Wordless Wednesday is a simple blog post featuring a photo. It seeks to convey a message or tell a story, but speaks for itself without using words. Mrs P took this photo at St Pancras station in London in October 2025. It features a 90m long “art wall tunnel”, created using LED lights sitting behind toughened glass, that links the station with Pancras Square and Coal Drops Yard. Spooky!
Mrs P and I enjoy a colourful sculpture trail. They are plainly not high art, but they’re good fun and raise the spirits at a time when events – both international and here in the UK – are profoundly depressing. We have travelled to various parts of the country in pursuit of these trails, so it was a pleasant surprise when we discovered that our local area was to host its very own trail under the title of Ay Up Me Duck.
“Sunset over Amber Valley” by Rachel &Phillipa Corcutt (on display in Alfreton)
For those who don’t know – and I guess that’s almost everyone who’s never lived in the East Midlands region of the UK – “ay up me duck” is a traditional, casual way of greeting men and women who are your friends, or to whom you feel well disposed. I suppose it’s a bit like saying “hi, how’re you doing”, but it’s unique to this part of the country, and as such is a way of celebrating a shared local identity. Organising a sculpture trail that references this phrase is therefore a good way of reinforcing a positive community spirit, while the body shape of a duck gives ample opportunity for artists to show off their talents.
TOP LEFT: “Ay up, Belper” by Carla Dee (on display in Belper); TOP CENTRE: “Duk n Love” by Oliver Jamin (in Alfreton); TOP RIGHT: “Amber Sun” by Rebecca Grantham (in Ripley); BOTTOM: “Bee-ky” by Lynne Hollingsworth (in Heanor)
The Ay Up Me Duck trail features eight large, colourful ducks prominently displayed in the towns of Belper, Alfreton, Ripley and Heanor (two ducks per town) as well as a host of mini-ducks in shop windows. The large ducks are mostly decorated with images of notable landmarks to be seen in our corner of Derbyshire, as well as some of the wildlife that can be found here. The mini-ducks are more quirky and include one sporting a ceremonial guardsman’s uniform, another that appears to be a strange hybrid of duck and kangaroo, and third dressed up as a pirate. Weird, eh!
Mini-ducks, just a few centimetres tall, seen in shop windows. LEFT: “Guardsman Duck”; CENTRE: “Kangaroo Duck”; RIGHT: “Pirate Duck”.
All the ducks are located in, or very close to, retail areas of the towns involved. As well as boosting civic pride the aim of projects like this is, in part, to encourage more visits to the area in which the sculpture trail is located. This is no bad thing given that all local town centres – except Belper’s – are looking increasingly rundown, thanks to competition from online shopping and out-of-town retail parks.
“Derwent Duck” by Rebecca Mortledge (on display in Belper)
To some degree the trail seemed to be paying dividends, as we saw numerous families ticking off the ducks they’d successfully tracked down on their trail guides. It even persuaded Mrs P and I to visit a couple of places within just a few miles of our home that we’ve not seen for many years. Whether we, or those other families, will go back again after the ducks have been removed is doubtful, but for a few short weeks the Ay Up Me Duck trail is creating a bit of a buzz – or do I mean a quack? – around the Amber Valley district of Derbyshire. It is, I think, a most welcome initiative in these difficult times.
During a recent trip to London our ambition to escape the familiar tourist treadmill led us to visit Leighton House, the former home of a prominent 19th century artist and lord of the realm. Frederic Leighton (1830-1896), the artist son of a Yorkshire doctor, was successful, well-travelled and wealthy, and in the mid-1860s he started work on a new house in the Holland Park area of the city. The result was spectacular.
The Arab Hall
Leighton’s intention was to build a house that would function as his artist’s studio, while also serving as a work of art in its own right. In so doing he was able to channel his creativity, to indulge his passions and to show off some of the more exotic items in his personal collection.
The Arab Hall
The undoubted star of the show at Leighton House is the Arab Hall, a space that was inspired by the architecture and gardens the artist had seen on his travels in North Africa, the Middle East and Sicily. The Arab Hall displays Leighton’s collection of tiles, most of which were made in Damascus between the late 16th and early 17th centuries, as well as works by contemporary artists he commissioned to help bring his vision to life.
The Arab Hall. In the bottom photo the Arab Hall is viewed from the Narcissus Hall. The statue is of Narcissus, who plainly fancies himself!
