My Porch .... A Memory

When I was a kid, we had a porch and it was like a little den to me. The porch had a plain red tiled floor, tiled with a mix of brightly colour tiles either side to about half way up the wall. The walls above the tiles was old and tired looking with peeling paint but it was still a cool place.

I remember sitting on the doorstep watching the rainfall, or the birds feeding on some stale bread I’d threw out onto the road. Sometimes I would sneak some fresh bread just so I could sit and watch the birds keeping it secret from mum who would be none too happy I was wasting bread. On a sunny day, it was a cool place to sit if there was no direct sunlight shining through the doorway as the tiles would feel cold.

There would be empty milk bottles piling up ready for the early morning arrival of the milkman to take them away. It was known for me to smash the odd bottle and I would be sure to tell mum it was an accident. In the morning, the milk would be there in the porch and hopefully the birds had got to ready for breakfast and I would normally have Weetabix with milk and hot water.

My mum would wash the porch and if it were wet, you would have to jump over it with a run and jump like Lynn (the leap) Davies when he won the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo in 1964. I like to sit there and make dad clamber over me. He would smile in his baggy blue works overalls, always baggy has he was the slightest of dads but with a beautiful heart. Over would go a steel toe boot followed by the other one carefully missing my young head.

Friends would gather in my little porch to chat, plan, and just hangout. Once my porch conspired to get me four of the best, (the cane) when a little ditty was laid at my door. The song ‘Hitler he’s only got one ball’ was attributed to me when in fact it was told to me while sitting in my poach. It was taken into the schoolyard where upon the blame for bring the song into school was put around my neck hence four of the best. By the away, I was about 8/9 years-old.

Porches on the whole have disappeared now behind outer doors or some tacky plastic extension, which is a real shame.