Adelaide Street

Adelaide Street

Adelaide Street was a long , narrow street of a hundred and fifty houses on the north of the city, half a mile outside the city walls. It was part of a densely packed cluster of streets and houses dating back to the 1850's, most of them built to the same pattern of a kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms on the first floor. They all had a tiny front garden, but a more sizeable space at the back which would contain a wash house and outside lavatory, and the space to grow vegetables or keep chickens; and then much later the ominous bomb shelters which sprang up like rank weeds among the harmless domesticity. The houses had originally been lit by gas light, and the old gas fittings still remained on the wall in our upstairs bedroom, a relic of a long gone age set in the faded wallpaper, and a constant source of interest to me.

This tight little community was a thriving neighbourhood where we all knew each other as the families mingled daily in all the many amenities on offer. There were half a dozen public houses within a five minute walk, two were fifty yards away on the corners of the cross road with West End Street: on one corner was The Perseverence, and on the other The Queen Adelaide. Occupying the other two corners were Thurston the butchers, and Dashwood's general stores, a tiny little business, its like replicated on street corners all over the country, where I would go to get fresh vegetables, various household items, and a packet of five Woodbines for Dad.

 Reggie Dashwood was a bluff, amiable man with two sons, Roy and Colin, who even then , in those febrile post war years of spivs and wide boys, were beginning to acquire a reputation in our quietly observant little neighbourhood. Even National Service couldn't subdue Roy, and the neighbourhood enjoyed a few days of excitement as the police scoured the area for any signs of the absconded fugitive on one of his attempts to break out of the confines of a bougeoise society. Roy even crossed my brother's path when Mike joined the Norwich Union Fire Insurance department, and had to deal with a claim for a fire at Roy's failing Magdalene street shop, which unfortunately took all relevant paperwork with it. I remember my brother referring darkly to suspicious circumstances which could never be proved, and The Union finally having to pay up; an incident that only increased my admiration for the slightly dangerous character of childhood memory. Roy Dashwood eventually became a prominent businessman in Norwich running clubs and pubs with an unsavoury reputation, like the Bell Hotel on Castle Meadow, and the legendary Washington Country Club on Salhouse Road where he mingled with many big names in sixties show business. He generally lived a millionaire lifestyle that didn't endear him to the grey-faced powers-that-be running the council and the police, and they  harassed him constantly, until he eventually retired to Spain, raising a metaphorical two fingers to the chasing pack, and only coming back after many years for his wife to see her home town for the last time. However notorious and prosperous he became, I always remembered him as a glamorous, if slightly menacing, teenager working behind the counter in his father's shop in those grim, but exciting post war days.

Just round the corner from Dashwood's in West End Street was the bakers where I would be sent to get a loaf of bread. I still remember walking in the door, directly off the street, into a hot little room, with the heady aroma of freshly baked bread hanging in the dusty air.  There was a row of ovens on one side, and in the middle a large wooden table where great slabs of dough were being pounded by bare armed men in white aprons, their red faces glowing through the all pervading mist of white flour that covered their faces, their arms, their aprons, the table and the floor, as they put these bricks of dough into the ovens, and took out the warm, browned loaves, and stacked them on metal racks along one wall. I would take one of these warm, perfumed treasures, and on the short walk home would invariably nibble off the four bottom corners, a pleasure I could never deny myself, even though I was constantly told by my Mother before I went that I was not to do it. The hot bread was a joy, but an even greater delight was the day we had a sliced loaf for the first time. I remember my Mother opening the greaseproof paper, and revealing the pure  white, thin slices of bread in their identical ranks, making a loaf from the realms of fantasy as we took our ready made meal, and declared that it tasted just as good as our regular loaf from round the corner.    

16 Adelaide street was a four room terrace house, separated from its neighbour by a narrow enclosed passage running from the street to the back yard, narrow enough for me to be able to straddle the opening and walk up the wall by the time I was seven or eight. The back door opened directly into the tiny kitchen, with its stone flagged floor. Beside the door was a window looking into the back yard, under which was a cold water tap and stone sink. A few more feet along the left wall, another door opened onto the narrow stairs which led to the two bedrooms, and beside the door, the little gas cooker. A glass panelled door led into the living room where my father's bed was placed along the far wall under the window looking onto the street, and effectively blocking the front door. On the left hand wall was the open fireplace with its heavy black enamel hob which could be swung over the fire to keep the pot warm while the tea brewed, and where we could also char a slice of bread on the long handled toasting fork. The sparse furniture consisted of a small table covered with a heavy green cloth, which hung over the sides and far enough down to provide a private shelter for me to hide under when adults visited. There was also a small, worn armchair, and a couple of kitchen chairs, although I can only remember using the   floor for my reading and drawing, and those magical evenings listening to our little borrowed radio.

The street-facing of the two small bedrooms also had a door, which opened onto dark enclosed stairs leading to a tiny attic containing broken, abandoned remnants of a previous tenant, the dark, damp space covered with dust, and festooned with cobwebs. This grim, disturbing space was rarely visited, and usually only so my brother could terrify me with hints of what might lurk in those silently watching corner shadows.

The back yard was shared with our neighbours, the Browns. Mr Brown was a grime encrusted coalman, a fearsome, taciturn character to my eyes, and to whom I never spoke. Their only son Georgie, although a couple of years older, was a best friend, but only in the back yard, he never shared our adventures in the outside world, nor joined us at the pictures. We spent most of our time in the back yard, and rarely visited each others houses; one of the few times I remember being in his house, we sat in a corner of the small living room, playing shops with our strips of plastecine, while his parents sat round the wireless listening with rapt attention to a new programme called "The Archers". It was not a programme we listened to in our house, and only increased my feelings that the Browns were somewhat different, and somehow connected to the countryside, a world beyond my ken. My tastes were more attuned to "Appointment with Fear", classic ghost stories, narrated with sepulchral relish by Valentine Dyall ('The Man In Black), whose doom laden rendering of  Bram Stoker's "The Judges House" haunted my imagination for years. Yet another unforgettable moment, in a childhood of such moments, that helped create the obsessive collector I am today.

