1980
At last we were settled in our new house in Silverton, or rather our new house two miles outside Silverton. Our new detached, three-bedroomed house with a quarter of an acre of garden. Our second house. It had cost us every penny we had, and now we had a mortgage too which meant that the house was in both our names as the building society needed the security of our combined incomes.
I didn’t tell my parents this, not because I felt guilty but because it didn’t occur to me to do so. Like my emotional life that I’d kept secret until the issue of marriage arose, I’d never divulged my financial situation to my parents. Nor did it occur to me until later – several decades later – that because they had a stake in the house (having given us the money for our first house which we'd sold to part-finance the second) I should have told them and that it was dishonest not to.
They didn’t say anything either – for once.
I’d of course gone the conventional route in looking for a new house, contacting local estate agents, trawling through page after page of information about properties for sale, and visiting a succession of unsuitable places – unsuitable because they were too small, too boring, too close to other houses – but suitable because they were what we could afford.
John, on the other hand, had taken a road he’d never explored before just for the hell of it and halfway along had seen the house, seen it was for sale, and thought, yes, that was our house.
As soon as I saw it I agreed with him.
The views were fabulous. The neighbour, who showed us round and who had been cutting the grass to keep the place nice, was delightful. The house was modern, bright, immaculate and a blank canvas for us to put our stamp on.
We felt welcome straight away.
We stayed with a friend in the village for a couple of months when we were between houses and with the neighbour C for the final weekend. She lived on a farm with her husband and young son and had let us leave all our belongings in one of their barns while the house purchase went through. On the Monday she helped us transport everything from their barn to our new house, on foot and in the Mini.
Another neighbour brought us some swedes as a welcome present – from which I made a hearty soup.
Another invited me to a Tupperware party. (I declined the invitation – feeling rather overwhelmed by something so grown-up – and I didn’t ask her in, which I realise now was very remiss of me. She was using the party as an excuse to drop in on us.)
Another knocked on the door and asked if he could buy John’s motorbike. (He couldn’t.)
People in cars would stop on the road and engage us in chat.
Somehow, they all already knew all about us – where we came from, where we worked.
On our first night in the house, John spilt red wine on the beige carpet in the sitting-room. We took it as a good sign. Already we were making the place our own.
In our two previous places – the flat and the bungalow - John had taken over one of the bedrooms for his hi-fi equipment and records, which had cut him off. In the new house he was able to park himself in one of the corners of the large sitting-room, which was much more companionable.
Music was everything to him. At around the age of eight he’d started to build his own electronic equipment on which to play music. He still had some of it, including a Perspex amplifier that he was very proud of. Music had saved him during his adolescence.
When, at his grammar school, they’d asked him what he wanted to do when he left he’d said that he wanted to be a recording engineer. He wanted to help musicians create music. Right, said the school, not having the foggiest what he was talking about. A levels.
And, of course, he failed them all. He wasn’t academic except about music. His knowledge of music was encyclopaedic. Ask him something about music – any sort of music – and he could answer. But ask him to study for something he wasn’t interested in and he stalled.
His main criterion in choosing a house was for it to be somewhere he could play loud music - outside as well as inside - without worrying about disturbing anyone and now of course he could.
And did.
I loved it. I was learning so much and luckily our tastes more or less coincided. The only genre neither of us liked was Jazz. He liked Folk music however which on the whole I didn’t, whereas I liked Country music which on the whole he didn’t. But we could deal with that.
He turned his nose up at my handy portable record player with its lid made from its two speakers which I’d bought from a fellow student for £70 in 1976, and exclaimed in horror at its wires which – cleverly, I thought - I’d made longer by splicing in extra bits. He relegated it to the top of a cupboard. I didn’t mind – too much.
And he disapproved of some of my records, such as Santana Abraxas which had blown me away when I first heard it in 1971, and kept them in a box separately from his racks. (At least he kept my records.) His records were arranged in the order in which he’d bought them and he remembered the position of every one. He could pull one out without even thinking about it.
His mission in life was to spread good music and to that end he’d joined the fledgling student radio station, University Radio Exeter (URE), helping them out technically and presenting a programme on which he could play whatever music he wanted.
It saved him from the tedium of his job at the university, which nonetheless he worked at diligently. He didn’t want to be unreliable like his father. He wanted to be a good provider.