The Arab Hall was part of an extension added to the house in the 1870s. It was completed in 1882, and is said to have cost more than the whole of the original building. Money well spent, I think! Leighton is reported to have said of the Arab Hall that he wanted to create “something beautiful to look at”. Well, he succeeded, that’s for sure. It is simply stunning, all the more so for being so totally unlike anything you would ever expect to see in London.
Top Left: In the garden “A Moment of Peril”, a sculpture by Sir Thomas Brock created in 1881. Bottom Left: Rear view of Leighton House, from the garden. Right: View of Leighton House from the street; you would never guess what lurks within, would you?
Leighton was an eminent figure in the English arts scene in the latter half of the 19th century. He painted both portraits and landscapes, dabbled in sculpture and was a big player in the Aesthetic Movement, which championed “art for art’s sake,” prioritising beauty, sensuality, and visual pleasure over practical considerations.
The Silk Room was used to display paintings by artists who Leighton admired.
Frederic Leighton was highly respected in the artistic community, as demonstrated by the fact that in 1878 he became President of the Royal Academy of Arts, the prestigious, London-based institution that was founded in 1768 to promote visual arts through education and exhibitions.
Two paintings by Frederic Leighton.
Such was the esteem in which Leighton was held that on January 24th 1896 he was made a Lord, becoming Baron Leighton. It was a record-breaking elevation to the nobility as he was the first painter ever to have received a peerage. He probably felt pleased with himself, but sadly that did not last long. Just one day later, on 25 January 1896, Baron Leighton died, enabling Frederic to break another – and altogether more unwelcome record: nobody in the history of English nobility has ever held a peerage for less time than poor old Fred!
The Dining Room was mainly used for the display of pottery.
Baron Leighton therefore had no time in which build a reputation in the House of Lords as a formidable debater and champion of the arts. From that perspective he was – through no fault of his own, of course – a complete nonentity. But who really cares about that? The building of Leighton House, and particularly the creation of its Arab Hall, has secured Frederic, Baron Leighton’s legacy for all time.
Last week we took a short trip to get up close and personal with the sun. Well not THE sun, obviously, but rather an art installation at nearby Kedleston Hall that portrays the surface of the sun in breathtaking detail, complete with sunspots and swirling solar winds. Helios is the work of artist Luke Jerram*, who based his creation on thousands of images of the sun collected by NASA and other astronomical organisations.
It’s easy to understand why Jerram was inspired to create Helios, which is named after the ancient Greek god of the sun. Did you know that our sun is 4.5 billion years old, and has about the same amount of time left until it runs out of gas? And it’s very, very hot! The surface of the sun is around 5,500°C, while its core has a mind boggling temperature of 15 million°C. Our sun has a diameter of 1.4 million kilometres (855,000 miles), but is just around average in size – some other stars are up to 100 times bigger. Wow!
Jerram’s brightly illuminated piece is 7 metres in diameter, and totally dominated the grand – 19 metres high – saloon hall in which it was suspended. The scale is mind-blowing, with one centimetre of the sculpture representing 2,000 kilometres of the real sun’s surface. Clearly, our sun is one really big dude. As if to make the point, displayed in an adjacent room and made to the same scale was a tiny model of the Earth. It really put us in our place; this planet, which to us seems impossibly huge, is a mere pimple when viewed from a cosmic perspective.
However, not everyone seemed convinced. Two other visitors, nerdy types – men, of course – were a bit agitated. They complained that although the representations of the Earth and the sun may have been made to the same scale, the distance between them had been miscalculated. According to their calculations, the model of the Earth should rightly have been positioned outside in the carpark, or maybe even half-way to the nearby city of Derby. I could barely stifle my yawns – why couldn’t they just appreciate Luke Jerram’s creativity, rather than droning on tediously about impenetrable mathematics? Life’s too short, guys!
Coinciding with the Helios exhibition at Kedleston Hall** was a celebration of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. This, I’m sure, was no coincidence. Diwali celebrates the victory of light over darkness, so programming an art installation with the sun at its very heart to run alongside a Diwali celebration was a stroke of genius.
This photo features Diwali decorations on the floor of the grand Marble Hall. Through the open door to the rear you can glimpse the lower part of Helios, suspended in the Saloon Hall.
