[Redbook1:18-22][19680411:1130]{Townhouse}[11th
April 1968][Age 16]
11.30a.m.
The man D
had in last night for a 2-hour conference from 8p.m. till 10p.m. was only a
young man who had something to do with the [...] Association [...]. Yesterday evening D had such a sore throat
that he could not swallow his supper and he went to bed quite early saying he
thought he had got tonsillitis.
The legal
term ends this morning, and we were going to go down to C. But D is feeling awful and M thinks he has
flu. He is in bed at the moment. We will probably go to C tomorrow. O[...], who used to look after L before N
came, has come back to help N with L over Easter (they are staying in London). She is young, Irish, and pretty.
I have just
done 50 more lines of Chaucer's Prologue and read 20 more pages of Powicke’s
"Loss of Normandy". I feel
like a boiled owl! I have also had to
clear up my room as O will sleep in it when I am not here. M wanted me to sleep in K’s room (K is not
here) in the basement for one night. I
didn't want to. I hope I'm not being awkward,
but I don't sleep at home very much and when I am at home I think I ought to be
allowed a room of my own all the time.
Also, the basement is rather dark and gloomy!
Our house
is not very beautiful from the outside, but I like it very much because I was
brought up in it. It is in what has
become a fashionable part of London -- Chelsea -- since we bought
the house. It has six floors (including
the basement and the attic). It runs as
follows going up the stairs from the back of the basement. There is a small garden which is paved in,
with two flowerbeds. Then there is the
basement kitchen (coming towards the front of the house) with a built-in
cupboard. The deep freeze lives
there. In the passage outside there are
two cupboards, on right and left. In the
right hand one, under the stairs, the suitcases are kept; in the left hand one
objects are stored and game his hung. At
the bottom of the stairs in front there are two doors; the one on the left leads
to a temporary boxroom, normally a spare room, which is full of things left by
my Grandmother (paternal) who died about a year ago. There is an intercom between the two
doors. Straight ahead there is another
spare room, the basement front room, which K is using at the moment. It looks out onto an “area” with one or two
coal-holes under the pavement. The
“area” is reached via a small room containing electricity and gas meters and
switches, and which gives access to another cellar under the street. Back inside: the whole of the basement floor
may eventually be made into a flat for me.
Going up the stairs, there is a small lobby in which [the black
labrador] is kept at night. Ahead is the
downstairs bathroom with two built-in cupboards. The ascot in the near right-hand one had to
be disconnected when a downdraught blew the fumes back into the bathroom and
nearly suffocated our then p.g. (paying guest) [...]. Hot water now comes from the house
system. On the left -- we have now
turned round to come out of the bathroom -- is the downstairs loo, a tiny
cubicle with a pipe-radiator on which S swears she burns her bottom. There is a short flight of about three steps,
after a lockable door, which leads to the hall.
The next
door on the left leads to the main spare room, in which A is sleeping at the
moment. It also contains the piano and
the television. There is an intercom on
the right of the door. There is a slight
zig-zag bend in the passage, then double doors on the left lead into the dining
room (ground floor front room). (It has
a telephone socket too.) This used to be
one with the main spare room next door, but the arch between was filled in by a
built-in bookshelf. Coming out of the
double doors, we go back along the hall passage and up the next flight of
stairs to the kitchen. This is panelled
with vertical wood planks and is full of every modern convenience, most of
which don't work very well. It also
contains a gas boiler and an emergency electric water heater encased in wood in
one corner of the room. Other pieces of
equipment include a fridge, a six-ring gas stove with oven, a washing-up machine,
and electric potato-peeler, an electric hand mixer, an electric grill, and a
wastemaster (waste disposal unit) in the double sink unit (anti-clockwise from
the door). There is a telephone socket
also, and an intercom, half way along the wall which is to the left of the
door. Turning round to face the front of
the house, we come out of the kitchen and up another flight of stairs. At the top, on the left, is the sitting room/library,
with an intercom just inside, and to the right of, the door, and a telephone
socket by the window. Ahead is the
drawingroom (1st floor front room) which has large vertical wooden panels round
the walls. The two rooms are normally
made into one by folding back the connecting wall-length quadruple sliding
door. There is a balcony outside the
drawingroom French windows.
We turn
round to face the back of the house. Up
another flight of stairs, and on the right in the tiny laundry room. It contains a super 15 guinea Keymatic
washing machine which is constantly giving trouble. Straight ahead is my room, with 1 lot of
built-in shelves and two built-in cupboards.
My room has a buzzer in it which can be worked from any intercom
set. Up the next flight of stairs lies a
door on the left. Go through this, and
on the left is the study with a hidden safe place under the wooden "platform",
and a telephone socket; ahead is M and D’s bathroom (the only one in the house
with a shower or a bidet), and on the right is M and D's bedroom. (It has an intercom in it, by M's bed, with a
telephone socket beside it). It has a
built in cupboard. (2nd floor front
room) Up the next flight of stairs lies S's room, probably the nicest room in
the house -- but one has to go down about four steps to get there. It is always untidy -- or nearly always. It has a buzzer like mine. Outside it on the right is an airing
cupboard. Up the next flight of stairs
is another opening on the left. Through
that and left again lies N's room, ahead is the nursery bathroom, and on the
right is the nursery where L now lives.
Out again (An intercom is on the left), and ahead is an almost spiral
staircase leading to the attic, which is now B's bedroom -- the nicest room
geographically in the house. It has a
good view and is always warm (hot air rises from the rest of the house) and
usually light. French windows (with an
intercom and telephone socket on the left) lead to a flat roof overlooking the
back garden and the roof of S's room. It
is fenced in with an iron framework and chicken-wire-netting. (Electricity plug and water-tap). If one turns round again, there are two
gullies at the side[s] of the attic roof.
The right hand one leads round to the front of the attic, with a narrow
unguarded ledge high above the street, and thence onto other people's roofs; it
is highly dangerous. The left-hand gully
leads onto the roof of our next-door neighbours by a somewhat safer route (in
case of fire) -- one hops left over the parapet on to the next-door roof and
into their attic window. But one can
also, by putting one foot on the chimney breast and stepping on top of the flat
roof, get one of the best views in Chelsea. That is the Crystal Palace tower, I think, to
the south -- but I could be wrong it is rather far west that -- Battersea Power
Station, BOAC tower at Victoria, Westminster Cathedral, West London Air Terminal,
Stamford Bridge Football Ground, Lots Road Power Station, Fulham Power Station,
and the Albert Suspension Bridge. But
there is a very nasty drop indeed on the North side -- facing the square -- and
the wind can come in gusts -- so be careful!
The doctor
has just arrived to see D -- I think it is Doctor Macpherson.
In a way,
this book is a successor to the Commonplace Book which [...], the head of the
history department at school ([...]) asked my form all to keep up. In my case it was not very successful. It is also a successor to the few attempts I
made while at prep(-aratory) school (St. [...]), Kent) to keep up a diary in those
"Letts Schoolboys Diaries” I used to get at Christmas. I used to keep it up for a week or so, then
there would be more spaces filled with "Nothing Much Happened Today",
gradually abbreviated to "N.M.H.T.", and eventually abbreviated to
nothing at all. It is not a successor to
my present diary, which is a "future" diary -- an engagements diary,
as it were. This is definitely a
"past" and "present" diary -- if by its size alone! Can you see me carrying this round in my
inside jacket pocket?
The doctor
has just left again, and sounding quite cheerful. M said that she wouldn't pack until tomorrow.
{continued}
[PostedBlogger29082012]
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