(music) Childhood home tour Let me bore you to sleep #1302 Jason Newland 12th March 2025

Hello, welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. This is Let Me Bore You To Sleep.

Yesterday, yesterday I did a let me bore your pain away. It was an hour long. And then after pretty much well when I when I came to upload it and edit it, it cut off after half an hour.

And it turned out that the well, as far as I'm aware, the batteries had run out. Here's a question. So I've got these rechargeable batteries, because the batteries I had seem to be a bit on a blink, the volume was less, it was still working, but the volume was a lot quieter.

And so I've got some rechargeable batteries, I thought should I get some new batteries or some rechargeable ones? Or rechargeable ones? Or rechargeable ones? I don't know however you want to say it. And I thought yeah, I'll get some rechargeable ones. They're pretty cheap.

And as I do like one or two videos a day, on average, it probably would seem a good idea to do that. Well, I got the rechargeable ones last week. I charged them up.

Now, this might seem like a boring story, but it's not. It's the most exciting story you're going to hear from me this week. So enjoy, make the most of it, if you can.

So um, I charged them up, put them into the, it's a, it's called an iRig. So it moves from the microphone through a condenser into an iRig into the camera. So it's kind of a few different things in order for me to film and get audio at the same time, decent audio.

Now, I probably got five, maybe a week's worth, so probably 10 recordings, which is pretty good, I suppose. Got about 10, 10, a week's worth, like 10, say 10, 10 different recordings out of the batteries before they shut down. The weird thing about it is, I got four in the thing.

So I got four, I took them all out, used two, and I put them in a charger. And the other two that I hadn't even used needed recharging. How can a battery drain when it's not even being used, is a question I have.

So, I'm not sure what to do. I mean, I'll be honest, I don't even know. I don't even know if this is recording my voice.

Which reminds me, I was going to actually try and use something else to record my voice as a backup. But I didn't. And I haven't.

Yeah, I should have done that. I completely forgot. Just a little, you know, a little backpack up.

So I put them in overnight, took hours for them to both or for them to recharge. The ones that I hadn't used, got recharged quicker, but it was still in there for a few hours that I hadn't used that were fully charged last week. So, I'm, I really don't know what to make of it.

And also, why is there no, after all these years of batteries, why is there no easy way to get them in and out? Unless you've got like long talons. It's, they don't come out very easily. It's like really trying because I got, I got short fingernails trying.

It's difficult. I mean, I did get them out. It wasn't impossible.

But I mean, some would argue maybe it wasn't worth mentioning. But, you know, I have. So I will continue.

I'm just a little bit confused with it. I don't understand. It's like, why? Why? If a battery's charged, it should be charged.

Either it's charged or it's not charged. It can't be both. This is by far the most important thing that's happened this year so far.

Oh, my neighbor. Did I tell you about my neighbor? Oh, blimey. So my neighbor's got people, builders or whatever coming in to his flat.

So Vinnie might start barking, which means this video will be in lots of different sections, which is fine. Well, it's not fine. It's a bit disturbing, to be honest.

But because if he hears something, that's what he has to do. Has to. Can't stop himself.

But I think it was last week. I was with my neighbor. I was just talking to him.

He lives opposite me. And he was talking to me. Just a normal conversation.

His trousers fell down. His jeans. They just fell down.

It wasn't on purpose. It was an accident. It was just so, it was very funny.

And I didn't know what to, it's like, wow, it's not something I would normally see. Yes, you know, it's just weird. So I told someone, told a friend, and he said to me, oh, could you send it to me? I said, so what do you mean send it to me? So it will be on your door camera.

I said, I will be on it. But I'm not sending it. I ain't saying it's just that's not, it's not fair to do that, because I could end up online.

And so I'm not definitely not sending it. But I did want to see it again. Just have a little giggle.

And maybe, I don't know, show people, not show people, but no, I wasn't going to show anyone. I wasn't. Anyway.

Unfortunately, no matter how slim I feel that I am, I take up a fair bit of the hallway. And the camera didn't get past me, they couldn't even see him. The camera didn't see him, could see the top of the doorway.

