Norton days

Day 103

I once lived in the most wonderful house for an 11 year old imaginable. It was in the country, miles from anywhere and two fields walk from the road, on a working farm.

The house itself was Victorian and had once been a little grand. Divided into two sections, the main body of the house had bay windows and a white filigree of lace-like wrought iron around the porch. The door looked out over roses and a sweeping lawn surrounded by red brick walls, and beyond them, open fields, waist-high with grass to run and hide in.

The entrance hall had a door at the other end which came out onto a mounting block from which to mount your horse and head off into the wide world. The ceilings were high and the stairs long, with a shiny wooden banister I was too scared to slide down. The landing was galleried, with endless balustrades that though I had to dust between them, I still thought beautiful.

To the right of the front door was the dining room, which we used as a play room. It was light and airy, with a beautiful fireplace and white painted cupboards on either side. This was where I made paper dolls with my sister, or played ping-pong with my brother.

To the left was the enormous sitting room, so huge we only had a scrap of carpet in the middle near the fireplace, and all the furniture was grouped around that. When we first moved in and it was empty, my sister and I would put Peer Gynt on the record player and whirl and dance around like fairy demons for hours on end. I have never had a such a sense of pure, bodily freedom since.

To the back, behind the dining room, was the winter parlour. This was a small, cosily dark room, with wood panelling, window seats and shutters. This was where we spent the colder months rather than trying to heat the big room. I loved it. I remember granny-square crocheted blankets hanging over wing backed armchairs close round the fire, a writing desk in the corner, peacefulness, quiet, and snuggling up with a book in the window seat.

Next to that, behind the sitting room, was the equally enormous kitchen, with scarily vast hooks hanging from the ceiling, a massive wooden table and an aga at the far side. I can tell you it only took us seconds to leap from our beds on cold mornings, grab our school clothes, and reach that aga in order to keep warm as we dressed.

Upstairs were four bedrooms, a loo, and a bathroom. The biggest bedroom was directly over the sitting room and therefore the same size. This was the room my sister and I shared. We had a pale blue wardrobe I remember, and a square of blue carpet between our two beds, which for once did not have to be bunkbeds, there was so much space.

So far, so normal, but now we see the magical part of the house. At the far end of the long, dark corridor, was a door with stained glass windows. I recall being very frightened the first time I saw it and not wanting to go down there, but when I did - a whole new world for play opened up.

Beyond the door were the servants quarters. Two smaller bedrooms that remained unoccupied, and were therefore more playrooms for us. And they had their own staircase that led down to the scullery and the back entrance of the kitchen. I simply cannot describe how much fun children who like to play hide and seek type stalking games, can have in a house with two staircases. It was Heaven.

Down in the scullery there was a bread oven and and boiling vessel for the laundry. Between the stairs and the kitchen was the vast pantry. It had cool marble shelving and fly preventing mesh on the windows. There was also another door to the back, obviously so that all the groceries could go straight into the servants section of the house. We never used it, there were already three other doors.

But wait - back up a minute - halfway down the stairs was another door, set back a little, and at an angle. This opened into a huge, vaulted, barn-like storage space. This became our badminton court. It was amazing. The corners were filled with bird-poo as all the swallows built their nests in the eaves. Sometimes the fledgelings would fall out, and I would rescue them, feed them, and look after them until they were old enough to fly. I would start them on their way by putting them on the bottom rung of a ladder then tipping them gently off, working up step by step.

In the middle of the barn floor was a trapdoor. Can you believe it? Honestly, this house had everything! This opened to some stairs that led down into an almost underground storage space. This was where my dad had his work bench, kept all his tools, and the logs and coal for the fires and aga were stored. It was red-brick and cobwebby, with a wonderfully gloomy light filtering through the small window. This led back into the scullery, so you see, there were so many different routes through this house, it was bliss.

The servants side of the house was backed by the walled vegetable garden. Here we also kept rabbits and bantams, all in a big run together built onto the side of the wall. All this would have been enough to keep us happily amused forever but there was more!

As I said, it was a working farm, so there was also an old, Thomas Hardy style hay barn adjacent to the house. Here my brother and I would build forts out of the bales on opposing sides of the barn - the trick was to try and sneak into the other's camp without being seen. This necessitated much subterfuge, building of ramparts and tunnels, and silent persistence. I remember the light that filtered through the dirty window, setting the bales aglow like fire and illuminating the dust motes that flurried constantly like magic fairy dust.

There was also the cow shed where you could stroke the animals as they fed, their breath foamy and pungent, their noses dribbling, and their tongues raspy on your hand. Of course, there was also the silage barn, open on two sides, the mountain of grass covered in blue plastic held down with old tyres. It was warm and slightly squishy to sit on, with a muted but definate smell of rich decay and throat-catching sourness.

The track that led to the house from the road went first through a sheep field, and then through an apple orchard. The spring was marked by three things. First would be the lambing that took place in one of the cowsheds. On a cold morning, the farmer would grab my brother and I on route to school, and hand us a baby lamb each to carry down to the field "as we were going that way", the mother sheep trotting fractiously behind us. A new born lamb is a wondrous thing to hold when you are 11 years old. Nothing ever feels as warm, fresh, fluffy or soft again.

Secondly, the hedgerows around the orchard would fill with daffodils, blazing banks of yellow against the emergent emerald green. Then came the final sign of spring, the apple blossom in the orchard. Blizzards of petals blowing around our ears on that walk to school, and the smell! Oh, nothing like it.

Beyond the fields at the back of the house was a small wood, not large enough to get lost in, but big enough for explorations, adventures and foxes. The fields had grass so tall my sister would disappear from sight.

I don't know how long we got to live there before the owner said his son was getting married and needed the house to live in - maybe only eighteen months. I know it wasn't long enough but somehow it also felt like an eternity. Pure happiness is like that - it is timeless, it has no boundaries or limits.

The hay barn and apple orchard were destroyed before we left. The house may not even still be standing. The farm will certainly have undergone some changes if it is there at all. None of this matters though, because in my head and heart it is still there, perfect in every detail, the most wonderful house in the whole, wide world.