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155 21st Avenue.

We moved from my grandmother's house to the North Hull Estate when I was about three years old. The house that we moved to was on the 21st Avenue; the house number was 155. As far as we could see there were no trees in the 'avenue'. There were hundreds of houses down scores of streets built in the same red brick to the same design, the corner houses having an extra bedroom. The monotony of the sea of council housing was punctuated with the occasional row of shops. These were the local landmarks along with the schools. The nearest bus stop was about twenty-five minutes walk away. The house was not very old, it had electricity, and was in good condition. It had a front room, the sitting room, and a kitchen with a pantry. Upstairs, there were two bedrooms and a bathroom. The lavatory was just two yards from the back door in a kind of alcove. I don't know where we got the upright piano from, perhaps it was from my grandmother's house, but it was there in the sitting-room of the family's first home. I didn't know why it was there; my mother only played a few bars on it during its entire stay with us. We had a new three-piece suite. It seemed that a home was not a home without its three-piece suite - the bulkier, the better, or so it seemed. Three-piece suites wait around for the family – it makes the statement, 'this is a family home, this is a family'. The new carpet, labelled, 'Axminster' wore out quite quickly; my mother tried dying it to disguise the threadbare patches, but it fooled no one. We turned it over, but that was no better. There was a dining room table, which was never used because we never ate in the sitting room. Mother had her sewing machine, which she used to make up dresses that she had sent off for. The dress parts usually came from the magazine, 'Woman'. She was rather good at making them up. Once a neighbour recognised the yellow dress with white spots that my mother was wearing. The neighbour asked her to make one up for her. My mother didn't want to do it, but she did. I think she was afraid of making a mistake – but it was fine. We had a radio; we didn't have a television until quite late, after most of our neighbours had one. After the television, the only other piece of furniture that was added to the sitting room was the glass cabinet. The display consisted of a teapot with rural scenes on its sides, and collections of crockery that my mother had won at the annual 'Hull Fair' bingo stalls. They weren't that brilliant, but my mother thought they were at least a bargain. Antiques were considered as being second-hand, so we wouldn't have had any antiques – even if we could have afforded them.

The kitchen was pretty basic. We had an enamel utility, electric cooker, a kitchen table with chairs. We had hot and cold water, of course, or should I say, hot water when we put the boiler on, or lit a fire. There was a dolly-tub, a wringer and a posher. Later on we got a copper. We had no refrigerator, but the pantry was cold, the window looked into the draughty passage that led from the front of the house to the back. Once, when I was playing ball in the passageway, my ball went through Mrs Sewell's pantry window and landed in her gravy. My mother made marrow wine once. It blew up in the pantry – one morning there was glass everywhere, and the walls were sticky. That took some clearing up! We ate all our meals in the kitchen until television made its appearance. We ate quite well, we went without luxuries – but we always had enough to eat. My father worked bloody hard. He worked in a bakery. It nearly killed him. He collapsed with exhaustion, and was in bed for weeks. My mother went in for this competition. She made a kind of crossword with place names. She won a hundred pounds. She bought my father two suits. After all he nearly killed himself to provide for us. The rest of the money went on clearing the debts that had accumulated during my father's illness. I didn't see very much of my father – he was always working; when he wasn't working he was sleeping. I never really knew him. I shared a bedroom with my brother; it was so cold because of the absence of any form of heating - consequently no other activity other than sleeping, took place there. As children we either played in the sitting room or the back garden.

The house had a front and back garden. In the front garden there was a golden privet hedge by the garden fence. There were: Peonies, Carnations, Scabias, London Pride and Lupins in the borders, but the garden would not have won any prizes. In the back garden, just beyond the passageway, was a clump of Lily-of-the-Valley. The back garden faced north. This meant that the small lawn was in the shade; after a few years we extended it so that we could sit in the sun during the summer, that is, when we had a summer to call a summer. Beyond the lawn were a rockery and a vegetable patch. We grew cabbages, but it seemed that we grew them more for the cabbage whites than for ourselves. A wire fence drew a boundary line between the garden and a large field. For two years we grew sweet-peas on the wire fence. For one summer, out of the two, there was a tremendous show of pastel blues and pinks. The couple to the left of us had five children. Their house was an end house. They kept chickens at the bottom of the garden. The Sewells lived to the right of us; they were a childless couple. One day, during an almighty row, the mother of the five children called Mrs Sewell 'barren'. Mrs Sewell had thyroid problems; one day she put her head in the gas oven and killed herself.

