Chestnut Leaves by Carole Day. Ink and brush on paper.
75 Cambridge Road no longer exists, except in my memory. My Grandpa sold it in the 1960s; the lady next door also sold her house and now there is a housing estate of many homes where those two houses once stood.
My grandparents’ house and garden were rambling and expansive, a delight for me as a child. The sensations of the place live in my mind: the smells, the light and shade, the creatures I encountered in the garden, more of a wild wilderness really. Walking down the steep, dank concrete steps to the garden there was a musty atmosphere and it was very cool and dark until I emerged into the light and heat of the sunlit garden. Along the dirt path on the left was an enclosure with geese and chickens, sometimes they wandered out onto the grassy patch opposite, pecking for food. Further on there was a large lean-to with a big, rusty metal tank outside filled with water. On the surface insects skimmed with long gangly legs, and flies buzzed above it. To the right, up a little earthen rise, stood a pigeon coop where my Grandpa kept his pigeons – I think he loved them. Then further along to the right was a row of hutches with rabbits in them. Then a vast expanse of vegetables and fruits growing in neat rows, then a large glass house. Beyond that there was a small coppice leading to an overgrown pond, you could look over a little fence to see it. It was a secret garden full of wonders. I loved it and I still do.
Around the house was a kind of moat, paved on the bottom. Here there were frogs, which I liked to watch and tried to catch. In the front of the house a wide dirt and gravel driveway was bordered at the front by several massive Horse Chestnut trees. It is said that memories before the age of three are probably not real memories at all but incidents that other people have related to us later in life. And yet I remember the sunlight shining through the leaves of those Horse Chestnut trees as I lay in my pram in the front of the house. Many years later the sunlight would again touch my heart and show me a glimpse of eternity.