This was the third consecutive year in which Kedleston has celebrated Diwali. Many Derby residents share a cultural heritage derived from the Indian sub-continent, and Diwali celebrations are therefore big in the city. Extending those celebrations a few miles north seems entirely appropriate, particularly in view of Kedleston’s historical links with India. Those links date back over a century to one of the stately home’s former owners – George Nathaniel Curzon, a.k.a. Lord Curzon (1859–1925) – who served as Viceroy of India between 1899 and 1905. Kedleston still displays many artefacts and artworks that Curzon brought back from his travels.
The Diwali celebrations introduced an unexpected splash of colour to Kedleston. At their heart were displays of hundreds of hand-crafted marigolds, which decorated several of the rooms. In Indian culture marigolds are used extensively in religious festivals, weddings and other ceremonies to symbolise purity, positivity and the divine, and they certainly brought a hint of the exotic to this traditionally English stately home. Other Diwali elements on display included clay oil lamps to light the way, and rangoli light projections.
Although fairly modest, Kedleston’s Diwali celebrations were good to see, and served as a potent reminder of the diverse population living within just a few miles of this grand building. I wonder what the old Viceroy would have made of them?
As we drove away from Kedleston Hall, having spent the afternoon in the company of the sun, and being inspired by the hope that is implicit in the Diwali festival, I found myself quietly singing a masterpiece by the late, sadly lamented George Harrison.
All four of the Beatles briefly embraced Indian culture following visits to that country in 1966 and 1968, but only George Harrison really got it. Much of George’s subsequent work was inspired directly or indirectly by Indian culture and religion, including I believe the wonderful “Here Comes the Sun” which appeared on the Beatles’ Abbey Road album in 1969. If you don’t know the song, or even if you do and would like to wallow in it one more time, listen to it here courtesy of YouTube.
* Postscript: Another work by Luke Jerram
A couple of years ago another work by Luke Jerram was exhibited at Derby Cathedral. On that occasion his chosen subject was the moon, suspended impressively above the nave. Clearly, he is fascinated by all things astronomical.
** Postscript: More on Kedleston Hall
My home county of Derbyshire is blessed with many grand stately homes. Kedleston is one of my favourites, and I have blogged about it before. You can read more about Kedleston Hall, and enjoy more of Mrs P’s photos, here and here.
Wordless Wednesday is a simple blog post featuring a photo. It seeks to convey a message or tell a story, but speaks for itself without using words. Mrs P took this photo of a Paddington Bear tucking into a marmalade sandwich at John O’Groats (in the far north of Scotland) earlier this year.
Wandering through the centre of Birmingham a few weeks ago, we were delighted to encounter The Floozie in the Jacuzzi flaunting her wares seductively in Victoria Square. More properly known as The River, the lovely lady is a bubbling fountain, a landmark popular both with local residents and with visitors to the city like me and Mrs P. She’s definitely a bit of an eyeful.
“The Floozie in the Jacuzzi” (aka “The River”) by Dhruva Mistry
Dhruva Mistry’s sculpture dates back to 1993. It’s said that his water goddess represents the life force, and was conceived as a vehicle for instilling a feeling of ‘peace and safety’ amongst people visiting this busy city centre. The good folk of Birmingham appear to have decided that this explanation is maybe a bit pretentious, and that the The Floozie in the Jacuzzi sums her up a lot better. Who am I to argue?
Another piece of Birmingham’s public art celebrates three men who made important contributions to the development of the steam engine in the late 18th century, and who were therefore key players in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. James Watt (1736-1819) was an ideas man who came up with various improvements to the basic steam engine, while Matthew Boulton (1728-1809) was a wealthy businessman who provided the funding to put Watt’s ideas into practice. They went into partnership in Birmingham in 1775, and the highly practical William Murdoch (1754-1839) formally joined that partnership in 1810.
“The Golden Boys” (aka “The Carpet Salesmen”) by William Bloye and Raymond Forbes-Kings
The homage to the three princes of steam dates from 1956, and is the work of William Bloye (formerly head of sculpture at Birmingham School of Art) and sculptor Raymond Forbes-Kings. Unsurprisingly, it is known as The Golden Boys. More unexpectedly, however, locally the alternative name for the piece is The Carpet Salesmen, reflecting the fact that the plans for a steam engine that the three men are inspecting looks suspiciously like a bit of carpet. Oh, how I love the cheeky irreverence of Birmingham folk!
