Room

ROOM

Funerals, Weddings, Christenings, Birthdays, they'd all been celebrated in this room. Laughter, tears, and the odd fight on occasion, the Community Room of the Dale Hall Estate had seen them all over the years.

Situated in the centre of the estate it was the hub of the whole community, of course its hey day was in the 60's when the estate was first built. In those days there was something going on every day, and night of the week however, that was in the days not many households had a television and children played out in the street rather than hiding away in their bedrooms playing on a PlayStation which would have been considered science fiction fantasy in those days.

I remember when we moved onto the estate, I couldn't have been happier a brand new house with all mod cons on a nice new estate and when I got the job of caretaker for the Community Room it just put the cherry on top of things. I wasn't paid a lot of money for doing the job but it helped buy a few little luxuries and I enjoyed it from day one.

When somebody had booked the room I would come and unlock the door for them, make sure everything was OK and leave them to it. Obviously I had to come back when they had done what they wanted to, tidy up and lock up again. The room wasn't huge but it was big enough to hold about one hundred people quite comfortably. The walls were painted a dusky blue when the room had first been built, obviously over the years we changed the colour scheme and put up wall paper. When wood chip was "all the rage we made the mistake of putting that on the walls. Boy! Did we know about it when we came to wallpaper again two years later, it took forever to get off the walls.

I always took pride in my job, tried to keep the place tidy and clean. It got harder over the years as peoples respect for things that weren't theirs wore away. At one time you could leave your house door open and know that you'd come home and nothing would be touched, in these last few years you didn't feel safe going out, and didn't feel safe in your house unless you had locks galore on both outside doors. Times have changed and not for the better.

We did have some trouble not so long ago, somebody had broken in and pinched everything from the kitchen area - kettle, microwave, tea, coffee - just everything. The things in there didn't cost a fortune but that wasn't the point. On the upside we rediscovered some community spirit as somebody on the estate must have known who had taken the stuff as it was left in a bin bag on my front door step one night.

The Mums and Toddlers group was one of my favourites to look after, for the past four years I've opened up the room and put the kettle on ready for when they come in and stay around to have a natter with the Mums and give a bit of advice here and there. Having brought up five kids I am somewhat of any expert on childcare now. Mind you when those kids get hold of biscuits theres a fair bit of cleaning up to do after them!
We always hold the OAP Christmas dinner at the Community room as well. I remember one year Arthur Denton, he's dead now, managed to lose his dentures. Nobody saw them go, and we looked everywhere but we couldn't find them for love nor money. Would you believe it they turned up in one of the large tea pots two weeks later, which gave one of the helpers of the Church group a real scare I can tell you.

Bookings for groups and things seemed to go downhill about five years ago and slowly got worse from there. To be honest it was a blessing for me as my old legs didn't work the way they used to and I used to find it an effort rather than a joy to look after the room. Eventually I had to admit defeat and call it a day going into "retirement at 82 and went to live in sheltered housing down the road from where I'd lived for 54 years. I had my memories and my nick nacks which were enough to keep me company in between the few visitors I had.

My Daughter in Law, Louise, took over looking after the Community room when I moved about six months ago. She lives on the estate with my eldest Anthony, along with their three children. All smashers but then all Grannies are biased. There isn't much to do these days in fact the most she had to do was go down every time the burglar alarm went off - what a sad state of affairs.

The demolition order for the estate came through the letterboxes about six months ago. To be fair the council tried to re-house people where they wanted to go. Some people weren't happy but you can't please all the people all of the time, and lets face it the estate wasn't what it used to be - empty houses went up in number every week, if not everyday and the more desolate it became the more trouble was attracted. No, things aren't what they used to be.

The Community Room is due to be demolished this week, it won't be replaced, what's the point nobody would use it. I've heard them talking, "Doris would turn in her grave if she was here to see this, they think I don't hear them, but I do. You may not see me, but I'm here looking down always taking care of things.