31 Postcodes - Poem 4

Moonlight by the box

In the back of beyond,

in a house on a hill,

we sat by a fire 

and watched the box.

One widow, one piglet,

both greedy for drama,

puddings and pastry,

the plain and the milk.

Flames lit up sharply

Nationwide, Poldark,

gorillas on horseback,

a little That’s Life.

Kate Bush in the car.

Homework and disco.

Jubilee foolery.

The Fonz and ice cream.

The graveyard next door

was chock-full of strangers.

The taps in the chimney – 

just birds? Maybe so. 

One more little mouthful,

a chip off the old block,

Elvis sleeps heavy,

the Tees dark and deep.

RF 2021

Video/audio for this one here.

After a couple of modern houses this home was half of an old, tall, spooky vicarage on a hill in a village called Winston in county Durham (dangerously close to the now infamous town of Barnard Castle!). We moved here in about 1977 (when I was 10) and mostly it was just my Mum and me in this house with my two older brothers there now and again. My room was on the top (second) floor and when my brothers weren’t home it was just me and the rooks up there. I listened to a lot of records in my room (Earth Wind and Fire, ABBA…) and it was so cold I remember getting dressed for school in bed quite often. I lived there full time for about a year, though my Mum was there a little longer. My Mum enjoyed the garden and I remember digging up potatoes we had grown there. Also we were near to the river and I loved exploring the steep riverbanks. There weren’t many kids my age in this village so it was quite a different experience to the previous homes and I really only had someone my age around if a friend came to stay. Things I remember from this house are meals-in-baskets in the village pub (that felt very modern at the time and a big treat), doing a group sponsored bike ride, and village celebrations for the queen’s silver jubilee (we were not a family interested in the royals but there were races in a field and I was a competitive child). Also there was a weird New Year’s Eve where Mum and I joined the elderly neighbours in the more elegant other half of the vicarage. They served foods I had never encountered before (croutons!) and I was sick as a dog when we got home. Happy times…

Speaking of foods the ‘Moonlight’ in the title partly refers to boxes of chocolates available in the late 1970s (boxes with half milk chocolates and half plain which were perfect for a Mum/daughter evening - I think ‘Good News’ was a similar brand). Also the photo this time is just a family pic - this home is not visible on Streetview as it is down a long drive and behind trees. That car belonged to my older brother and he sprayed it red piece by piece, largely in the house (in a sort of conservatory bit). There was a lot of red spraypaint in that room. When it was finished our Mum gave him a crash helmet in the hope that he would wear it whilst driving (she was the anxious type, with good reason in many cases). The rest of us thought this was very funny (we weren’t always very kind or understanding when it came to our Mum, even though she was pretty amazing).

This poem is part of the annual Fun A Day Dundee project where participants try to do something creative every day for the month of January. You don't have to be in Dundee to take part and there are other Fun A Day projects around the world. People post as much of their work online as they want to (largely on Instagram but it can be elsewhere too). This year I am posting a whole poem a day (one poem for each of the 31 addresses I have lived at, covering the period 1967-2021). Videos/photos of the poems show the places remembered in the poems but were mostly taken from recent Google Street View. The videos are on my Instagram, maybe elsewhere too. Use the hashtag #fadd2021 on social media to see other people's online contributions.