Another eye-catching piece of artwork in Birmingham city centre is A Real Birmingham Family, a cast bronze sculpture by award-winning artist Gillian Wearing. The subject matter is unconventional, and features two ordinary local women and their sons. The women are sisters, one of whom is pregnant – her second son was born shortly before the sculpture was unveiled in 2014.
“A Real Birmingham Family” by Gillian Wearing
No review of public art in Birmingham would be complete without reference to bulls. The city’s famous Bull Ring shopping centre is built on a site that was for centuries used for the brutal “sport” of bull-baiting. The practice was outlawed in 1835, but the name continues to be associated with that part of the city and is remembered through Laurence Broderick’s magnificent bronze sculpture. The Bull was installed in 2003, and in my eyes portrays the animal as a noble and powerful beast, rather than as the victim of an appalling blood sport.
“The Bull” by Laurence Broderick
There is of course another equally, if not more famous piece of public art celebrating Birmingham’s connection with bulls. I have written previously about the Raging Bull, which was commissioned to open the Commonwealth Games held in Birmingham in 2023. A couple of years after the games, Raging Bull was relocated to New Street Station, and renamed Ozzy in honour of local heavy metal music hero Ozzy Osborne. We were delighted to see Ozzy in his new location when we visited earlier in the summer, where he was continuing to draw in hordes of admirers.
Ozzy the Bull, star of the Commonwealth Games 2023, now residing at New Street Station
Ozzy Osborne was born in 1948, and grew up in the Aston area of Birmingham. He co-founded the pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and rose to prominence in the 1970s as their lead vocalist. After being fired by the band in 1979 due to his problems with alcohol and drugs, he began a solo music career and later became a reality television star. Ozzy died in late July 2025. He had remained for decades a much loved son of Birmingham, and it was clear during our visit there shortly after his death that the pain caused by his passing was still raw.
Mural featuring Black Sabbath. Ozzy Osborne is third from the left
Heavy metal music is not really my thing, but one song by Black Sabbath is etched into my memory. Released in 1970, Paranoid is a bitter, gut-wrenching exploration of depression and despair. The lyrics are as follows:
Finished with my woman ’cause
She couldn’t help me with my mind
People think I’m insane because
I am frowning all the time
All day long I think of things
But nothing seems to satisfy
Think I’ll lose my mind
If I don’t find something to pacify
Can you help me
Occupy my brain?
Oh yeah
I need someone to show me
The things in life that I can’t find
I can’t see the things that make
True happiness, I must be blind
Make a joke and I will sigh
And you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I cannot feel
And love to me is so unreal
And so as you hear these words
Telling you now of my state
I tell you to enjoy life
I wish I could but it’s too late
Source: LyricFind
Ozzy didn’t write the lyrics Paranoid – they were the work of bandmate Geezer Butler – but did create the melody. His early years were very challenging, and Ozzy said later that as a teenager he attempted suicide on multiple occasions. Perhaps this is why his performance as lead vocalist on Paranoid is so powerful. You can listen to Ozzy doing his stuff by clicking on the following YouTube link.
Birmingham lost one of its favourite sons when Ozzy Osborne died on 22 July, just 17 days after what had been billed as his final live performance. He clearly remains close to the heart of the people of his home city, a genuine working class hero. Rest in Peace, Ozzy.
Detail from a poster promoting a summer 2025 exhibition in Birmingham about Ozzy’s solo career
For readers unfamiliar with the place, Norwich is a historic city in the east of England that is famed for its magnificent medieval architecture and mustard! It’s not somewhere a visitor might reasonably expect to encounter giraffes, rhinos or elephants. But these critters, as well as some lions and the occasional gorilla, were all strutting their stuff in Norwich when we took a trip there a few weeks ago.
“Ankara” by Julie Allum
The reason for the invasion was the GoGo Safari, a temporary public art trail featuring around 50 sculptures decorated by professional artists, sponsored by local businesses and curated by Wild in Art. As well as adding some welcome splashes of colour to the local street-scene, the GoGo Safari project is raising funds to support Break, a local not-for-profit organisation that seeks to make life better for young people on the edge of care, in care and leaving care.
Left: “Head in the Clouds” by the Pink Hare. Centre Top: “Prideoscope” by David Cutts. Centre Bottom: “No Charge” by Alix Carter. Right: “Giraffiti” by Donna Newman
Various fundraising initiatives are linked to the Safari, the most significant being a public auction of the sculptures a few weeks after the trail closes. Based on experience at similar events elsewhere, the average price of the sculptures is predicted to be around £6k to £7k (USD 8k to 9.5k), meaning that the whole event should raise a sizeable sum for a very worthy cause.