So I'm not particularly tall, but the rest it wasn't, you know, I, it's such a shame, because I was looking forward to having that. Just, it's a funny moment. And it's a memorable experience.

It's maybe the most memorable experience of the year. So what's Vinnie doing? He's doing a... Oh, he's waiting. He's waiting for something to... So I've ordered some food today on the, from the supermarket.

All healthy food. I mean, all healthy, like super fresh, healthy food. Stuff that I'm going to have to cook.

Well, not all of it, I mean, some of it's fruit. But generally, I'm going to have to cook it. I'm going to repeat myself, all healthy.

Now, I don't have necessarily, necessarily, probably not necessarily, not particularly, not honestly, the most healthy diet at the moment. And that's all going to change tomorrow. But I was thinking to myself, okay, I'll show you what I've done.

Let's get this open. So I used to, there's been times when I've eaten healthily. I've been a vegetarian, I've been a vegan.

I've had a bodybuilding diet. And that was a long time ago. That was when I was like, 16 or something.

15, 16. And I was on a bodybuilding diet. But I was trying to put weight on and I couldn't, just couldn't, didn't matter what I ate, how much, what quantity, never put weight on.

It's ridiculous. And now, a little bit different from that. So I remember roughly what the diet was back then.

I used to have a gammon, for breakfast, a gammon steak, a couple of boiled eggs, not boiled, like, yeah, boiled, not hard boiled, but boiled. And then I would have like an orange juice and a cup of coffee or something for lunch. Because I worked in a chip shop, so I was able to get either chicken or fish.

Quite easy. So I'd have that with not with chips. I'll have it with salad.

So I'd have have that with salad. And I even did this when I moved up into the flat above me, above the chip shop for a little while, because I had a little bit of money to do it with. And then I kind of just didn't.

Yeah, I don't, I'm not sure quite how that worked. And then I think there was like a snack in between, like a bag of nuts or fruit or something like that. And then in the evening, I was having either chicken or fish again with rice.

And then maybe a snack in the evening became something like some, I don't know, a bit of fruit or something. And I did that. And the fact is I was healthy.

You know, I was, I was still around, so I must have been pretty healthy when I was 15, 16. And I know most, you know, majority of people are probably, I guess it's our peak, some people's peak of fitness and health is sort of when they're both teenagers and early 20s and stuff. I feel I have not quite reached my peak yet.

But I'm edging into it, edging. And so I kind of, and I used to, I had this bodybuilding diet book that I was following back then. And it was called the, I think I was doing the optimal bodybuilding diet.

So it's the very basic. It was for someone that was working out, but not wasn't like some super, super, super diet, high, huge calorie. And with someone that's working out twice a day and stuff, it wasn't that kind of thing.

It was just very optimal. I was also having raw eggs in milk as well. Which it no, not for me.

It is I mean, it's doable if it's done within a different format. And like an omelette or something. Yeah, eggs, raw eggs and milk.

This is before there was any problems because we had a few problems with raw eggs. In the press, you know, in the, I think the middle 90s or early 90s. But there was, it was a standard thing because I studied bodybuilding.

As far as a little bit like hypnosis, I knew a lot about it, but I was no good at it. That's probably where I am with most things. I've never been any good at anything.

But I have studied certain things, like how to, the whole bodybuilding process, the exercises, the nutrition. It's a long time ago. I'll just point this out.

I don't remember a lot of it. And, you know, I was going into a gym. I have told this story before, but it's, there was a, I was with my friend, Dean, I think.

One of my friends, and we was just walking around the block. I don't know where we'd been. I don't think where we'd been is necessarily relevant to the story.

But it was around the corner. So basically, if you come out my house, where I used to live when I was a kid, turn right. And turn right again.

Now, of course, I say, of course, you don't know, but there wasn't any way that was kind of a shortcut. You go down there. But I never used to do that.

