Houses could tell us so many tales

I often wonder what later owners of the first home Maria and I bought in St Annes thought when they stripped the wallpaper and found the messages and cartoons we had left as our legacy of the Swinging 60s on the plaster beneath.

And our present house in Honley must be ingrained with our family DNA after 37 years and four generations have lived there.

But I still have a tender spot for 5 Cheapside, off Westgate, in Wakefield, because I was born in the front room. Well, there only was one room downstairs and it contained dining table, settee, sink and cooker. So it must have been a bit crowded when they pushed in a bed for my mother because this was the only room in the house with a gas light. Anywhere else you had to carry a candle. Over the years, the front room of my birth has been the back room of a bar, a taxi office and a curry takeaway

The street next to Cheapside is Thompson’s Yard and I discovered, many years ago, this was the birthplace of Victorian novelist George Gissing.

His former abode is now a museum in his memory and, when I visited, found it identical to the house where I was born.

George got his own museum. What did I get?

Over the years, the front room of my birth has been the back room of a bar, a taxi office and a curry takeaway.

It’s located opposite Wakefield Pie Shop.

I can’t complain. I’ll settle for that.