Colette’s description of her bold childhood room yesterday got me excited and I thought I must share with you mine.
A view across the wheatfields of Great Hundridge Manor in Buckinghamshire, where I was born. My bedroom is the first attic window on the right.
My childhood room was a small square one in the attic at the house where I was born, Great Hundridge Manor, in Buckinghamshire. Two of the walls were low till child height then slated in-wards to the ceiling, so the light from the dormer window came flooding in to cast strange cubistic shadows.
My bed was a nondescript affair, where Belinda, my beloved rag doll, reined among many floppy animals, stuffed and real, as my mongrel Annie and Poodle Pablo at night would sleep there day and night.
Also a upright piano where I practised with my music teacher, a chest of drawers with Aertex shorts and shirts neatly folded by my devoted nanny Teresa, whose room was identical next door.
I had a wind up gramophone, with needles that had to be changed every few records, on the floor, and lots of paints and papers lying around. There must have been a chair, this I don’t recall it: and the curtains were short and striped. I most remember a luminous Scottie –dog lamp that had come with me from my nursery.
Now, share with us your childhood room!
- Category: Nicky's thoughts
- 8 Comments
Nicky how wonderful, do you have any images from inside your chilhood home…would love to see them.
Xoxo
Karena
Art by Karena
I hardly remember mine to tell you the truth but that might be because I had 4 brothers in the room beside me always making a ruckus! You just reminded me that we have a gramaphone (an original) in our basement storage that I should have appraised, might pay for our son’s med school education (wouldn’t that be a bonus). Happy weekend. XO
Between the ages of eight & twelve, I had a room painted raisin brown, with a papered ceiling in beige, brown, black & pink brush-drawn plaid. What can I say? It was the 1950s.
The room before that was better: I had to share it with my little brother, but the walls were cheerful banana yellow and there was a painted border of scallops in blue & gray at the ceiling. My mother was an artist and she painted circus scenes on our furniture, but looking back, her well-meant artistries & the way the various pieces were arranged in our room seem to have had unintended effects on our young psyches.
I was a happy kid, not afraid of anything-not even the things I should have feared-but my liitle brother had frequent nightmares & always seemed to be afraid of everything. But, looking back, it’s no wonder. When I lay down at night, I could see a smiling elephant peeking over the foot of my bed, and on the side of the bookcase that stood between my bed & my brother’s, there was a happy giraffe eating leaves. Looming over the end of my poor little brother’s bed was a sinister-looking man with a fierce black moustache & a whip, and every time my brother turned his head sideways to avoid the gaze of the man with the whip, he looked straight into the mouth of a snarling tiger.
Neither one of us had thought about that room-or that furniture-in years, until one day when we were cleaning out a storage area after my grandmother died, we came across the bookcase, and discovered that the same piece that brought pleaasant memories to me made him recoil in horror. Kids are so weird. If my brother had ever said anything about the scary tiger, our mother would have painted something else in its place, but instead, my brother lay there, sweating in horror every night, and never said a word about it.
nicky is in the country but i asked, and sadly no, he has never been able to find any pics. c
I had a pink room-pale walls, lots of shuttered windows with fabric insets of a bright pink and green Vera fabric-a very old mahogany bed three quarter- and pink dresser and marble topped chest and old sewing machine table converted with marble top. Still one of my favorite rooms, thanks to grams and mom.
Exuberant Laura Ashley poppy print wallpaper and Kelly green walls. It was so fabulous. A white glossy enamel and brass four poster bed.
Pink ballerina wallpaper, white furniture, twin beds, a closetful of Barbies, Disney all of sorts, tons of books, matchbox cars, baby dolls, stuffed animals galore, and an eye patch for a lazy eye…and still love Barbie..
How wonderful to see this house. After research, I have found that my Grandfather from 14 generations ago lived in this house. I’d love to hear more about it.