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

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      ‘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.’

      ‘But can I see that?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘How?’

      ‘You just have to order it.’ She hands me a form. ‘Costs a fiver. Takes an hour.’

      I fill out the form and she checks it for me. Take it to the man, pay, walk out into fresh air and blue skies. I’ve no idea where I’m going, I just know I have to get out of there.

      Outside, it’s a normal day. It’s reassuring to see living people – men and women in shirts and jackets, black skirts and high heels, walking furiously up and down High Holborn in the afternoon sunshine. I take deep breaths of city air and, after twenty minutes, go back in, through bag X-ray again.

      The girl comes over.

      ‘Are you Julie Myerson? Did you pay?’

      ‘Yes.’ I show her my form.

      She tuts. ‘But you’re supposed to give that to me!’

      I apologize profusely and she tells me the hour starts now. The man with identity tag and fluffed-out hair comes over to me, grinning. I smell his armpits as he moves closer.

      ‘If you don’t mind my saying,’ he offers, ‘the light’s very bad in here.’

      

      They shout your name when the will you’ve ordered is ready.

      As the girl shouts ‘Meerson!’ pain zigzags across my upper back. I’ve pulled a muscle. I knew it. Too many volumes. Clutching my spasming shoulder, I go over to the desk and collect my will. Scanning it quickly, I see names and addresses – an executor, a witness, a solicitor. Fantastic!

      I take it to a table where I can sit and read it properly. The will names Laurie Steam’s two daughters and three grandchildren. The daughters are Audrey Joan Clayton and Margaret Phyllis Askew, the grandchildren Robert Askew, Michael Askew, and Diane Askew.

      I sit there and try to decide what’s funny about that Margaret Phyllis name. Margaret Phyllis Askew … suddenly I know where I’ve read it before. I’ve been staring at it on a chart on my wall – it’s on the list, the list of names from Kelly’s. Margaret Phyllis Askew lived in the house! She lived at 34 Lillieshall Road sometime in the forties, with her husband Peter.

      I realize I’ve just uncovered a fact I could never have guessed at – that the Spawtons and the Askews were related, by marriage anyway. Which means that if I can find a living descendant of one, then I probably have the other.

      

      Back home, with a bag of frozen peas clutched to my shoulder, I show Laurie Stearn’s will to Jonathan, who expresses mild-to-moderate excitement at my Spawton-Askew discovery. He immediately starts looking up Askews on his Info Disk.

      ‘There!’ He prints off a list of Diane Askews. The one at the top gives an address in Brighton СКАЧАТЬ