I didn’t tell my parents this, not because I felt guilty but because it didn’t occur to me to do so. Like my emotional life that I’d kept secret until the issue of marriage arose, I’d never divulged my financial situation to my parents. Nor did it occur to me until later – several decades later – that because they had a stake in the house (having given us the money for our first house which we'd sold to part-finance the second) I should have told them and that it was dishonest not to.
They didn’t say anything either – for once.
I’d of course gone the conventional route in looking for a new house, contacting local estate agents, trawling through page after page of information about properties for sale, and visiting a succession of unsuitable places – unsuitable because they were too small, too boring, too close to other houses – but suitable because they were what we could afford.
John, on the other hand, had taken a road he’d never explored before just for the hell of it and halfway along had seen the house, seen it was for sale, and thought, yes, that was our house.
As soon as I saw it I agreed with him.
The views were fabulous. The neighbour, who showed us round and who had been cutting the grass to keep the place nice, was delightful. The house was modern, bright, immaculate and a blank canvas for us to put our stamp on.
We felt welcome straight away.
We stayed with a friend in the village for a couple of months when we were between houses and with the neighbour C for the final weekend. She lived on a farm with her husband and young son and had let us leave all our belongings in one of their barns while the house purchase went through. On the Monday she helped us transport everything from their barn to our new house, on foot and in the Mini.
Another neighbour brought us some swedes as a welcome present – from which I made a hearty soup.
Another invited me to a Tupperware party. (I declined the invitation – feeling rather overwhelmed by something so grown-up – and I didn’t ask her in, which I realise now was very remiss of me. She was using the party as an excuse to drop in on us.)
Another knocked on the door and asked if he could buy John’s motorbike. (He couldn’t.)
People in cars would stop on the road and engage us in chat.
Somehow, they all already knew all about us – where we came from, where we worked.
On our first night in the house, John spilt red wine on the beige carpet in the sitting-room. We took it as a good sign. Already we were making the place our own.
In our two previous places – the flat and the bungalow - John had taken over one of the bedrooms for his hi-fi equipment and records, which had cut him off. In the new house he was able to park himself in one of the corners of the large sitting-room, which was much more companionable.
Music was everything to him. At around the age of eight he’d started to build his own electronic equipment on which to play music. He still had some of it, including a Perspex amplifier that he was very proud of. Music had saved him during his adolescence.
When, at his grammar school, they’d asked him what he wanted to do when he left he’d said that he wanted to be a recording engineer. He wanted to help musicians create music. Right, said the school, not having the foggiest what he was talking about. A levels.
And, of course, he failed them all. He wasn’t academic except about music. His knowledge of music was encyclopaedic. Ask him something about music – any sort of music – and he could answer. But ask him to study for something he wasn’t interested in and he stalled.
His main criterion in choosing a house was for it to be somewhere he could play loud music - outside as well as inside - without worrying about disturbing anyone and now of course he could.
And did.
I loved it. I was learning so much and luckily our tastes more or less coincided. The only genre neither of us liked was Jazz. He liked Folk music however which on the whole I didn’t, whereas I liked Country music which on the whole he didn’t. But we could deal with that.
He turned his nose up at my handy portable record player with its lid made from its two speakers which I’d bought from a fellow student for £70 in 1976, and exclaimed in horror at its wires which – cleverly, I thought - I’d made longer by splicing in extra bits. He relegated it to the top of a cupboard. I didn’t mind – too much.
And he disapproved of some of my records, such as Santana Abraxas which had blown me away when I first heard it in 1971, and kept them in a box separately from his racks. (At least he kept my records.) His records were arranged in the order in which he’d bought them and he remembered the position of every one. He could pull one out without even thinking about it.
His mission in life was to spread good music and to that end he’d joined the fledgling student radio station, University Radio Exeter (URE), helping them out technically and presenting a programme on which he could play whatever music he wanted.
It saved him from the tedium of his job at the university, which nonetheless he worked at diligently. He didn’t want to be unreliable like his father. He wanted to be a good provider.
I now had a secretarial job at the National Trust Regional Office (long story) which was only a couple of miles away. This I found excruciatingly boring but I could bicycle there and walk in the park at lunchtime, and I was determined to stick at it as I’d never before had a job for more than a few years.
Kitten had had to go back to Rod while we were homeless but she was now safely restored to us.
So everything was in place, ready for our new married life together. All was hunky-dory.
Or was it?
