Friday, March 29, 2013

Differences


The house in which I grew up was built in 1961, the year I was born. It's where I lived until I went to Imperial at 19 (when I moved from Linstead Hall to Hamlet Gardens and then back to Linstead). Most of my childhood memories, not surprisingly, are from here (or 153 Offington Drive or 64b Laydydell Road).

When my parents moved to Storrington in 1986, they sold the house our local GP, Dr George Dingamans. He was a fine GP with a very comforting bed-side manner. When his wife Marjorie, passed away, their children sold the house to a developer (as Marjorie had done with their old house in Goring Road). The house was torn down and replaced with a block of low rise flats (apartments).

"Kedros", the Greek word for cedar (and as it turned out, coffin), as the house was called, doesn't exist but for a few photographs. Had my father (or rather his second wife) not thrown away all the family pictures I might have a few more images, but 10 or so fairly grainy 35mm negatives are all that survive.

When my father was about my age, our family want back to Freistadt where he was born; he found, somewhat to his amazement and delight, that the house in which he had grown up was still there. It seems strange that more remains of his childhood than mine.