Home: The Story of Everyone Who Ever Lived in Our House

‘But you’re children, not …’

‘Electrical appliances,’ says Chloë.

I get up and call the LEB. They tell me it should be back on by eight.

‘Ah,’ says Jake, brightening, ‘in time for Big Brother’

It’s not getting dark but it’s not getting lighter either. Jonathan lights six old pink candles he found in the drawer and the kids gaze at them as if they’ve never seen flames before. The room looks suddenly wonderful – their cross faces suddenly cross in a more intriguing and timeless way. Even the younger boys’ nylon football shirts look almost attractive by candlelight.

I snatch the quiche crust on the edge of Jake’s plate, and stuff it in my mouth.

By eight, there’s still no power. I wander down the road to see whether the men can tell me what time it will be fixed – seems easier than ringing the helpline, which is frankly not that helpful.

It’s a warm evening, not as dark when you go out into it – the sky still lavender grey, not quite drained of light.

‘10.30,’ says the black guy with the grease all over his hands. ‘We’re hoping 10.30. Don’t worry – we’ll get it back on for you in time for the Premiership.’

Why does everyone always assume you want to watch football? I look at my watch.

‘Two hours?’

‘We’re doing your end of the road next,’ says the blond one with the thin face and an earring.

I thank them and walk back down the road as slowly as I can, suddenly relishing the dark. The street is hushed, just the faint glimmer of a candle in some windows. It looks as though everyone is out even though they aren’t. At the Tim Bobbin, long rows of different height candles line the windows. Beyond them, faces move in and out of shadow, laughing, drinking, talking.

Was this how it looked and felt in Henry Hayward’s day? I suppose not quite, because they’d at least have had the gas lamps lit. Maybe it’s more like the Blitz: total liquid darkness.

Ann at Number 28 seems to be sitting alone in a dark room, so I knock on her door to ask if she’d like to come round for a drink.

Ann has lived here in the road for years, since well before us. She used to work for a religious publisher and is retired now – tall, slender, white-haired, drives a pale blue car and always seems to have heard the whole week’s output of Radio 4. She says she’ll be with us in five minutes.

Meanwhile the burglar alarm at Number 30 goes off, its peculiar wail puncturing the darkness. The Caimans come out into the street, all dressed up.

‘Oh dear.’ Frances looks around to see where the alarm’s coming from. ‘If ours goes off, we’re just at the Stepping Stone. Taking our boys out to dinner.’

Ann knocks on our door. Steps carefully into our hall and picks her way round Jonathan’s bike in the darkness.

‘All I’ve brought are my hanky, my torch, and my keys,’ she announces cheerfully.

‘That’s all you need.’ I hand her a large glass of red wine.

We talk about our house and the road and whether she remembers the people who were here before us – she doesn’t. I ask her whether she knows how the road came to be called Lillieshall and she says she did once hear a story that there used to be a farm here and the farmer’s wife was called Lily so they named it after her: Lily’s Hall. Jonathan points out that there’s a place called Lillieshall in Shropshire – isn’t it more likely to be named after that?

‘I prefer Ann’s story,’ I tell him.

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I thought you would.’

I’m on the trail of Lucy Spawton’s will. I go to First Avenue House, the Principal Registry of the Family Division, High Court of Justice. A nondescript, government building on the north side of Holborn, just opposite Chancery Lane.

I put my bag through the X-ray tunnel and go past the lockers, where a woman is taking clingfilmed sandwiches out of a briefcase, and into the Probate Search Room – one large yet somehow terminally dingy room with shelves and shelves of hefty maroon volumes. Most people walk past, along to the lifts, to the rooms where divorces are fought and settled, though probably never truly settled.

The girl behind the counter in the Probate Search Room is plump with big earrings. She’s talking to a man with food stains down his trousers. I smell the sour unwashedness as he shuffles past me. She eyes me suspiciously. I smile winningly and tell her I’m researching a book and ask her if there’s any way you can look up a name alphabetically if you want to discover the year of death – or probate. She rolls her eyes and laughs. ‘No way, lady.’

