Morning Glory

The first waking moments in a new house are amongst the most confusing. The whole dynamic had changed and it took me a good  few minutes to orientate myself to where I was and to tune in to the fresh sounds and acclimatise to the smells of the place on that first morning at Westwood Road. My awakening was one of reluctance and slow realisation that I was in a new town, a new county and at a new phase in my own life. Reluctance because I was now nearly an adult, two more years at a new school before big decisions had to be made for the course of the rest of my life, as I saw it at the age of 17. Slow realisation because I was dazzled into waking up by the absence of curtains in a south-east  facing bedroom window giving no respite from the bright early morning sun.  I squeezed shut my eyes. The bright sun still permeated through in an orangey hue. Slowly and deliberately squinting my eyes I could play with the strands and flecks of light and bounce that inevitable black dot up and down in a Youngs' fringes type appearance of whatever dwelt between my eyeballs and eyelids. This served as a delaying tactic to confronting the day. I found it very difficult to cope with change. This was a big problem for me but why had I not got used to it? My father's job did mean that we moved every four years to six years on average, geographically northwards and broadly alphabetically. Amongst my four siblings these uprootings did fall well into my critical life stages and coincided with my schooling at infants, juniors, Grammar school and the educational stages of, in particular, the old eleven plus, GCSE O' Levels, which I had just completed, and now forging on to Advanced level. I felt sorry for my older sister as these same convenient steps for me caused her most disruption, the flitting interrupting her studying and exams in mid stream at all stages. In the old house I had slept orientated from north to south. I had read avidly on all things spooky, UFO'ey and urban mythy and had been relieved that my sleeping position was just about magnetic north aligned and unlikely to upset any Ley lines. Looking back I was stupidly superstitious but this , in retrospect, was part of a teenagers feelings of mortality. The same bed , whilst not officially aligned in my new bedroom ,sat east to west and I started to become anxious whether this would upset my whole existence in the cosmos. The other major change was that I had a room to myself in the bigger new house. In my opinion, the best in the house, although I do not now recall if the five of us children dibbed or campaigned actively for the rooms we actually ended up with. The room was right at the top of the three storey house, a 1898 built terraced monster, mellow yellow brick, double bay frontage and draughty original sash cord hung windows. My parents had searched for a couple of years for the most suitable house to accommodate our larger than the average  post nuclear sized family unit. This will not have been easy in a pricier location. As a compromise the new house was purchased with a combination of the proceeds of the previous sale and from the funds from the sale of Gran's bungalow on the condition that she moved and lived with us. The larger than average post nuclear sized family unit was now at the maximum 8 persons. I had plans for my own room. A wall to be dedicated to The Jam, another for my posters, although these had not travelled well with the move. Given free rein within reason I would put the old  drop down leaf and 2 drawer writing bureau in the alcove of the dormer window. The top floor bedroom gave a great view down into  the street and across the rooftops of the lower terraced cottages opposite and beyond. I soon got used to hanging out of the window to pose, as though I owned the place, or to ease a thick head from my first real experiences of Special Brew. So this was the new place. I had not figured in its selection or subsequent viewing apart from a short drive-by on the way to visiting where I would be schooled for my Sixth Form years. It looked very imposing and was opposite a whitewash rendered Pub. As a teenager just developing a taste and appreciation for all things beer this scored highly on my mental checklist of what would make a good location. I was at last fully awake. The unfamiliar surroundings suddenly became my home to the soundtrack of my mother calling us for breakfast, my father working to put up curtain tracking, my two younger brothers charging about in exploring mode and my two sisters starting to unpack their possessions from the move with Radio 1 blaring out to 'Video killed the radio star' by the Buggles.