. Although quick reacting it was quite expensive and quite noisy. It also wasn’t very controllable- essentially on or off. We did get vent valves installed but they were never satisfactory.

For my first 17 years we lived in this house ( the central semi )

This photo was taken many years later in early 2000's. The porch and drive was new.