THE HOUSE

Having moved from Newcastle and then to Leeds in the early 1960‘s my parents moved to Stratford for employment. Soon two young children appeared as if by magic and so they needed to move out of their one bedroom house in the middle of the town. They looked far about apparently but eventually plumbed for a new estate being built on one side of Welcombe Hill leading up to Clopton House. The builders were Stowe and Son and my father petitioned them to finish theirs first. Indeed my very early childhood was spent darting in and out of the many shells that would eventually become people’s homes. As precocious kids we made sure we visited every single one but it was the giant piles of sand and cement that really attracted us. I have no idea why we were given such free reign but What Larks, Pip.

Dad’s relatively humble job made sure that they never had a great deal of money to spare - we were the last in the area to get a TV, a car and it was decades later that we eventually got our own telephone (in the interim this had made ringing girlfriends a little tricky). Once lived in they saw little point in improving it - indeed upkeep was minimal to say the least. Eventually the off-spring left home and my parents did this and that. Up to the age of 70 (1997) both my parents had done very little upkeep on both the house and the garden and it became obvious to me that the many years of neglect was taking it’s toll. I therefore set to making improvements to ensure there were as few calamities as possible. Both appreciated this. I never took photographs of anything I did because it’s just what you do don’t you. However more serious things needed doing from time to time and I did take the odd snap.

LINKS TO PICTURE VAULTS

Over recent years, especially since I moved in, I’ve taken many more photographs because the work has been significant. There are many. I’ve now uploaded most of them into the categories set out geographically below and will weed out boring ones in the fullness of time. I use the Dropbox collaborative system (there is no need to download any App to view these -see inset below right) so merely click on a coloured patch to go to the subject area. Of course all this is still a work in progress.

Having looked at one vault if you’d rather stay in Dropbox all the time to avoid coming back to this page each time, please click the top folder link here: Matt’s Place.

You do not need to download an app to view these pics. Merely click “Continue to website”. Then click any chosen photo to enlarge and use arrows to scroll between them.

<< Back to: Matt’s Shed           

matt’s shed

mens shed

shed projects

shed ideas