No 19

Today's the day ................. for a bit of neighbourhood watch

We live at No 22 - and this is the gate of No 19. So it's a couple of houses down the road ......... but at one time, the two houses were very much connected.

Back in the early 1930s, the Dodds family lived in No 21 and David, the son, was very much attracted to one of the daughters living in No 19. In due course they decided to get married and they started looking for somewhere where they would live. But nothing they looked at came anywhere near what they wanted ..... and they began to despair of ever finding anything that they liked. Then David's parents came up with the suggestion that they build a new house in the garden of the house at No 21. They could have the bit that was currently the vegetable plot.

And this is indeed what happened - they designed and built what is now our house at No 22 - and they lived happily in it for the next fifty years. By chance, I got to know their daughter Pat and she showed us pictures of the house being built. She also had the most wonderful diary kept by her mother describing how they came to choose what rooms they would have and what would go where. It was a real labour of love.

It's just a shame that, as you can see from the picture, No 19 has not been lived in for many years and everything has fallen into a state of disrepair. At one time it must have been a lovely family house but now, you can hardly get through the gate and up the path ...........