ABSTRACT
When I was born, my parents were living in rented rooms on the first floor of a small Victorian terraced house. Whether or not my arrival into this world brought them great joy and happiness I do not know, but it did bring them the offer of a maisonette from the local council. The family moved to a huge, modern council estate three miles out of town, and there we stayed while my parents began saving to buy a house. My father, who taught in a secondary modern school during the day, took on additional evening class teaching for three nights each week, while my mother found part-time employment as a shorthand typist and somehow fitted in cleaning, shopping, cooking, washing and child-rearing around that. At last, some time in the mid-1950s, their efforts culminated in the purchase of their own home.
