Sometimes the house talks to me; it tells me tales of it’s youth in an austere post-war Britain; it talks to me about the excitement of the 70s. Today it told me about it’s childhood; new and shiny, exciting, people moving into a new house, and it showed me something more of what it used to look like.
It told me about the luxurious experience of carpet all the way across the stairs with thick, high quality underlay. And about years of thin strips of carpet down the centre, with grey painted skirting and stairs.
And I wondered about those first owners, flush with the joy of having a brand new house all of their own. I wonder whether, when they moved in they were worried about the situation in Germany. Whether they were wondering about being bombed. I think about these walls, and the things that have happened within them, and I’m honoured to be here.
But it didn’t just talk to me about the past; I saw the future, where people look at the work I’ve done and say “how could she do this?”, and I respect more the choices that people made in past times.
