There were 6 tall houses built against each other in our cul-de-sac, Linden Way. So everyone knew each other. I say 'knew' in preference to 'like'. I think the only actual proper friendship between anyone was my mum and Margaret, next door.
At number 92 there lived Alan and Leonie and their daughters (slightly younger than me and my brother) Deborah and Emily. I thought the whole family was weird. And I based this judgement on some very conservative and prejudiced thoughts. For one thing, their living room was painted white. What the fuck was that about? This fit with my perception of Alan as some king of hippy. Not a long-haired hippy, as he was bald as an egg, but a hippy in terms of being a bit wet, a bit of a limp lettuce leaf, a bit corduroy and sandals. I once had a religious argument with him in which I refuted his beliefs as an Anglican in defence of fair less accommodating and self-righteous Catholicism. I failed to understand how it could be that he was Church of England and his wife was Jewish. That made no sense to me. Other kids might have learnt a lesson from this fact, in a sort of To Kill of Mockingbird way, you know, about not judging people without knowing the facts. But not me. That white-washed living room proved I was right about the whole weirdness of that family. And I'll never forgive Emily for eating our strawberries, which were growing against our adjoining fence. Her being 2 years old at the time doesn't excuse it. That's out of control behaviour.
At 96, the other side of us, was Les and Margaret and their 4 boys, Gary, Steven, Jonathan and Philip. Les was a copper who helped out the scouts jumble sales by collecting stuff for them in his big black van and then helping himself to the best bits. He had oily slicked back, dyed black hair, like Reg Varney in On the Buses. Margaret was a nice woman, but scared me after the incident in which she told me off for pooing behind the garages. The older boys were skinheads. The younger ones weren't close friends of ours, but convenient acquaintances to do stuff with. Jonathan was alright, but Philip was feral, spending his whole time with his shirt off (skin peeling from sun burn every summer), climbing trees and snotting and pissing everywhere. He once ate a worm.
At 98 lived Ken, the doctor. Nice bloke. Too clever and too straight-laced for anyone else to be close friends with, but everyone liked him. Spent all his time in his garden. If your ball went over and damaged his flowers, he'd merely discuss the issue in a positive manner with you like a soft primary school teacher. Eventually, he found a similarly simpering wife and she moved in with him.
At 100 was Eddie and Edna. Eddie was a copper (because like our house and Les's, his was Police-owned). He was a bit scary and gruff spoken, but tended to chuckle a lot. We made sure our ball never went into his garden. I can't remember Edna. I think like a lot of 1970s wives she stayed home and did stuff, fuck knows what.
At 102 were the rich couple. Mr and Mrs Adams. We assumed they were rich, because they replaced their front door for a flash wooden one with a brass knocker and because they just looked snottily at the rest of us all the time. (You could forgive them doing that to Philip, they must have thought he was a savage.) They had a high fence on the far side of their garden and trees that afforded them some privacy, so our ball never went in there and you couldn't see what they were up to. Sipping champagne and eating caviar we assumed. Mum once drove the car straight into their high wooden fence, knocking it over. She was learning to drive. She switched from manual to automatic after that.
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