Chapter 1

The lavatory, next to the bathroom, was also tiled high up with shiny green tiles. Russell and I daringly climbed out of its window, squeezing past the pipe from the high level cistern, onto the flat roof above the servants' quarters. We were really not allowed here, as there was merely a token parapet round the edges. Mother always very much hoped to get a cloakroom downstairs, but didn�t manage it. Another unfulfilled dream of hers was to build another storey above the servants� rooms, so as to have more bedrooms. The access would have been along a catwalk from the landing above the staircase, through the half-moon window which would be replaced by a door.

The number of bedrooms was really inadequate for the size of the house. There were two single bedrooms, quite large in themselves but not big enough for doubles, and two enormous others. Mother and Dad had one which was in itself really almost two rooms, and it had a special mosaic and linoleum inset piece of flooring where Mr Schwarz had planned to have a plant in the middle of the room. The other big room was my bedroom, at first shared with Gertie and Russell, when it was known as the nursery, and later at various times with Shena. In it were a large dressingtable and wardrobe, and a marble-topped washstand on which, in my young days, was a china toilet set with a heavy crochet mat under each article. Later Mother added a stinkwood tallboy and desk.

The last flight of stairs led to the very hot attic which was directly under the roof. It covered the whole of the house and was therefore spacious, but was so hot that little use could be made of it. Dressing-up clothes, packed-away winter clothes, Dad�s dress sword and war service trophies (including a holed water bottle and hundreds of bullets in biscuit tins), trunks and suitcases were all stored there. Some years later, when Mother had a black man (all our other servants were coloured) as houseman, a portion of the attic was converted for his accommodation for the short time he was with us. The attic windows looked out on both back and front gardens and there was a skylight out of which was a flagpole - Dad liked to hoist the Union Jack on very special occasions. There was a very good view over town and the docks from the attic windows.

In the main rooms were enormous open fireplaces - all beautifully finished with mosaic, but very few were used by us. The morning-room had a small grate built in and it was used regularly. The drawing-room one was in use when necessary, with a large loose grate, but it was temperamental and sometimes smoked. The only use the others had was as a repository for pips which clattered down when the crows perched on the chimney pots to enjoy the dates which they collected from the palms. These dates, lavishly produced, had very thin skins and no fleshy part - even Russell and I didn�t often try to eat them.

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