Nancy Street

There's a lot of good memories associated with this place, but there's a few bad ones as well, seeing it was the site of a lot of my misfortunes. The house was more than half my life. As a child, I no doubt believed that I would ever leave this place, and now, I feel that I will never set foot in it ever again.

By the age of four, it was the third home I had lived in, and the second one since we had moved to Tamworth. By this time by brother Darren had been born, and with my sister Jo-Anne's arrival in 1974, the family was complete.

I had seen the house and yard go through many transformations. A large tree from the back yard had been removed to make way for an outdoor dining area, a large fernhouse that I use to climb on top of eventually made way for an above ground pool, and the Hill's Hoist that we used to swing on was replaced by a more modern line. A cubbyhouse came and went, and so did a large metal swingset.

Even though I haven't set foot inside the house for well over ten years now, I can still recall every room from memory, like I've got 3D images permanently embedded inside my head. There were three bedrooms inside the house, and a fourth to accommodate my brother outside, which was constructed from a section of the garage. There was a loungeroom, a kitchen (the dining table from it I still have), two bathrooms, laundry and a front and a back verandah. In the back verandah was a log fireplace, whilst in the lounge was an old gas heater. As a kid, I used to lie in that lounge room in the dark watching the purple and orange flames dance. There was even a big old black and white television in there that we used to gather around and watch as a family. During the summer at night time, when I was much older, I would often take a portable TV set onto the front verandah, and watch the day-night cricket matches, whilst working on one of my many projects.

Mum and dad were especially fond of gardening. Out the front there were plenty of shrubs, plants, flowers, and trees, including a bottle-brush. Out the back there was a vegetable garden, where they grew all manner of stuff. The back garden also become a pet cemetery, with a number of animals buried there from our dachshund Sebastian to our ancient goldfish Fred (believe me, he was just too big to flush down the toilet!). I occasionally wonder if the more recent tenants of the house had ever unearthed any of their remains?

The last Turner left that place in 1996, after my brother cleared out when his first fiancé left him. By that time, my sister and her husband John rented the house out, before finally selling in it 1997. A few years ago I was able to get a look at the house, on one of my trips up north. The new owners had given a new coat of paint, and had done some work on the yard. It was looking good.

You can see the back of the house from the railway tracks, which divide the suburbs of South Tamworth and Coledale. Every time I take the train back to the coast, I make sure that I'm looking out the window at the right time to catch a glimpse of the place.

Sigh, so many memories. Too many to put down here.