G*Nice: Going back to my roots

There is a fantastic documentary series on British TV right now that I am watching on the VOD service (bless the internet!) called The House that Made Me. The premise is that the programme takes a celebrity back to their childhood home and painstakingly re-decorates and re-creates the rooms with the help of family and photographs.

Psychologists tell us that our personalities are largely formed in our childhood years and the home environment plays a large part in containing all these factors and memories that stay with us for ever. Just the thought of this sparked my imagination and compelled me to explain more about my background.

I had two family homes in my youth, one up to the age of six, and the other that is still my parents' house to the present day. I have vibrant memories of the first house and the feelings it evokes. My parents were simple working people so it was very modest. I remember my dad working all hours, leaving the house at 6am and sometimes not returning until 10pm slaving away as a dockworker. Bringing up a family of three - two older sisters and l'il ole me - could not have been easy. I remember Sunday night bath time where quite often I would have to use the same water used previously by my sister, which was never a pleasant thought. I guess "pecking order" was the order of the day... it's such a downer being the youngest!

The house was full of rules and strict time schedules. Summer nights spent kicking a football against the side wall was always curtailed at 7pm when I was sent to bed with no chance of an appeal! My lack of power and my parents' iron fist just frustrated my desire to have fun.

My only escape was the radio and my big sister's record player. I would listen to the pop stations at every opportunity I could, learning all the words to my favourite songs while falling under the spell of the artists who seemed otherworldly to me. One of my inspirational records was the single by Stevie Wonder For Once in My Life. The pure joy that jumped off the vinyl hearing young Stevie talking about "love" would get me so exhilarated and questioning just what this feeling was that could create such exuberance and excitement. I truly believe that this music escapism fuelled my decision to pursue fun and excitement at all costs in teenage and adult life.

It was a real-working class community where everyone knew everybody else's business. Various colourful characters and local legends lay behind every front door. My idol was the wayward son of the rough family who lived on the corner. Legend had it that he was in and out of prison for various charges of street fighting. My adoration of his dark and seemingly glamorous lifestyle was matched only by my mum's determination for me never to talk to him!

With a head full of dreams and desires for a life less ordinary, we left that house when I was six but the ripples are still spreading across the pond of my personality today. Part two of this saga continues next week…

Looking-Back-ingly Yours
  G*Nice