I just go to the end of the road, turn right, that road would lead you all the way down to another road. And on that corner, if you turn left, there was a I don't know what it was originally. But it was next door to a laundrette.

That I do know, because the laundrette was still there for years. I don't know if it's still there. Or was it a video shop? Was it a video shop? No.

I can't remember. Anyway, so there was this lorry or big van. Actually, a big, big, big old lorry van thing.

And this bloke was moving stuff out of the van. And he asked for help. And I said, Okay, I said, Well, what? We might just stop.

So what are you doing? Just out of interest? What was going on? And he said, Oh, it's a new gym. It's got a new gym. There was a basement downstairs, there was a, there's going to be a jacuzzi, not jacuzzi, a sauna.

And gym upstairs, gym downstairs. And yeah, so he was starting this new gym, and it'll be open in about a week's time. So cool.

And I think I don't even he asked us for help. Or I offered to help to move to get the stuff off of the lorry. But in return, he gave me a free membership to the gym.

And bearing in mind, I was 14 at the time. So it's like, it wouldn't cost you much anyway. But so just give me free membership.

He said, Okay. So we moved, I think it was carpet that day. And I might have gone back to help with some of the machine, some of the machinery, machinery, some of the equipment.

I mean, not Yeah, not the heavy stuff. But I guess, but the chairs and the tables and the benches and stuff like that. And yeah, so I don't know if we did it twice.

It was a few hours. And I don't know, it might be half an hour, maybe 10 minutes, but I'm pretty sure it's a few hours. Six months it took.

No, I don't know. Might gone back to help with the machines. The next day or something.

I don't know. And I know I was in there in and out before the place opened. And got on really well with a bloke and the Yeah, when I opened, I became a free member, I was the first member of that gym.

Other than I guess, the man owned it and his wife. But technically, they own it. So don't need to be members.

So I was the first member. Ding, ding, ding. My friend also got membership, but he never used it.

So yeah, I was the first, I guess equal first me and the other my friend, but because he never used that I don't think he ever got I didn't need a card because I just Hello, I use my face as my passport. And so I was a member of that gym. Up to the age of about 17.

So I was going into that gym from 14, 15, 16, about three years. I think once I got to once I left school started charging me, I think. But while I was at school, didn't charge me, or he didn't charge me for a year, something like that.

I can't remember. It wasn't a lifetime membership. But I would go I'd go around there.

I also had weights in because my dad's had a big workshop at the bottom of the garden. So quite a large garden. It's quite long, bigger.

And I'd like to go there just to see it. I mean, I'm not really much bigger than I was when I last was there. Because I was 15 when I was last there.

And I'm not really much taller than I was when I was 15. So it's not like I was looking through little eyes, you know, being like two foot tall looking, everything's so big, and realise it's only like two foot wide or something. No, it's like so.

But I remember it being a big garden. Yeah, there was, there was girth as well as length. I love that word girth.

I don't know why. And, and there was this big, it's almost like, I don't know how to explain it. You know, if you get like a summer, a summer home thing at the bottom of your garden, it was almost like a porter cabin.

So is the it was the it was a length of the girth, if that makes sense of the back of the garden. There was a pathway going up to it. It had a toilet.

I think it had heating, you know, I don't know if it made me heaters. Anyway, part of it was my dad's office because he was self employed. So he had desks and you know, all that stuff.

It's a big, big space. The other part of it was mainly for his gear. Like, because he wouldn't leave his gear in the van overnight.

Like all because he's an electrician. So all the cables, all the stuff, the tools because it was expensive. He used to take it out of the van, or he used to get we used to take it used to get a hand and take it down the bottom of the garden and put it into there for storage.

So and I just started doing karate. So this was, I don't know, probably when I was 13 ish ish 13, 14. So I say 14 between, I lose a little bit of tracks and maybe 13.

Yes, I might mean 13. Actually, when I joined that gym. So I started Yeah, my when I started doing karate, my dad got me to punch back.

No, I bought a punch bag. But my dad got me a punch bag as well. It's like a kit bag.

