Staircases and Corridors

One of the slight disadvantages of the Warner flats is, I think when they were originally built, people were a lot fitter, because the stairs are a bit steep. I should have actually thought about that, thinking that I’m going to get older in the flat. The handrail is definitely needed if you’re a bit infirm or have difficulty going up and down the stairs, as the stairs are quite steep, especially the back stairs, going down to the garden, they are very very steep.

Martin, Lloyd Road

B: I can remember the summer of 1959 was quite a long hot summer, and my mum and dad bought a fridge. The first fridges used to be big and bulbous to them, and it was the first fridge that was small, square and compact. It was called a Prestcold Packaway. And it was advertised that you could even fit it on the wall. Ours didn’t go on the wall, our fridge was on the landing.

S: Yes because your mum’s flat was exceptionally small, wasn’t it

B: It was very small, and we didn’t have room in the kitchen, or the scullery, for a fridge, we had it on the landings, up near the bedrooms, you know.

S: if you wanted to make a cup of tea, you had to go up the passage to get the milk out. Ours was put in a larder, we had larders in those days, my dad put it in half the larder, because you just didn’t have room in what was the kitchen.

Bob & Sylvia, Keith Road

That end of the flat goes concrete, so you know that there would have been an outside loo, and the stairs.. there’s a cupboard under the stairs and it used to have a slatted door on it, but with health and safety being what it is, they’ve got to have fire doors and everything, so they took that away and this wag from Ascham Homes said I could keep it if I want, and I said oh right well I’d rather keep it, and he said oh just lean it against your bedroom wall then. I thought you stupid idiot… He knew exactly what I was talking about, because it had character, because that was probably what it would have been, it probably was a coal shed or something under there, I don’t know.

Paul, Leucha Road

We’ve done the front door up recently, again it’s that sense of pride, not just doing the inside, it’s doing a nice front door with a nice colour. And the front corridor is very narrow, it’s not a place where you go- you can’t lounge there, but we still find it significant because it’s where we see each other, in the morning, and in the evening for the first time, so we try to have a good feel to it.

Marta, Seymour Road

The layout is amazing and I remember when I came to see it, because Claire didn’t come with me when I came the first time, and I was trying to describe it to her afterwards and I was just sort of saying, it goes on forever, this flat, you just walk in through the front door and there’s a corridor and then it turns a corridor, and it goes on and on and on, it’s the longest flat I’ve ever been in, and I just think it works really well, from what looks like from the outside a two up two down to actually being enormous and for all the rooms to have decent sized windows, it’s such a good design.

Judith, Hibbert Road