Julie Myerson - Home - The Story of Everyone Who Ever Lived in Our House

For

Elsie Hayward 1883

and

Jamie Jess Pidgeon 1984

‘Do you know what a census is?’

‘the layers of paper curled and rolled off’

‘blonde and dimpled and dungareed’

‘my kids and their scary sharpness’

‘here she is again … cross-legged and tender faced’

‘he knows the snowman will melt’

‘you’d never in a zillion years let me have wallpaper like that’

‘you can’t possibly remember anything about being there’

‘she can’t talk or do anything yet’

‘hair all slept-on, reading a story to an absorbed toddler’

‘the sleepy-ecstatic time after the birth of a baby’

‘someone else has done the same, felt the same’

‘I didn’t think I’d float’

‘I lub you mummy’

‘I run my finger down column after column …’

‘the marriage was in a state and I wanted to be with my mum’

‘I bought that hat for two and six at Cecil Gee’

‘The wedding cake … costs £7.1 Os with the cake stand hired from Arding & Hobbs

‘eyes lit up with a hot, happy smile’

‘He wouldn’t drink out there on the street.’

‘those sleeves were murder!’

‘and Alice our duck’

‘Peter is family. He and Phyll were in a fix …’

‘I think the bit of trouble was me coming along’

‘She was just … a bit of a lass.’

‘Inside, the papers are crumbling …’

‘the plan shows a new street 50 feet wide …’

‘the hedge I pruned last Sunday.’

‘the white columns so familiar to me.’

‘Joan’s mother’s sister … married Thomas Spawton, Lucy’s nephew.’

‘on holiday in Felixstowe’

‘Did she come back here to 34 Lillieshall Road at the end of that hot day in the photograph?’

‘Maslin … he’s the first occupant of 34 Lillieshall Road.’

‘a lot happens to me there’

‘That man knew all there was to know on the various ways of cooking meat.’

‘like a boy who’s been in the dressing-up box’

‘like a boy who’s been in the dressing-up box’

‘They get talking one cold February day in the Larkhall Tea gardens’

‘You know Francis & Sons, the men’s outfitters opposite?’

‘The store was busy, fully stocked and gaily decorated for the busiest Saturday of the year.’

‘She’ll never forget all those beds’

‘forty-three years old … and she’s never had a young man in her life!’

‘she was my favourite aunt, you see, Aunt Bea!’

‘Outside the air is bright, sparkling.’

‘the car-free road of sixty years ago flashes into life in my head.’

‘That’s my grandmother, the very old lady …’

‘he hurries up from North Street, past the cottages.’

‘the sprightly little man with a juvenile wit’

‘It’s one of those lovely wide new roads near the common.’

‘I eventually find her. Or at least I think it’s her.’

Edith’s birth certificate

For the very first time, I’m looking into the eyes of a Hayward.

‘here’s the written proof’

‘He peers again at the picture. “Margaret Thatcher?”’

‘a grocer’s daughter called Mary Goodall Strange’

‘he fell in with a fast set’

‘he was singing in a choir’

‘when she died she was cremated in it.’

‘George’s views must have led to a few arguments around the lunch table’

‘It might have been the last match ever played at this piece of ground.’

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

List of Illustrations

Chapter One CALLING OUT THEIR NAMES The Myersons since 1988

Chapter Two THE BOY IN THE TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR ROOM ThePidgeons 1981–1987

Chapter Three THE WRONG GERALD SHERRIF, THE RIGHT THOMAS KYLE, AND THE GIRL WHO TOUCHED SNOW Veronica and Doreen Ricketts, Alvin Reynolds, Gerald Sherrif, and Thomas H. Kyle 1976–1980

Chapter Four THE FORERUNNER, THE DREAMER, AND THE ONE NOBODY REMEMBERS The Jamaicans 1959–1975

Chapter Five THE WEDDING IN THE BEDROOM, THE BOY IN THE BATHROOM, AND THE LITTLE GIRL WHO SAT VERY VERY STILL The Blaines, the Bartolos, the Costellos, Patricia C. Reynolds, Rita Wraight, Olive Russell, and Mavis Jones-Wohl 1948–1958

Chapter Six WHY WON’T HE WRITE? The Povahs and the Askews 1944–1948

Chapter Seven SOME DIE YOUNG, OTHERS LIVE TO NINETY The Spawtons, the Hinkleys, Vera Palmer, and Beatrice Haig 1894–1944

Chapter Eight ELECTRIC LIGHT AND A SEWING MACHINE The Haywards 1881–1893

Chapter Nine RIDING HORSES IN BED The Maslins 1873–1880

Chapter Ten GRASS AND SILENCE Before 1871

P.S. Ideas, & Features …

About the Author

Dear Ms Myerson …

Life at a Glance

Top Ten

Appendix Chronological List of Residents

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

By the Same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

The Myersons Since 1988

Last autumn I came home from the local archives library where I’d been trying to research a novel set in the nineteenth century.

‘You’ll never believe what I found out today,’ I told my daughter Chloë, ‘about this house and the people who lived here before us. I found out that in 1881 there was a writer and journalist living here called Henry Hayward –’

Chloë stopped on her way up the stairs and paused, hand on banister – a banister sticky with the marks of three children who don’t often wash their hands.

‘A writer? Just like you, you mean? Was he famous?’

‘I don’t know but listen, this is the good bit – he had a wife called Charlotte and three kids who were just exactly the same ages as you three are now.’

Chloë’s eyes widened. ‘Hey, cool! What were the kids’ names?’

I told her: Frank, Arthur, and Florence.

‘And Florence was my age?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘Hmm … good names.’

Chloë swung round and sat on the stairs.

‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘how long since anyone shouted those names out in this house.’

‘You mean the way we shout for you to come downstairs?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, except we never do.’

I laughed.

‘A long time,’ I said. ‘Years and years. A hundred years at least, I suppose. It’s a funny idea, isn’t it?’

I watched her think about this. It was dusk on a chilly October evening. We carried on upstairs and stopped together on the landing. I had a pile of ironing in my arms. Chloë had blue ink scrawls all over hers.

‘I wish you wouldn’t write on your arms in biro,’ I said.

She ignored me and stepped over her cat Zach who was sleeping in his regular, hazardous position, draped right across the middle stair of the next flight up.

‘Shall we say them now?’ she whispered.

‘Say what?’

‘Their names. Shall we say them out loud because of how it’s been a hundred years and all that?’ She put her fingers on the fat white softness of Zach’s stomach. He opened one eye and closed it again. ‘Florence!’ she called shyly. ‘Arthur! Frank!’

‘Henry Hayward!’ I said more forcefully, and Zach jumped up and spilled himself off downstairs.