Sunday, July 26, 2009

Back To Bexley

I am more like my dad than my mum. Quiet. Though he had more of an adventurous childhood. He had a best friend to be adventurous with. Quietly.

In Christchurch I had no friends and I couldn't have been happier. Then all of a sudden we were on the move again. My mum had really had enough of being starved of adult company. A quiet husband wasn't enough for a fiercely sociable 34 year old woman.

So we moved back to the borough of Bexley. But we weren't able to get our own place straight away. We spent the next several months at my dad's parents' small terraced three bedroom council house. This was punishment for my mum for bringing us back. And not particularly pleasant for a young child used to space and privacy.

My dad's parents were quiet, too. My grandfather relaxed by doing the pools and watching the wrestling. The pools and the wrestling seemed to take forever, all Saturday. My grandmother seemed to spend all her time in the kitchen, boiling socks. Fish and chips from the chip shop was a weekly treat.

I remember by bedroom wallpaper most of all. It scared the shit out of me when I was ill. And I seemed to spend most of my time in that house with one sickness or another.

Shapes moved. They became three dimensional. They throbbed, heaved, backwards and forwards, side to side, span and spiraled. The wallpaper was alive and its only reason for being was to drive me mad with nausea and fear.

I started school, a tiny school around the corner. I immediately contracted measles. The wallpaper had a field day and the measles perforated my eardrum. My mum and dad were arguing. My grandparents were, too. They were all only keeping together for the child. The sick, weak child in the box bedroom.

Come on, Dad. Hurry up and get a deposit on that dream house!

19 comments:

  1. I did some work for Bexley Council a few years ago. People wear a lot of gold chains from Argos in Bexley. And they love their Daily Mail.
    I remember the train station was too far from everything and the yoof on the buses were terrifying.

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  2. This is a thought provoking post. I know little about Bexley but a sick child with long bouts in the same room would be taxing for anyone. Crazy wallpaper or not.

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  3. I dated a primary school teacher from Bexleyheath once. The relationship made A Child Called It look like The Sound Of Music.

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  4. sas - Welcome. It's becoming a lot more middle class lately. There seem to be more indie kids. The Daily Mail is pretty popular amongst the over 50s but where isn't it?

    JennyMac - Welcome. Crazy wallpaper, crazy kid.

    Mr London Street - Delia Smith's from Bexleyheath. She's well balanced.

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  5. I always thought Bexley was posh. But then again, I grew up in the place beginning with 'S', where Asda is the hub of all activity.
    Sx

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  6. Stoke-on-Trent?
    Slough?
    Sunderland?

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  7. WOW - that Wallpaper!
    I bet Grandma was slipping something in your Ribena.

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  8. It was probably the laudanum in the wallpaper Geoffster...you'd have to pay good money for a hit like that now (probably a bit less for the perforated eardrum mind...)

    xxx
    Mort

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  9. Scarlet - My aunt recently moved to millionaires' row in the place you call "S".

    Tim - Intergalactic Asda.

    MJ - Your map of England is far too small.

    Kaz - I don't think she ever entered my room. Such cold grandparents!

    Morton - It wasn't Shand Kydd stuff, that's for sure.

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  10. Is that near The Olympic... is it still called The Olympic?
    Sx

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  11. It's within walking distance of the golf course. Apart from that, I know nothing.

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  12. I always associate Bexley with the Right Hon Edward Heath. Those wobbly Jowels and wallpaper have turned you into the left wing insurgent you are today Geoff.

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  13. I, sadly, didn't live near The Olympic.
    Sx

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  14. Rog - Heath was Old Bexley and Sidcup. Thatcher started off in Dartford. We did 'ave 'em.

    Scarlet - It's changing its name to The 2012 Olympic.

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  15. You should've seen the screen my mum used to put around my cot when I was a 'ickle baby. Owls. Sitting on black branches. Lit by the moon. No wonder I sometimes stay up late to avoid going to sleep...

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  16. The owls were watching over you, keeping you safe. In that way owls do.

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  17. You were channeling Oscar Wilde with the Wallpaper thingamabob.

    It is widely reported that his famous last words were "Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."

    Tell me. What song would be playing in the background of this scene (Dad's Parents) from the Life of Geoff?

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  18. They didn't have a radio, but if they did...

    Pat Boone?

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