Today
Lately I've been been thinking about the things that are the most important to me and found that "home featured large in my mind for many reasons.
I think that I have always felt that it was important that, not only should wherever we live should feel like home, but that other people should also feel the same way.
We may have carried this idea to an absurd level as several friends and family have at times used our home as theirs, living with us for various lengths of time, without, I think, ever paying any rent!
In My Day
The most extreme of these was when we invited a complete stranger to share our home.
I think it was back in 1971 or 72, before Lizzie was born, and when we were living at Belmont in Brighton. We were very poor and the flat had no carpets and hardly any furniture.
One day Paul was leaving the flat when he saw two women in tears outside one of the other buildings in Belmont. They were a mother and daughter who had, it seemed, been evicted and had nowhere to go. At least the daughter didn't. I've an idea that the mother was able to go to her other daughter who lived some way away, but the daughter with her had a job in Brighton and couldn't travel so far.
"Come and live with us!" said Paul without any hesitation. He brought them up to the flat and presented me with this fait accompli.
I don't think that I so much as blinked and Leslie Clay became part of our lives, bringing with her her bed, a cooker, some armchairs and some strips of carpet.
Leslie, was a small, dark, somewhat anxious woman. She was, if I remember correctly, a teacher and was engaged to be married to a Steve. She told us harrowing tales of her father's unkindness to her mother and his meanness. She was a real sun-worshipper, spending every spare moment in Summer on the beach turning herself a deep shade of glistening mahogany. I used to express concern about possible damage to her skin, but she was deaf to all comments.
I remember her as a part of our lives for about six months (I was probably pregnant with Lizzie for part of this time) and don't recall any quarrels or difficulties. I also can't remember her paying any rent!
Eventually she left to marry her Steve (we went to the wedding which was somewhere in the Wokingham area), leaving behind the cooker, bed, carpet and chairs, all of which were very useful.
I think that we lost touch almost immediately, I don't know why. Maybe I was too embroiled in having Lizzie and being a new mother. But I do slightly regret that.
I hope you've had a wonderful life, Leslie, wherever you are, and that you hold a tiny warm spot in your heart for us.
