Thoroughly modern
After spending the winter in the city, our new home was finally ready. Correction: almost ready. The house was built before WW1, but the kitchen required serious renovations. Putting in cupboards, actually. I am unsure what previous tenants had done, but there we were, with the fresh odours of sawdust and paint as part of the package.
Somehow, my mother convinced the owners (the railway) that electricity was the up and coming thing, now that wires ran by the end of the lane. They sent over a work train, and for a busy week we got wired. That included a pump, out in the porch, to give us running water. We were thoroughly modern, before the tree went up for Christmas.
After the next (full) summer, I received a new set of clothes to celebrate my entry into formal education. Just a mile away, but with the winter that followed it could have been on a different planet. Officially, I only missed three months of classes, and I learned to read and print and “do my phonics homework” in spite of it. Actually, train service stayed constant, and I think I learned to read by perusing the Guardian, delivered every day.
Not much traffic through the waiting room, and a steady warmth from the pot-bellied stove gave me the push to spread the paper out on the floor. Yes, I remember the mechanics of this, although the actual content escapes me. There were comics, and my recall of the little bald-headed kid is clear. His name was Henry, and he used few words. I couldn’t read (much) so we were well-matched.
