At the moment every spare minute I have has been ‘invested’ in ripping out tiles, dragging around floorboards and scraping off wallpaper. I have finally found my first place of my own! It is perfect for Champ and I, buried in North London, next to a park and plenty of cake shops.
However much I love my little Victorian basement, last Saturday I grew to love it a WHOLE lot more. When I cleared out an old cupboard filled with cigarette butts and oozing old paraffin lamps. Because once I had thrown out several suitcases and piles of old gas bills, I bravely dug a little deeper and pulled out what I can only describe as buried treasure. Boxes and boxes of love letters and photographs.
From spending the past week reading and scouring the internet I have discovered that all of the photographs, enormous Ministry of Health folder and Plans for the Pagham Beach Bungalows (!) all belonged to Mr Nichols…..who was in fact an architect and surveyor, and quite a prestigious one at that-after all not everyone in the 1800’s worked for the Lord of Kensington.
As you can see he was extraordinarily talented…how wonderful to think that once upon a time he lived in my little flat! I plan to try and find his family to return his wonderful photographs – the hundreds that somehow got left behind.
As an avid collector of old photographs I was thrilled to find all of this….But I didn’t realise that the best was yet to come…
xxx
