H is for HOME

We lived in a grey pebble dashed house in the country. It had two storeys but had begun life as a much smaller building. Long before I was born, the family homestead had just about doubled in size although it appears that it always had an upstairs. Around the time I arrived, a scullery, bathroom and toilet block were added at the rear. This section had a flat roof so it was not the place to kick a ball as it did not return its prisoners. along the front of the house, ivy was encouraged and dad took irregular sessions with shears at maintaining its appearance. All heat inside was provided by an old Wellstood cooker which, only heated the kitchen so usually it was necessary to run about quite quickly on winter nights when moving between rooms. Although most rooms and a fireplace, fires were rarely lit ,except in the dining and sitting rooms, at Christmas or when visitors were expected. Several renovations were carried out up to my mid teens, including 'turning' the stairs which use to have an awkward bend near the bottom steps. However, the turning allowed it to invade more of the kitchen, so I'm not entirely certain if it was a successful venture.

I lived in a couple of different locations while at university but neither of these I could ever have called home, because home is essentially not about the building but about the people who live there. And while I spent most of my week somewhere else, I knew it was only a stopping point on the way.

When we got married, wife and I rented a house on the outskirts of the village, about two miles away from home. It was a similar type of house to what I had known but it had its own character, with a beautiful staircase that wound its way up three levels. It was heated by huge electric radiators filled with concrete to hold the heat but because they were expensive to run and we were poor newlyweds, most of them were not used so it was another case of running from room to room to keep warm. The chasing was good fun, but the catching was even better! Unusually, the house had an outside water tank, perched high above the back door. It had been rather unsuccessfully covered so often, the bath was a mixture of clear water and black, suspicious looking particles. At one stage the best filtration system we could find for the water consisted of a couple of old socks tied over the bath taps, to collect any stray debris that had swum in from the outside world. In harsh winter weather, things got worse when all the outside pipes leading from the tank, froze solid, so many a morning, I could be found up a ladder with a boiling kettle, trying to bring some normality to our water system. we stayed there for three years. It was home but not as we knew it.

When we built our house, in an orchard beside where I had spent most of my life, it was to our design and we had only just moved in when we were joined by a pair of small feet and impressive lungs. We had barely time to settle and some of the house was to remain untouched while we were being introduced into the routines of our new little arrivals. And it became home, though we both often referred to going home to see our parents, we knew that where our little family now resided was our real home. There were days of laughter, days of noise, days of sadness, days of hard work, days of just lounging around and also days that just passed. But they were all days in our home for we had made it such.

I'm sure it's still home to our two boys, though their studies have taken them away more than they are here, for most of their possessions are lying about in their rooms and they always seem to appear at weekends and at holidays. But it's now a home with more days of quietness, days of contemplation and days of memories. Yet, most importantly it's a place that we all created together as a family and in the absence of our childhood houses has become what we now call home. We both often reminisce of Sundays listening to Jim Reeves singing 'This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through,' and the longer we both live in our faith the more transient our earthly homes become. Like Peter 'we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.' And where all God's family will be together. Now that's what I call home.