For a while my brother and I had a couple of white rabbits. The two rabbits, a buck and a doe, lived in separate hutches in the backyard, a two yard strip of concrete between the house and the lawn. My rabbit was a real albino with pink eyes; I thought she was really nice. We weren't allowed to let them meet, but one day they did and the buck went wild. Well, how frustrating, to be so close, and so far away. I liked to see them tossing the straw around. There was always plenty of straw, and plenty of rabbit droppings. Cleaning them out became a chore. My mother got fed up asking us to clean out their hutches. One morning I went into the bathroom, and there they were, strung up. My father had clubbed them on the back of the neck. We had rabbit stew at the weekend. It was a nice stew. The only other pets we had were budgerigars, sometimes they were green, sometimes they were blue. We never did have a canary. For some reason the large field hadn't been considered by the town planners for development. Boys and youths would dig trenches and make dens in the field. The grass was tall and patches of nettles grew menacingly high – natural no go areas. We could hide and make pretend camps in the long grass. Had it not been for that wild area we would have grown up in a sterile, concrete environment; it was its un-ordered nature that made it special. Nowadays, officials think, 'what an eye-sore' or 'what a waste' and cover it with concrete. Cities have become unnatural places to live in. Everywhere has become so ordered that there is no longer a near-home place for kids to experience a sense of freedom, and adventure. Yes, there are dangers, but then, there always have been. Once I found a fingerstall in the field. I took it home to show my mother. It was taken from me. It wasn't a fingerstall at all. Young people need a space that hasn't been ordered by adults. I am glad I had that wild space at the bottom of the garden. Now it has gone; soon after we left the 21st Avenue it was built over, more roads, more houses. Country-folk, edge of town people, you don't know how lucky you are. As I grew older I wanted to venture outside the immediate vicinity, as did my circle of friends. There was a manor house called Hayworth Hall, down the Beverly Road, with grounds that seemed huge at the time. I think they are still quite sizeable. The area around Hull is pretty flat, no mountains, no hills – just trees, hedges, fields and the occasional dyke. Yes, like Holland, we have dykes. Some of them have been filled in. Gone are the newts that inhabited them. The school that I went to was called Endyke High School, and a dyke did run alongside of it. The grounds of Hayworth House, the villages of Dunswell and Cottingham were all within walking distance, but they were not far enough haunts, I wanted to go further afield.

Like every kid on the street, I wanted a bicycle. When my birthday came around – there was my bicycle. The wheels weren't shiny metal, they were painted silver; there was a stuck-on transfer on the green frame, which read, 'Tour de France'. My father had bought the bicycle from the people across the road. Everyone in the street, I mean all the kids on the street knew where it came from. I didn't mind. I was like that. We were hard up. I never let my mother buy me football boots, as far as I was concerned it would have been a waste of money. When I was at junior school I was made to play netball with the girls, I don't know if it had a lasting effect on me! I didn't care. I had no interest in football. I had no interest in sport – full stop. During my period at 'senior school' most of us didn't bring any kit. We were marched around; then, we had to 'do' some spelling tests, "Spell diarrhoea," the teacher commanded on one occasion. During the summer months we were supposed to play cricket. If I was at the crease, I just moved away when I saw the ball coming. I couldn't see it properly. We weren't taught how to bat; we were just put there, in front of the wicket. When the time came for me to field, which was usually after the first ball I received, I went so far out in the field that no ball came close to me. I didn't mind athletics, but my legs were too short - well, you are at a disadvantage before you start, aren't you? However, I did like walking.

In my final year at school, I was fifteen; we had the end of the year film. We had to pay sixpence, in old money, to watch the film. I considered whether it was worth the sixpence or not. When I found out that the film was a war film I informed the teachers that I thought people should not watch people being killed for entertainment. On the day I was offered free entrance to the film. I refused. I think they thought I wasn't serious. A year later I was wearing a 'Committee of 100' badge. The school was a dead end school. There was no possibility of taking a G.C.E., or a C.S.E. At the end of my final year the careers officer came to the school. "And what would you like to do?" I thought the world was open to me. "I want to be a naturalist." Well, I liked nature studies. His response was, "Do you want to work in a factory or a shop? " That was when the lack of options open to me really dawned on me. After I had finished secondary school I started work in a jewellery shop. So it was a shop after all! I got a larger bicycle; it was still second-hand. I went to work on my bicycle; I went to: South Cave, Beverly, Hornsea and Withernsea. I dreamt of going places. We moved house and, finally, I had my own room – somewhere I could take my friends.