Finally, Google Street View has arrived in London. Now I can conduct virtual tours of places of genealogical interest to me. Here is a picture of the house my father was born in:

Look how narrow the house is! My grandparents lived here from about 1930. My granddad finally left it in 1978 when he came to live in Australia with my uncle, following the death of my grandmother. She died here, as did one of my great grandfathers. My family stayed here when I was three, in the mid-seventies. They didn’t have a bathroom, so I used to be bathed in the kitchen sink. There was a blind lady who lived next door, Mrs Spence. I remember her feeling around in a drawer to find me a lolly. I also recall the strong smell of creosote,  with which my dad and granddad were painting the back yard fence. I was afraid of something in the cupboard upstairs, which prevented me from sleeping – I think it turned out to be the vacuum cleaner. On my grandmother’s dresser was a lace doily with a frosted glass lidded dish. Another neighbour had pink wallpaper.

That’s about all I can remember. Not bad for a three year old!