Left: “Swifts” by Rosalind Harrison. Centre: “Silverback” by Daniel Bland. Right: “Sprinkles” by Emma Everitt.
Sadly, Mrs P and I won’t be bidding at the auction! Although many of the sculptures are fabulous, their expected price is way beyond what we’re able to spend on a decorative item for the garden. However, walking the streets of Norwich in search of random rhinos and sundry other colourful characters was a great way to spend a couple of days. The artworks were impressive, and it was interesting to meet and share ideas with other folk on a similar mission.
Top Left: “Yarns” by Karis Youngman. Centre Left: “Savannah” by Rachael Butler. Bottom Left: “Postcards from Norfolk” by Charlotte Brayley. Right: “Norfolk by Night” by Jodie Silverman
While the design of some of the sculptures is purely decorative, others feature local themes and places. All the Fun of the Fair (below), for example, takes whimsical inspiration from the nearby Thursford Steam Museum.
“All the Fun of the Fair” by Karis Youngman
And the detail on some of the sculptures is very eye-catching. Just why the rhino sculpture (below) is called Andy remains a mystery to me, but the birds adorning his ample body were splendidly handsome.
“Andy” by Franklin Rackham
Another positive aspect of the project is the opportunity for schools and community groups to contribute through decorating their own small giraffe. We were delighted to encounter this herd of “Mini G’s” (below) in the Chantry Place shopping centre.
A herd of little giraffes (Mini Gs) at the Chantry Place shopping centre, all designed and decorated by local schools and community groups
Everyone, it seems, was having a good time on the GoGo Safari trail, and it was particularly encouraging to see the excitement on the faces of little children when they spotted another spectacularly decorated sculpture. The event closes in just a few days, but similar initiatives happen up and down the country every summer and occasionally abroad. They are definitely worth checking out if you ever get the chance.
We broke our long journey to Orkney by calling in on the Lady of the North. She promised so much, a naked, voluptuous goddess sprawling erotically across the Northumbrian landscape. You don’t see one of those every day, do you? But, if I’m honest, there’s much less to the Lady than meets the eye.
The Lady, who is also known as Northumberlandia after the county in which she resides, is the work of American landscape designer Charles Jencks (1939 -2019). He created this effigy of a recumbent naked woman, 400 metres long with grassy breasts 34 metres high, between 2010 and 2012.
To achieve his goal Jencks used spoil from a nearby opencast coal mine – some 1.5 million tonnes of rock, clay and soil – shaping it carefully into the improbable form we see today. Most spoil heaps are an ugly blot on the landscape, so it was good to come across an example of one being put to creative use.
The Lady is the centrepiece of a freely accessible Community Park. Criss-crossed by around 6km of paths, the park is good as a place for a countryside stroll, somewhere to listen to birdsong, to walk the dog or to let the kids run wild. It’s clearly an asset to local people, but for me is doesn’t quite work as a piece of public art.
A view from the Lady’s forehead, down along her nose towards her breasts
The problem with Northumberlandia is that it’s just too big to appreciate from ground level. From the right angle the Lady’s head, which sports a prominent nose, is unmistakeable. Her breasts are also stand-out features, but would you know what they’re supposed to be if you hadn’t seen the site plan? And as for the rest of the body – the arms, the torso and the legs – Mrs P and I strode happily over them, but to be honest we could have been anywhere.
Site Plan credit: Data: The OpenStreetMap communityMap: Smurrayinchester, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Northumberlandia is an ambitious project, but really needs to be viewed from the air to be fully appreciated. If only we’d had access to a helicopter for an hour or two. Or better still wouldn’t it be great to be able to grow some wings and fly, and so enjoy a birds-eye view of the lovely Lady!
A couple of weeks ago, keen for a bit of light relief, we drove west to Trentham Gardens in Staffordshire in search of Shaun the Sheep. UK-based readers will doubtless be aware of Shaun, who first appeared in the Aardman stop-motion animated film A Close Shave in 1995, alongside madcap inventor Wallace and his canine sidekick Gromit.