So he got that first and he filled it full of wood cones. Yeah, he filled it full of wood cones. It was heavy.

It's a heavy bag. Or is it a soft bag? No, one of them was heavy. One of them was light.

So one was just full of rags. And the other one was full of like sawdust. So it was heavy, heavy.

And I can't remember which was which, if I'm honest with you. But I bought my own like bag as well my own. So that I had one of each.

And he put this screwy thing in where the punch bag could be attached and it just turn around. So it would never get tangled. And because the height of the building of this poor cabin thing wasn't very high, I could reach it.

So it was kind of I don't know, you know, so it wasn't a high high. And I'd have to kind of hold it up with the heavy one. But that was cool.

I was like, wow. And what I did is I started getting some weights and putting them down there as well. So as well as joining the gym, so I think I had that first, then I joined the gym.

Because it would be nice to go somewhere else. And you know, it's, I don't know, it's just nice to be part of something else. And I had a weight bench.

I had barbells, dumbbells, I had one dumbbell. I had one barbell, so one barbell with a bunch of weights, which I bought from the sports shop around the corner. I remember I bought this whole set of barbells, weights, dumbbells.

And I spent half a day carrying them back round. Because I mean, now I probably just got a taxi, but it's literally around the corner. I mean, if you come out my house, turn right.

Yeah, turn right into the same road that I turned right before, but this time you turn left. So probably what I would do is come out my house, cross the road. Yeah, look first, obviously, cross the road, or maybe walk up a little bit.

So turn right, walk a little bit up and cross the road. Because just opposite me, there was a friend of my dad's. And there was a couple of girls that I knew from just from living opposite them.

And I was in love with one of their friends. And Sarah, I know, I tell this weird, you want to know a weird story, right? Sarah. I just you know, I was a kid.

I was a kid. I was 14. I fell in love with her.

You can't help when you're 14, you fall in love with someone. There's nothing you can do about it. It's just there was no logic to it.

And I became a little bit obsessed, a little bit infatuated, really, that's probably the best word. And I was writing a poems, writing songs for sending her flowers and because I was working part time. So I had enough to sort of do that and sending her gifts.

And in the end, she told me to go away, which I did. But she kept because she was best friends with my neighbor opposite. I kept seeing her.

And you say, Yeah, but you're looking at someone else's window. I said, Yeah, I mean, I couldn't see it from my bedroom because my bedroom faced onto a brick wall. Can you believe that? That's how much light I got into my bedroom at the top.

So when I was downstairs, so when we moved into that building into the big house, and I lived, I actually my bedroom was the biggest bedroom out of all of ours, actually, maybe not. There was a fairly big size room, with big windows, loads of light. And I think the walls were blue.

I'm sure they were yellow at one point, but blue, but I lived there. I stayed in that lived there. I stayed in that bedroom for a few years.

Because my little brother was only about one year old, even if that probably not even a year when we moved into that house. So to start with, he was living in the same bed bedroom as my, my dad and his wife. And then he had the little room now it's his bedroom.

And then eventually, when he got to about three, three, when do we move in there? 1978. 1979. 1978.

1978. Blimey. So 1978, we moved in there.

Maybe 1979. Actually, yeah, maybe late 78, early 79. And which meant I was nine.

I was eight, I was eight when we moved in there. Don't seem right, does it? Wow. And then I lived upstairs.

I did live in another room for a bit as lived, keep saying lives, I say to live in rooms, I lived, I stayed, I had my bedroom was in a different room for a little while, but only for probably six months or so. But that was temporary. Yeah, so I was upstairs to the age of 15.

Probably from the age of 12. Maybe 11. 12.

No, no, because we had a playroom upstairs. So we had a playroom with a snooker table. And I think a darts board.

The snooker table had a ping pong or table tennis table that could go over it. So we used to, I mean, the room wasn't that big, where, you know, it was a little bit restrictive, as far as the snooker goes. But we managed around it.

It's just, you know, have to be a little bit careful, not hitting the walls and that. But generally, it's a fairly big room. Yeah, and we had a music and stuff.

