The Guestroom at the Top of the Stairs: What My Diaries Revealed About a Childhood Memory
One of my earliest childhood memories is of tumbling down the stairs that leads from the guestroom at the north of our cottage. Dad had built the guestroom for Nan to stay, but when he became mentally ill in 1970, he used the room for himself. My memory of falling down the stairs has been there throughout my life. My eyes speckle over. Floor and ceiling appear to swap places and I fainted. I felt sick. When I come-to, I hear Dad coming through the back door. It was a sunny day, feeling like mid-morning. My early children's stories contain creepy stairs and attics. These stories have been analysed in T ales from Daler Cottage . The Room I Couldn’t Enter: What my Diaries Reveal I had never questioned this memory for I had assumed my young brain was wiring up. Having said this, there was a feeling of sickness around the incident, of something vile. I had assumed it was to do with Dad’s mental illness. However, Dad had entered the back door as I came round. Dad wasn’t mentally ill a...