Following rave reviews of his role in A Close Shave, in 2007 Shaun was offered his own BBC series. Six series later, he is as popular as ever with younger viewers. He’s even made it onto Netflix, so he now has fans just about everywhere. You might not think it to look at him, but Shaun’s world famous, maybe the best-known sheep on the planet.
So what was Shaun doing in the gardens at Trentham, on the outskirts of Stoke? Once the site of a grand country house set in a landscaped park, in recent years the Trentham Estate has been redeveloped as a leisure destination. Visitor numbers are the name of the game, so who can blame bosses at Trentham for inviting the woolly-coated global superstar along to lend his support this spring?
The Find the Flock Trail featured 12 supersized colourful Shaun the Sheep sculptures, painted by local and regional artists. We set out to track down as many of them as we could while also enjoying views of the award winning gardens, including an oriental-style bridge and several whimsical sculptures featuring fairies.
Standing 160cm tall and brightly coloured, the sculptures were easy to spot. In no sense does a sculpture trail like this count as fine art, but it’s a load of fun…and don’t we all need some of that these days, when every news bulletin on television and radio assails us with more grim news. In a further attempt to cheer up the visitors, each sculpture’s plinth featured a corny sheep joke. Here are just a few of them:
Q: Where do sheep like to watch videos?
A: Ewe-Tube.
Q: What’s a lamb’s favourite car?
A: A Lamborghini.
Q: What sport do sheep like to play?
A: Baadminton.
Q: What do you get if you cross a kangaroo and a sheep?
A: A woolly jumper
Ha ha ha (I think)! I guess those jokes tell you all you need to know. There was nothing sophisticated about the Find the Flock Trail, but who cares? A good time was had by all.
Next Thursday (May 8) is VE (Victory in Europe) Day, when events will be held across the UK to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War 2 in Europe. The war dragged on in the Far East until August 1945, but from a domestic perspective, May 1945 was when the UK could begin to focus its attention on recovery from five and a half years of brutal conflict.
One of the main priorities at the time was to deal with a serious shortage of housing caused by German air raids, limited resources and adjusted priorities during the war years. Prefabs – prefabricated homes that are built in factories and then erected on site – were seen as an integral part of the solution.
The looming problem of post-war domestic housing was identified as early as 1942, with Prime Minister Winston Churchill declaring in a speech “The first attack must evidently be made upon houses which are damaged, but which can be reconditioned into proper dwellings…the second attack on the housing problem will be made by what are called the prefabricated, or emergency, houses.“
Although Churchill was no longer Prime Minister, around 156,00 prefab bungalows were erected between 1945 and 1949, spread across a mix of 18 different designs. The intention was that they should be a temporary solution, lasting around 10 years until they could be replaced with houses constructed in a more traditional way. However, many survived decades longer than this and a few are still lived in today. Others have found their way into museums, including the Chiltern Open Air Museum, where we were pleased to encounter one a few months ago.
The prefab on display at the museum dates from 1947. It was one of 46 erected on the Finch Lane Estate in the Buckinghamshire town of Amersham, a little way north of London. The bungalow is built from 26 asbestos cement panels bolted together on a wood and steel frame, all laid out on top of a concrete base. These days, of course, building with asbestos would be strenuously avoided, but back then asbestos cement offered a swift and affordable solution to a massive social problem.
The Finch Lane Estate was demolished in 1987. Recognising that the prefabs were an important part of local and social history, managers at the Chiltern Open Air Museum arranged for one to be dismantled and kept in storage. It was finally reconstructed at the museum in 1992/93 and fitted out as it might have looked in 1950, with furnishings appropriate to that period.
To our 21st century eyes they may appear small, drab, miserable buildings in which to live out one’s life, but the people who lived in prefabs often saw them very differently. They called them palaces!
Many prefab occupants had previously lived an uncomfortable existence in crowded cities like London, often in shared accommodation with outside toilets and no hot water system. Prefabs addressed these shortcomings, and came with a range of modern conveniences such as a refrigerator. There was even some garden space wrapped around the building in which kids could play and adults could grow fruit and vegetables to supplement whatever food they could afford to buy in the shops
They may have owed their origins to some of the darkest days in our modern history, but, ugly though they are from a modern perspective, prefab houses were an important step up for many ordinary folk. Visiting the museum’s prefab offers visitors a tantalising glimpse of a lost world, and an opportunity to reflect on our good fortune to live at a time when such buildings are reduced to simple museum curiosities.
Now I'm 64 