And I think there was some chairs to sit something about a sofa in there to sit down. And so that was our where we used to hang out and play and stuff. As a fact, like kids.

My oldest brother was in the room that I ended up going moving into. So I was next to that room. And then my other brother, the other older brother, the less older.

So I had one two years older, one four years older, and one eight years younger. He lived in another room, like on the top floor as well. But it was had more of a curved ceiling with a skylight.

And some big storage area at the back, like in the cupboard thing, that was blocked off, not blocked off, but had a door or something. I think there was one that was kept in there just bits and bobs. And then we had stairs that went down.

So I'm starting at the top of the house to give you a kind of a description of it. So you had I didn't like the carpet in the playroom didn't like the carpet at all. It's very spiky, very.

I don't know how this thing I don't know if it was a fashionable thing back then had these tiled carpets, tiles, and they you couldn't you wouldn't walk on them without feet. Not feet without shoes. You wouldn't walk them on them with your feet.

Just your feet. It was uncomfortable. And I mean, I wore slippers most of the time anyway, so it wasn't really an issue.

But coming out of that room. Anyway, what I was gonna say about the window in that room looked over the other side of the road. Apparently.

And so because I was in so much love, bear in mind, I was only three years old. So it's fine. And I used to kind of look forward to look out see if she was there.

Just so I could love her from a distance. I know. Romance.

Anyway, that ended up being my oldest brother's room. When I moved upstairs into his room. He played loud music, but a lot of Elvis so I didn't mind that but he was Yeah, very moody.

It was. And so going downstairs, a little room kind of straight ahead almost, you know, if you get down to the bottom of the stairs, that was my little brother's room. There was later turned into like a little exercise room.

There was an exercise bike and a as a solarium, you know, the sun things you could lay down in one of them that my stepmom had. And then turn left or if you turn left straight this that was my the parents room. That also had a window looked out over the other side of the road.

I didn't go in there. I'm just saying it just and the little room did as well because that's just the way it was facing. I didn't build the house.

I'm not responsible for where the windows faced. And it's that all you shouldn't be looking for the windows. That's literally what windows are for, for looking through.

And next to that was a room that I had, when I first moved into the house. So I like that. I like that room.

Because it was big. I mean, there was a time when I had this telescope. And it was big enough for me to have a telescope just there and never got knocked over, apart from when it did.

And yeah, it was a good nice room. And the next to that room, there was a toilet. The next to the toilet, there was a bathroom that also had a toilet in it.

Then next to that is another room, which was a bedroom. But that was more a spare room for visitors. So my stepmum's mother, my step granny, would if she stayed, that's where she would sleep.

Or if they had visitors, other family members or whatever, that's where they would sleep. So it was a double bed in there. Also the airing cupboard was in there as well.

And I stayed in there for about six months once. I can't remember why. And there was some movement.

I don't know if there was decorating being done. But yeah, I stayed in there for a while. So my bedroom that I was in when I first moved in, that ended up being my little brother's bedroom, overlooked the garden.

His bedroom, well, my bedroom is like, it had a more bigger view, I think you'd also see part of the... yeah, you could see more because it was further back. The other bedroom, you could... I'm wondering if it had more than one... That's Finny drinking by the way. I was wondering if it had more than one window in that room.

But I know it can overlook and it can overlook the other garden a little bit on the left. And you could also see part of the right hand garden. And because it's quite because we're fairly high up, and you could kind of see, so you can kind of get a gauge of a different part of the garden.

And then downstairs, you walk downstairs and straight ahead is the front door. And I think, I'm pretty sure there was a cabinet on the right hand side, not right next to the stairs, but I think where the phone was, like a phone cabinet. Turning left, there was there was two doors, originally there was two different rooms.

So there was the front room, the living room, which you go in the door, which if he was going to come into the front door, the first door on the right hand side, go in there. And it was the front room. So it was a what do you call that when the windows out? I forget.

