How many times have you said that in your life? I still whisper it in quiet moments when I think about the people who lived in my house before me.
We moved a lot when I was growing up, but one house in particular has stayed with me. It was where I spent my teenage years.
Those years of discovering music, experimenting with fashion, and slowly transitioning into adulthood were formative. Even more so because it was a time before social media, when our influences came from family, friends, magazines, and the occasional glimpse of something inspiring on one of the three television channels.
The second book I ever wrote was called Behind Closed Doors. It’s being republished soon after a tidy‑up. I set it in that house in Manchester. The characters walk the same streets, visit the same pubs, wander the same parks, and shop in the same places I once did. It’s been wonderfully nostalgic to work on.
Recently, the house came back on the market. It meant I could take a peek inside, and the memories came flooding back.
If walls could talk…
Here are a few comparisons from when I lived there. Same walls, same paths, fifty years apart. And yes — that’s me in the ‘fashionable’ bright‑red hot pants.
I don’t have a photo of my old bedroom, but I used this image to help recreate the room for Kerry in Behind Closed Doors. A lot happens in that space, so I thought it would be fun to ask AI to produce a picture based on my memories. I even got it to add the posters Kerry loved — although one of them is questionable. She adores Roxy Music, and my teenage walls would have been covered with David Cassidy and Marty Kristian from The New Seekers.
Mum and Dad had an extra bedroom built on top of the kitchen extension. The entrance was through my room, and I remember how it held bunk beds for the foster children who stayed with us.
It amazed me to see that, more than fifty years later, the same opening was still there.
I’ve had the idea to create a page for readers as a link at the end of the book. They’ll be able to see Kerry’s house and bedroom, and even walk in her footsteps around the area, visiting the places she went to so often.
Make sure you’re subscribed here for when Behind Closed Doors is re‑released.
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