My Staircase. Aged 13-19

 

The other night i went to my old house from when i was 13, to take photos of the staircase. Ty Pen Cwm Canol in Llanrhystud, a beautiful old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, inglenook fireplace, slate slabs in the kitchen, wooden beams, slanty celings that kind of thing. I loved this house. It was the house i lived in from age 13-19 and the house i guess the house i lived through my ‘evil’ teenage years.. It was a happy house, a warm and inviting house. The memories i have of staircases in this house are of sneaking down them late at night to catch a snog off my boyfriend Rob who was sleeping on the sofa, but id have to jump the last few stairs as these were the creakiest ones. I’m not sure if i have as many memories attached to this staircase as others, possibly because i was never there, and always out with Rob no doubt. The feelings i had towards this house were much happier, the house hadn’t changed at all, it was fresher in my mind i suppose. I almost felt like the lady who lives there now was trespassing, and i really wanted her to leave! I asked her if i could stay, she said no.

So there’s only two more houses to go, which i’ll be visiting next week 😀

My First Staircase. Age 0-6

So as part of my research process I decided that the first thing I should do was to go back to all of my old houses to take photos of the staircases that hold so many memories.  There have been four in all each with different memories and feelings attached to them.  I went back to my first ever house, the house i lived in from 0-6. It felt really strange, almost like an outer body experience(not that i’ve ever had one) the stairs were exactly the same, the stairs my Dad had made 27 years ago!! It felt tiny,  and the rooms I once remembered as being enormous ,were actually really really small and the ceilings really low. The house had three floors each had wooden floors, and fire places.  The walls were stone with white washed walls and sash windows.  I remember sitting on the windowsills for hours waiting for my dad to come and pick us up for the weekend, sometimes id be sitting there for hours, sometimes he’d never come.  The rooms were pretty much empty and one room in particular had no furniture in it at all, mum said it was because she couldn’t afford any.  As you walked in through the front door directly in front of you was the staircase, it was an open staircase with gaps in between each tread.  This staircase led to the bedrooms. The other staircase led from the middle room with no furniture, down into the kitchen/sitting area. In this part of the house was a fire and the place we’d snuggle up with mum before going to bed 2 floors up, through the middle room with no furniture and up the creaky wooden steps.  I remember mum used to say “Up the wooden hill”, which  at the time wasnt very comforting.  The feelings that came back when i visited this house were of loneliness and i didn’t really feel much, no connection. I guess maybe because this was the house my Mum and Dad split up in. The house that my mum tried to keep on for us, even though she had no money, maybe my mum felt lonely at the time and this, without intentionally meaning to was the atmosphere in the house. Perphaps she was lonely,i don’t know I’m no psychologist, but i think there may be some truth in the way i felt then, and still do now to a certain extent. I remember sitting at the bottom of the staircase alone, nobody else was there. I was 4. I remember i was wearing a blue pinafore dress and there was a biscuit on a small plate infront of me. Straight ahead of me was the solid wooden front door, it had a small pain of glass, i remember the light streaming through it. I remember feeling sad and lonely.

Visiting BrynDyfi has made me think about what the house represents in my memory  as well as the staircase and that anything can take on an enchanted significance.  Whether it be a cupboard under the stairs or a hiding place you used to go to when you were little.