the toy cupboard

It was known as the “toy cupboard” but to me, it was the portal to another world.

It was next to the bath I spoke about earlier. Built into an alcove, there was a large copper water cylinder above, which kept it comfortably warm. The toy cupboard measured about three by four feet and a couple of feet high. There were lead water pipes running around the bottom of the walls, where spiders and silverfish sometimes lurked. Two old wooden boxes were kept inside to hold most of our toys. I would often climb into one of them and shut the door. It was a place where I felt safe and private, a haven from a world I was still unsure of. Sometimes I’d fall asleep.

Other times it was a place of excitement – a cinema, a car or a spaceship. It was our stage for make-belief adventures. I had a toy battery operated slide projector. The slides had images from the comic strip Dan Dare. Sometimes the four of us – me, Barry and the two Shirleys – would climb into the toy boxes that became our seats of a 1950s space rocket! I would sit in the front and be the projectionist, illuminating the flaky whitewashed wall, transforming it into a window to outer space. We spent many hours exploring this new universe, fighting aliens and out-running them in our low-tech, toy box rocket. Eventually it would get unbearably hot or the appearance of a spider would ensure a hasty exit from the escape hatch!