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Our gran lived in a small terraced house in Arbury Road, Cambridge all her married life-well over sixty years. As children we regularly visited her and for all this period her front door was painted a vivid green colour, a green that I can recall with great clarity to this day.

Arbury road, Arbury green,
Arbury days, a kind of dream.
Behind her green front door
Her simple, unchanging home;
Each room an installation of light and furniture
Held forever in the attic of the mind.
Behind our Gran’s green door.

The front room, bright light -box room,
Where an old piano that never played hot, sat for a while.
Our ancient nana who never played hot sat here for a while.
Neither stayed for very long
The one replaced by a clever red sofa bed,
The other replaced by space.
Behind our Gran’s green door.

The back room, dark, dark-box room.
Where deep brown dining furniture,
Brows down, stood and glowered.
Potted people and Toby jugs sat in glazed guardianship of mantle and bookshelf.
Now pot-like phantoms
Populate this eerie stage set:
Gran held forever in a chuckling grin,
Pipe poking uncle, eyes ever smiling
Caught in mid watery story of Cambridge eights
Behind our Gran’s green door.

The kitchen, oh that kitchen!
From which flowed simple fish-paste thin hospitality.
An undesigned, unfitted splendid shrine to the modest gods of utility,
Where water, gas and electricity were grudgingly allowed in to help;
It sneered at convenience, eschewed comfort, and cold shouldered efficiency
Behind our Gran’s green door.

© David Johnson, November 2009