This is my entry for Sue Vincent of Daily Echo #writephoto.
This photo brings it all back to me now. As a child I lived on a council estate. The houses were all set out in crescents,each crescent had a green in its centre. The crescents were separated by a line of four houses then a cul du sac of houses, and alleyways to back of our crescent’s houses and oposite the next crescents houses, then another four houses then the next crescent repeated four times.
The houses on the other side of the road were private and backed on to a park. Why am I telling you this.
Well many an evening I would stand in our small back garden and the photo is the view I had. The roof tops, the chimneys with the ariels attached, the sunset/sunrise and the pigeons, especially the pigeons.
The man who lived next door kept racing pigeons, to me as a child hundreds of them. I doubt there were hundreds he had two “pigeon lofts” one the length of his back garden and one the width.
The earliest memories I have are of lying in my pram listening to the cooing of the pigeons. Glimpsing the sky through the sun canopy of my pram.
One of my lasting memories is standing in the backgarden watching the sun setting, hearing the man nextdoor calling in his birds after a race, hearing the joy in his voice as the first of his birds returned, I could feel the excitement as their shilouettes appeared over the roofs.
I have so many memories of the house I grew up in, got married from, took my children back to, to see their grandparents. The man next door his wife and her deaf sister were a large part of my life then.
We were a big family and our Mum and Dad never turned anyone away. There were always people staying over, waifs, strays, distant family, friends and almost strangers. That house with that view was in our lives for sixty years. Even after our parents died my eldest brother bought it and lived there for many years with his family. He sold it on about six years ago and a whole chapter of family life came to an end.
So today’s prompt was very special to me. So thank you Sue for the prompt. I hope that I have not bored anyone to sleep.