‘I just have to go through every volume?’

‘Yeah. Well, except on the computer. You know how to use a computer?’

‘Of course.’

She rolls her eyes again. ‘Plenty of them that comes in here don’t.’

She tells me that probates after 1996 are on the computer – you just type in the name. But anything before that, it’s a question of going through the volumes. She laughs to herself and retires into a back room, shaking her head.

There are no women in the room, only men, the food-stained one and another who must work here because he has some kind of an identity tag round his neck and fluffed-out white hair, and a couple of improbable-looking young ones in denim. One is chewing gum. ‘Please Do Not Bring Refreshments into This Room’ says a sign above his head.

I find the volume S-T 1944 and straightaway there she is:

SPAWTON Lucy of 34 Lillieshall Road Clapham Common London died 15 July 1944 Probate Llandudno 29 September to Barclays Bank Limited and Thomas Harlock Beesley Spawton bank clerk. Effects £4289. 3s 3.d.

Again, it’s unsettling to see our address printed there. When, I wonder, will it lose its power to shock me? Also the 3s. 3d. It seems sort of futile and unlikely, to see each penny written down like that. I wonder how much £4,000 was worth in those days.

But, armed with this entry, I know what I have to do next. I have to find Thomas Harlock Beesley Spawton, who must be a nephew or brother. It seems pretty straightforward. Assuming he was alive and well in 1944, assuming that Lucy might even have left him the house, all I have to do is go through the S volumes from 1944 onwards, till I find Thomas’s death – and see who he names.

The volumes are heavy. I don’t care, it will be worth it. Food-stain Man is breathing next to me. I ignore him and press on. Amazingly, I’ve only got to 1948 when I find him:

SPAWTON Thomas Harlock Beesley of 34 Park Hill Clapham London SW4 died 5 April 1948 Probate London 12 August to Midland Bank Executor and Trustee Company Limited and Matilda Spawton widow. Effects £5998. 19s. 3d.

That 3d. again. Feeling hugely encouraged – I now know where Thomas lived and even the name of his wife/widow – I go on to look for Matilda. Many volumes and aching shoulders later – 1962 – I have her:

SPAWTON Matilda of 34 Park Hill Clapham SW4 widow died 12 September 1962 at Chesterton Hospital Cambridge. Probate Peterborough 29 November to Thomas Hugh Henry Stearn retired civil servant. Effects £16447. 7s.

Now I’m feeling quite excited. This means I’ve tracked Lucy’s descendants as far as 1962, which isn’t bad. And Park Hill is just past Sainsbury’s, alongside Acre Lane – these people may not have lived in the house but they could well end up as part of my story, the house’s story. I drop Spawton and start looking for Stearns in the books. Don’t care about heavy volumes now – heft them hard and fast, this is worth it.

Sure enough – very soon after Matilda’s death – here’s Thomas Stearn:

STEARN Thomas Hugh Henry of 23 Hurst Park Avenue Cambridge died 16 May 1965 Administration Peterborough 18 June to Laurie Stearn widow. £5108

How did Thomas Stearn get through so much money? I wonder. On to look for Laurie.

STEARN Laurie of 9 Chaucer Rd Cambridge died 3 September 1971 Probate Ipswich 25 October £2071

But there’s no one else mentioned, no other name given. A dead end perhaps? I go and sit outside by the lockers, suddenly deflated, oppressed by all these endings. An afternoon spent in this room finally wears you down – flipping through pages and pages of the deaths of strangers.

I eat a Bounty from the vending machine and look at a copy of the Standard that someone’s left on the seat. Then I go back in and copy out Laurie Steam’s entry and show it to the girl at the counter.

‘If you want to know more about an entry,’ I ask her, ‘what can you do? I mean, is there any further information about the will that I can get access to?’

She looks at me as if I am a complete moron. ‘Well, yeah,’ she says. ‘The will.’