My earliest memory may not be mine.
I can see the kitchen in the Copnor house, but Mum described it so often that I may have put it together later. There was a table used for meals, washing, homework and anything Dad needed to repair. The purpose changed according to who reached it first.
The house was a rented two-bedroom terrace. Peter and I shared the smaller bedroom. Mum called it the children’s room. Peter called it his room and said I had been put in it. He was consistent about this.
The toilet was outside until an indoor bathroom was added in 1966. I remember being told not to go into the yard without shoes, although I cannot place the toilet itself with any confidence. Memory keeps the instruction and loses the reason.
We rented the television. Dad said renting meant somebody else had to mend it when it went wrong, which must have been difficult for a man who preferred to mend things himself. Peter sat too close to it and was told to move back. I copied him and was told the same. This was how a good deal of my early education worked.
The front room was used more carefully than the kitchen. Mum did not forbid us from going in, but we understood that there should be a reason. Television counted. Running did not.
Dad left early for the Dockyard. I remember his work clothes, though perhaps that is from later. Mum was at home with us then. She kept the household going with lists, repeated instructions and a firm belief that food left from one meal had only changed its appointment.
Peter was old enough to go out and young enough to resent taking me. I followed him along the passage to the back door. He told me not to. I followed him anyway.
That part feels like mine.