Has it taken me 32 years and a move to France to realise that actually, I belong in the North of England? In – or close to – the area where I was born and where I grew up, or where I moved to as a student? I couldn’t wait to escape the North Midlands town – though it wasn’t really a town – where I’d grown up, and when I left at 18 to go to College in Yorkshire, I vowed never to return. As an only child, despite having an incredibly enjoyable childhood, I felt suffocated by the smallness of my world. I told my parents I’d never again return home to live – not to be cruel or insensitive, but to warn them. How on earth must they have felt? I do believe they thought I WOULD go back, once I’d graduated, because I know they were shocked – and Dad was furious – when, true to my word, I took on the tenancy of a flat not 3 miles from my College.
Dad was furious, Mum was resigned….and yet… Within a few days Dad turned up with a second-hand fridge for me – it was a 2 hour drive from their home and looking back I’m not at all sure how he fitted it in his Fiesta. Mum was still working – Dad’s job gave him more flexible hours during the day, and he just turned up with it. Mum had bought some red “Contact” adhesive paper, cut out a circle, and stuck it in the centre of the large, circular chrome handle of this fridge, touched up the few bits of rust along the bottom of the door, and scrubbed the inside until it gleamed like new.
It was his first visit to my flat, but I’d told them on the phone that I was having “red” as the colour theme in my kitchen, and had started to buy accessories – and a microwave! – with red trim, it was 1986 after all… I showed him round my humble new home, which I already loved. It was ground floor and the door lead directly into the large, light kitchen at the back – the picture window looked out onto a grass banking, leading onto countryside beyond. A door lead through to a strange little area which didn’t seem strange at the time: a shower room, which was literally a shower behind a solid door, a wc, again in it’s own little room, and a basin, in the recess between the two. This last was my “bathroom”, with lighted mirror above, storage for toiletries, a towel rail… Beyond this rather odd area was the bed-sitting room, where I’d tried to disguise the single bed – bought off the previous tenant – into a sofa, with cushions and a throw. The bedside table doubled up as a coffee table, there was a second little table for my portable tv and my clock/radio/cassette….. Presumably I had a little armchair, too – though I actually can’t remember. Another large picture window looked out to the front where you could see the flats opposite – but it was a nice outlook for a single girl of 21 years… Grassed areas, paths and a short road and car park, and the knowledge that friendly young people lived here in this community – many of whom were recently students like myself.
Dad didn’t see any of this though. All he saw was the colour of the walls, which I’d got used to, but which were, to be honest, hideous. Since they had stopped allowing me to choose whichever shade of pink I wanted for my bedroom walls when I was a child, my parents had painted ALL the walls in their house magnolia, every time they decorated, which was often because they both smoked. In fact, they continued their love affair with magnolia until they died whereas I had different ideas: sponging, dark colours, rich colours, and back to that old favourite magnolia once more… So, Dad walked into my bed-sitting room and of course, all he could see were the orange walls… Not peach or blush or anything acceptable. Not even dramatic, statement blood-red orange. Just orange… The colour of the fruit just before it starts to turn. “Huh” he said. He then looked at the carpet, which I remember was swirly and in autumnal shades which sounds ok but which was quite hideous – but it would have been acceptable if it hadn’t been so dirty, with years of ingrained…..what? Lots of dark sticky things….
The following weekend, unexpectedly again, my parents arrived – complete with paintbrushes, decorating clothes and tins of white and magnolia paint, plus some glossy “Poppy Red” for the skirting boards and door frames – which I’d told Dad I wanted but which he knew I couldn’t afford. So, while Dad and I got stuck in with first of all the ceiling, and then the walls, Mum sat on the floor in the kitchen and carefully painted the fresh white skirting boards – the kitchen looked as if it had been recently painted, perhaps in order to have their deposit returned, by the previous tenant – shiny, glossy, only-ever-in-the-80s poppy red…
By the end of the day, the flat was clean, painted, homely and – more to the point – the atmosphere between me and my parents had thawed and – though not quite forgiven for fulfilling my promise of not going back home after finishing my degree – things felt “normal” again.
Two weeks later they turned up with the Aqua-Vac and a drill, and while Dad and I put up some shelves, Mum cleaned that carpet so thoroughly that I realised it didn’t just look like autumnal shades, but was in fact a pattern of autumn leaves and berries.
I loved that flat, even though it was tiny and odd, and I loved its location and my shiny, new, independent life. I haven’t thought about it in a while until today, but I was aware for at least 2 decades afterwards that a little piece of my heart was still there in Scissett, in my flat at Marshall Mill Court.
Here I am 33 years later, living in a huge French farmhouse and barn conversion, with its cathedral ceiling and mezzanine, east-facing bedroom with huge balcony… Its swimming pool and woodland and track through fields of corn or maize or sunflowers, depending on the crop, wondering: “If home is where the heart is, where is my heart?”
Why did she make things? Well, she enjoyed it, of course; but it also somehow helped her remember who she was and where she came from.