Few of the one hundred-or-so working-class families living on Dover’s post-war prefab estate could afford the luxury of wall to wall carpet, and ours was no exception. In common with many households of the time the floor covering in our home consisted chiefly of patterned linoleum. In our case the chosen colour scheme for the lino was a mixture of green, cream and brown in a confusion of square and rectangular shapes with a wide border, which survived for all of the sixteen years that I lived in the prefab.

The living-room itself was quite warm and cosy, after the fire had been alight for a couple of hours, with a large square of carpet in the centre of the room and a small rag rug in front of the fire, which was the sole domain of my cat Tibbs – or so he believed. During the winter months when the wind was whistling between the little flat roofed homes, and the snow was piled high against the front door, and only the sound of the steam locomotives struggling up the nearby gradient to confirm that life remained in the outside world, Tibbs and I could be found passing many a happy hour sitting on the fireside rug, side by side.

With the light off and only the glow of the fire to illuminate the small room I would site cross-legged, my chin cupped in my hands staring into the ever changing flames. He, with closed eyes, would purr in warm contentment as the wireless entertained us both with such programmes as “The Archers”, “Sing Something Simple” or the spooky, or so it seemed to me, science fiction serial “Journey Into Space”.

In total contrast to the living-room my bedroom was austere to say the least. One side of the room I had a chest of drawers, on the other a small bookcase and a built-in wardrobe. To dispel any images of luxury, the built-in wardrobe was nothing more than a recess covered by a curtain. The sole protection for my feet from the coldness of the floor was a rag rug on either side of my metal-framed bed and there was no heating in the room whatsoever. I can remember waking up on many a cold, winter’s morning, following a severe frost, only to find that a thick layer of ice had formed on the inside of my bedroom window. Though I must admit, I had great fun chiselling out patterns or a funny face in the ice with my finger nail!