Laying Lino I suppose we must have walked, or come on the bus in 1948 to our new soon-to-be home in Layton. To begin readying that terraced house, No.18, just before the gable-end on Wilfred Street, which would become a playground for so many postwar kids. Fruits of the relief our parents felt to find that, finally, it was “all over” – apart from rationing – such value in that dog-eared log of permits. Not until much later did I realise that, till then, Home had been in the house my aunt & uncle and Mum & Dad had occupied with some of Nan’s rather grand furniture from the Panthers’ Wright Street home in Southport, and furniture and carpets were undreamt-of luxuries while bombed, blitzed Britain rebuilt itself with Austerity Games and Festival of Britain to drive away the grey, yearning for Technicolour to startle eyes. Our trip to Layton? To make a start by assembling the beds just delivered, heavy sprung metal frames and panelled bed-heads after the rolls of shiny lino had been set out on the floor, bed for Mum and Dad, a double, and one for me: the bed I was to sleep on till graduation, and an earning job at twenty-one. Lino? From Li’l Jimmy Williamson, Lancaster’s Lino King, later Lord Ashton, whose gift of gardens lets still St. Anne’s-on-Sea pretend to grandeur. And here I am today with that lino-laying, its reflecting rusty green of autumn leaves laid here in my mind’s eye, ever winking at me crawling on it, aged no more than two. © C J Heyworth Version 3 July 2013
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 09:09:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015