My Utopia

 

 

August 24^th, 1981 was the memorable day I moved into my own

house to start the single life. During my days of married life, in an

unruly house in Hampshire, I had often imagined the kind of house I

would like for myself one day. Now at last, unbelievably, here it was

– a small, terraced house in Oxford full of future potential and

present, strange silence. 

 

I have always loved small Victorian houses. My beloved nanny,

Agnes Ellen Turner, lived in one in Canterbury. There were nine

members of her family, three rooms in the house. Unfortunately, I

never saw inside it, but imagined what it would have looked like

from my voracious reading of Victorian novels. I saw the familiar

kitchen from Sons and Lovers where Paul Morel and his mother used

to sit; Anna Tellwright’s back parlour with its bentwood rocking chair

and an engraving of ‘The Light of the World ‘over the mantelpiece

and the small black fireplaces as discussed in various Dickens’ novels.

These would, I knew, radiate a cosy, settled, all-embracing feeling

coming not from luxury, but from love. There would be the smell of

beeswax, sparkling blackened grates, and according to season, jars of

wild flowers, bluebells or dog roses picked on Sunday rambles. In

front of the fire on winter afternoons there would be buttered

muffins, honey, and numerous cups of lemon tea. The street itself

would be tidy, uniform, and predictable, like Coronation Street, with

small front gardens behind spruce hedges.

 

That image was my Utopia, and I recognized it immediately in the

small, dilapidated house I found in East Oxford. The outside

resembled a squat, with flaking paint and dirt-grimed walls; the

inside was filthy. Masses of newspapers and circulars everywhere,

windows you couldn’t see through, electricity meters in every room

and graffiti on the walls. The garden was full of old bedsteads,

curious pieces of rusty ironware, empty beer cans and empty bottles.

However, in the hall a shaft of sunlight shone through the dusty

haze. I glimpsed Anna, Paul and Mrs Morel, and Fanny Price (before

she went to Mansfield Park) flitting about; and I fancied I smelt the

beeswax. At that moment I fell in love with it, made an offer that

afternoon which was accepted and settled in the day after. A good

choice, as it has been the most constant and supportive lover I have

ever had; always warm, always welcoming, always loving and always

there.

 

Plumbers, electricians, and painters during the intervening four

months worked long and hard on improvements making the house

habitable. Four small downstairs rooms were made into one large

sitting room, and a large kitchen with a door to the garden. Both dry

and wet rot had spread happily and freely everywhere and needed a

stay of execution; a hot water tank had to be installed and radiators

fixed to the walls. Cupboards were fitted and the house rewired.

(Little reference is made by Victorian novelists to cupboard space. I

suppose it lacks romance as a subject, nevertheless I always wonder

where the characters put their clothes since nineteenth century

street houses appear to have been built without them. Ditto modern

houses).

 

pagetop

--------------------------------------------------------------------------