One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 42, changes

Christmas 1988

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Now in the long history of our house, we were the first to have children here.

Joe and Mary Ann did not have any, Mike Lois and John had only just left college and were pursuing their first careers and the couple whose names I have forgotten and who lived here for just three years were passing through.

So ours were the first and with first events we did it properly with one of them being born upstairs in the big bedroom.

Twenty years ago home births were still very much the oddity despite it being the norm until the 1950s.

All of which marks the last thirty-eight years in the history of the house as something special from the first Christmas with toys under the tree to the children’s parties and the preparations for school and waving them away to college and university.

And now we have reached another milestone as the third of the four prepares to leave and set up home.

Christmas 2012

Now there is nothing odd in all of this I left home in 1969 and pretty much said goodbye to London.

But given that ours are the first four to have grown up in the place it does rather mark one of those moments.

Nor is it the only change, for just over a year ago we got new neighbours, the first in over 20 years.

All of which leads me to reflect on just how much happens when you live in a house for a long time.

In 38 years the place has had a number of “make over’s” some less successful than others and some just downright wrong.  Taking out the old airing cupboard in the bathroom was both stupid and a waste, while John’s decision to get rid of the two downstairs open fire places, and all of the picture rails did little for the house.

July 1975

That said I have never been convinced that the old fire places were that attractive but they were part of the design of the house and it is all too easy to ignore the original design.

We never knocked through and despite the popularity of ever larger kitchens/living rooms Joe and Marys Ann’s house still works best as separate rooms which open up possibilities for doing different things way from the noise and smells of communal living.

From the late medieval period people moved away from living together in one great hall to smaller rooms which offered up some privacy and I suspect were cheaper to heat.

So as our house empties of children I do have to wonder on how the place will change in the future, but will be guided by the original design of the Scott’s who were here from its beginnings till 1974.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Lois Sparshot

*The story of a house, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house