George was a serious boy, well read in adventure "yarns" as he called them, and possessing scientific facts gleaned from his magazines that brooked no contradiction. He probably regarded himself as my mentor, but I teased him without mercy, deliberately breaking the formal rules he set up for our games, to his eternal chagrin. 

One particular game involved the ever-present water pistols, which on this occasion were used in an assault on the outside lavatory, a pair of which stood a few yards from our back doors. I was defending my lavatory from the inside, while he attacked it by attempting to fire over the gap at the top of the door. Although trapped, I had the advantage of a ready supply of water to refill my gun. Georgie insisted that, as an absolute rule, I had to fill my gun from the cistern, and not the lavatory pan. I quickly agreed, and just as quickly ignored him; Georgie's rules were there to be broken after all, that was the point of them to me. He would probably never have realised my treachery, had I not popped above the door while he was approaching and caught him full in his open mouth with a splendid shot. I dropped down again and listened to him spluttering and coughing: "Are you sure you're getting that from the cistern?" he demanded, "it tastes funny". I was laughing too much to answer, and, unsurprisingly, Georgie lost interest in the game, and went indoors.

Beyond these was a narrow overgrown garden that led to a wall that formed the boundary of The Model School, a Catholic preparatory school for girls, that had an imposing wrought iron entrance gate on Dereham road, but whose playground at the back shared a wall with our back garden. I spent many happy moments precariously clinging to the top of the wall as I watched the girls shrieking and giggling as they took their break, or, most delightfully, when they had their netball lessons in their dark blue bloomers. I was painfully shy, and so dropped back immediately if they spotted me. The only other reason for going into the garden was to visit the large overgrown gooseberry bush, with its lethal thorns, but gorgeous, ripe plump fruit. We didn't have much in the way of fresh fruit in those days, and the gooseberries, although not to everyone's taste, were a joy to me. The large green berries, with their veins and tiny hairs, were only for the bravest; as you bit into them the tough outer skin gave way with a satisfying crunch, and our mouths were flooded with the sharp acidic juice, that brought tears to our eyes, as we struggled to maintain a straight face, before collapsing into satisfied giggles. The real treat was finding the later, ripe berries, purple and soft, with an incomparable sweetness, that I remember to this day, although, strangely, I can't remember eating one since. 

Georgie's adjacent garden was a more formal affair, with two rows of wooden sheds that housed rabbits and chickens.     

Georgie took great pleasure in letting me watch when his father decapitated a chicken, then let it flutter and stagger headless for a few horrifying moments. With a working father, the Browns lived well with their chicken dinners - but they didn't have a gooseberry bush.

I have fond memories of George, and after leaving Adelaide Street when I was ten, I only saw him once or twice more: he had grown into an angular, rather awkward looking man, with a passion, I was told, for Morris Dancing, which somehow made perfect sense. 

George, and that tiny back yard, were a large part of the only world I knew for a number of years, along with the streets and bomb sites. A few feet from our back door was the wash house, dark and chilly, with a large stone sink, and not a place I had much time for. Beside that were the pair of outside lavatories, useful for much more than the usual purposes, as related above. My brother Michael, seven years older, and far more knowledgeable and sophisticated than I, would hang on to the door, and swing backwards and forwards yelling "The Bells!, The Bells! - they made me deaf". I was overwhelmed with laughter and admiration, even though it was some years before I realised where Mike had got his inspiration from when I saw Charles Laughton perform the same trick as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", and more years later that I climbed the tedious steps to the real bell tower at Notre Dame in Paris and contemplated the great bell "Jacqueline". As I stood with a few other visitors, silently contemplating the massive bronze shell, I had before me an imperishable image of a creaking wooden lavatory door swinging back and forth with a twelve year old boy attached, shouting his incantation to the skies. Thus reality, memory, fantasy and imagination combine and merge to create a new surreal reality that adds colour and texture to the everyday ; thus we collectors and enthusiasts collect more than objects, we collect memories and dreams which we weave unconsciously into the commonplace, to add texture to the ordinary, and give potential for everyday to be a new discovery.

It was in Adelaide street, in those quiet evenings when my Mother and brother had gone their separate ways, to the pub, the pictures, or to see friends, that I stayed indoors with Dad and we talked of all the things we would do if we had the opportunity. He certainly must have known that his dreams were just that, and never to be realised, but I was able to fully immerse myself in the wonderful visions of what the world had to offer that Dad sketched out for me. He talked of all the things we could do to our cramped little house if we won some money, the only way out of our narrow existence for him, but one that would never materialise, as I’m sure he knew. He had a particular passion for the sea, although as far as I know, he had never experienced it in person, and kept a bundle of Yachting magazines under his bed; large, glossy illustrated publications, that my mother would spitefully threaten to dispose of when he was out of the house, although she never did.  I would carefully get these out, and we would spend many hours absorbing the photographs of the elegant boats, with their soaring masts and milky sails, moored off exotic shores, or breasting the waves on a sun-sparkling sea, somewhere beyond our imagination. We would talk excitedly of the places we could visit, and the things we could do, and for awhile, that tiny room, in a dark world, would be transformed into an otherwise unreachable realm, where we were whipped by salt spray, and burned by a tropic sun, as my Father’s constrained world was briefly dissolved, and we journeyed together to a land of dreams.