Margaret Wheeler

This text resurfaced in April 1994 in the form of a photocopy of a perfectly typed up version (typist unknown) - found in a box of miscellaneous letters and mementoes of Margaret's early life. It was transcribed to disk from that photocopy, NOT from Margaret's hand-written original, the location of which is currently unknown. (Is it with Sheila perhaps? Or was it one of those sent by Sheila to the University of Sussex before she was very firmly told about copyright, and Margaret's intentions of eventually publishing her own material under her own control? And who has the top copy of the typescript? This may even be the text which Sussex University wished to publish themselves - the event which first alerted Margaret to the fact that her writings were being disseminated outwith the family without her knowledge; and, more importantly, were considered sufficiently interesting by others to be worth publishing.)*

As these are early reminiscences (tentatively dated at 1981 or, more probably, 1982), they may have been written in response to Sheila's first questionings and letters to Margaret about Carpenter family life in Nottingham. Margaret now cannot remember ever having written them in the first place, let alone why she wrote them, or who to, or why she didn't even bother to keep the usual draft copies.

This WWW version has been further truncated.

*[Margaret in fact has the (hand-written) original, the first part of which she has deliberately abstracted from the typescript copy, for reasons of family privacy.]

Concerning our Removal from Crossley Street, Sherwood,
to 5 Lenton Boulevard.

By 1924 the little terraced house we occupied in Crossley Street had become impossibly small and cramped for our large family - Ma and Dad and nine children - and Ma embarked upon a serious bout of house-hunting; what she was looking for was a house with at least four decent-sized bedrooms, and a garden, not too large. Whenever she went to inspect one, she took me with her - I was fascinated by other people's houses - but I don't remember any of them except the last one we went over before No 5 Lenton Boulevard. This was up at Mapperley on a busy main road somewhere near that deep quarry; it had a yard-wide strip of ground in front of it, separated from the pavement by some low iron railings, but when we stepped inside into a nice square hall, and then to the left into a very wide long room with several windows, totally bare of any furniture, but flooded with sunshine from end to end, I was thrilled - compared with the cramped and nearly sunless rooms at Sherwood, it was marvellous. We went upstairs to see four large airy spacious bedrooms, all empty of furniture, the two on the front also brilliant with sunshine, and I kept going back into these to bask in the warmth and enjoy it while Ma was inspecting the linen-cupboards on the landing and the bathroom, which I couldn't have cared less about. The two bedrooms at the back of the house were large, light, airy and quiet, with built in cupboards, but probably North-facing, and they overlooked a long narrow garden, deep in the shadow, bounded by high brick walls and very dank looking, except for a strip about six feet in depth right across the bottom end, and I remember Ma's saying "I could grow roses on that wall, and put a bed of raspberries there." She loved raspberries and when she first came to Looking Stead more than twenty years ago she bought me some raspberry canes (Malling Promise) and they or their descendants are still growing and providing us with raspberries, in our garden.

The house, however, was built on two levels, and to get to the kitchen which was on a lower level at the back of the house we had to go down a flight of brick steps, unlit, and it seemed very dark down there after the bright light on the ground floor and in the bedrooms. There was a big fire glowing in a sort of old-fashioned grate that had to be black-leaded, and enormous cupboards each side of the fire-place; and it must have been a large kitchen because the two old people who were hoping to let the house and were living in it until they could find a tenant, had their double bed in it as well as kitchen table, chairs, sewing machine under the window, etc. (All their other furniture had already gone.) There was a pantry, a scullery and wash-house, an outside loo and a coal-house, and Ma was very tempted, but she couldn't make up her mind, and in the end she decided that living on a very busy main road would be dangerous for the children, and that she wouldn't be able to face constantly going up and down the stairs to and from the living kitchen where we would all have to have our meals.

I was very disappointed and tried hard to persuade her that the back stair-way could be painted white and well lit, that the kitchen also could be painted white and her famous sunshine-yellow curtains put up at the window, and that it was a large living kitchen that could be made very comfortable; that gas-fires could be put in the upper rooms to save carrying coals up the stairs, but it was no good. She was pregnant again (I didn't know, of course) and it was probably the thought of trying to manage a pram and later a push-chair up and down steps and stairs inside and outside that finally kyboshed it. (If I'd known, I'd have found a way round that, too!)

But 5 Lenton Boulevard - and Ma must have been getting really desperate to settle for that - was on a busy, dusty, noisy main road too, and was in a low-lying area subject to heavy fog; it had hardly any garden, and didn't get any sun to speak of; the kitchen was small, and the bedrooms were awful. I went there with Ma after the Higginsons had moved out and a few days before we moved in; she was very downcast and low-spirited about it; we sat in the small back kitchen in front of a fire she'd got going (still in a grate that had to be black-leaded) and had a cuppertea, and I remember her saying - "Oh well, I suppose we'll have to make the best of it" - and we both felt very glum; it was obviously going to be a real work-maker of a house. I always thought of it as depressing and miserable, even before Barbara died there, and later, the twins. I was enormously glad to escape from it.

My passion for sun-lit, south-facing houses dates from the eye-opening experience of going over that Mapperley house - it is practically a fixation with me! - and that is why, after my marriage, we moved to Neighbour Oak which had - still has - its main rooms looking slightly East of South, and why I planned and designed Looking Stead to face almost due South all along its length and get as much sun as possible. This is one of the reasons Dad liked to stay here; he was a sun-lover, too.

I have often thought since those days what a turning-point in all our lives that decision of Ma's was; if we had gone to live high-up at Mapperley instead of low-down at Lenton, how much would have been different; I would almost certainly never have met Charles, although Betty would probably still have met Alan; Jim wouldn't have met and married the girl-next-door at Lenton and Joan might never have met Walter, or Dulcie Snook for that matter, and Sheila would not have joined the Lenton Brownie pack! And schools for the younger fry would have been different and probably better than the ones they did attend. All this speculation is futile, of course, except perhaps for pointing out how very important are the surroundings one grows up in, in their effects on one's later life.

Looking Stead, 1981

more about Madge:
[ Margaret Wheeler - short biography ] [ Dear Mr Shaw - text of Epilogue ]

selected texts by Madge:
[ Guardian reprint - Grandma (1964) ]
[ Reminiscences to Sheila (1981) ] [ Letter to G.B.S. (July 1946) ] [ Letter to G.B.S. (Aug. 1946) ]

Margaret's complete literary output throughout the whole of her life is currently being edited for publication, both digitally (in TEI-encoded format), and in conventional (i.e. printed book) form.
Serious enquiries from interested publishers should be sent via e-mail in the first instance.
Editors wishing to commission material on Margaret are welcomed, although journalists and free-lance media "researchers" after no more than free material for a story for their own financial gain will be politely turned away.

Information initially prepared and published by Sheila Bourner & Martin Wheeler
February 2000
to accompany the Channel4 TV social history documentary film series A Family Century

Margaret Wheeler

Concerning our Removal from Crossley Street, Sherwood, to 5 Lenton Boulevard.

Concerning our Removal from Crossley Street, Sherwood,
to 5 Lenton Boulevard.