So we had quite a big sofa. Because a lot of us was there was my dad, my stepmom, my oldest brother, my other brother older than me, me, and my little brother. Is that right? So six of us, the whole time, you know, for quite a long period of time.

And but it also did also, but there'd also be visitors like my other grandparents or my step nan, aunties, uncles, cousins, whatever. So other people and yeah, I mean, I think the I remember the set he was brown, like patchy brown, not patchy as in being soiled, but but like dark brown, light brown. Sort of like veneer just, you know, wiping himself everywhere.

It wasn't like that. That's my pillow. So yeah, he I think my dad had his own chair, which he still does.

He's got a different chair now, but he had his own chair. And something that used to he still does it to this day. He can't watch a movie or television or anything without falling asleep.

It's just that he falls asleep so easily in that situation. And he always has even as a young man. Well, I don't know how how long it's been like that since I've known him.

And so since he was I mean, he was 26 when I was born. I think So, or 2424 or 25 when I was born. So when I was, let's say 10, he was 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35.

So I guess he was around 35 ish when I was 10. Give or take. He's 79 this year.

Yes, he's born in 1946. We could work it out then. So 1946 1980.

So 1946 56 66 76 86. No 56 646 46 46 56 66 76. So that's 34 years.

So yeah, so he's 24 years older than me. And 24. So he was 20 when he had his first kid.

22 when he had his second kid and 24 when he had third kid for me. And then 32 when he had his final one. So 35 Yeah, so yeah, but he's been falling asleep since then anyway, ever since kind of I've known him from the ages.

I can't remember if he fell asleep when I was seven or eight. I think I started to notice it more when I was about 10 11. Nine maybe.

So yeah, and he would just fall asleep. I don't know if he's ever watched a whole movie all the way through at home. He's been to the cinema so I don't know if he he falls asleep at the cinema because I think I only went to cinema with him once that was to see ET.

I remember sitting there determined not to cry. Because everyone was like, oh, you're gonna cry. And no, I'm not.

Yeah, you are you're gonna cry. So I'm not gonna cry. And yeah, I did cry.

It was emotional. It was it's an emotional, emotional movie. Especially that that bit where he's hiding in the cupboard and there's always other like animals and toys and he's like that.

I had to cry. I couldn't stop crying. Yeah.

When he's riding on the bicycle. Yeah. Was it ET? I think it was Star Wars.

No, was it? Yeah, it was ET. I think that's the only movie I ever went to with my dad. We went as a family.

But I don't think I ever went to. I know I went to see Superman 2 with my oldest brother. Yeah.

And that was what? 79? 78? Something like that. So it's something Yeah. So I remember he took me there.

I had dreams about the Superman movie before I went to watch it that night before. And I mean, it was advertised a lot. And that was when Zod was on there, wasn't he? Zod and like the super arch villains were in it.

I just love it's probably my favourite one out of three. But there's four shush, don't mention the fourth. It's my favourite one out of three, but they're all I mean, the first one is great.

But it went on, it really went on a bit. And I probably wouldn't want to watch it again. Because it it seemed to take itself a little too serious for a long time.

You know, a lot of the movies very kind of serious. And then it starts to get humorous. Once he moves to to become a once becomes Clark Kent, the reporter, and he meets Lewis Lane.

And there's funny bits. But before that, not so much, not so much. So in the second one, we still got romance and stuff.

But the fact that he's got rid of his powers, I mean, I'm sorry, don't want to spoil the movie too soon. I don't know. Yeah, but he gives up his powers so he could be with Lewis Lane.

So that he could, I think it's so that he could actually be with her intimately, because he was worried that he might destroy her by accident. I guess that's the you know, I mean, superpowers. Imagine if he got overexcited.

So and then these arch villains turn up and he has to get his powers back. Again, I'm sorry if I'm spoiled. I think my favourite part of the first one is always the second one.

The first one is when he flies around the planet to turn back time. Because there's an earthquake isn't there and Lewis Lane crashes a car and stuff. That's the first one.

The second one, so I love the third one as well, because Richard Pryor was in it. And I was a big Richard Pryor fan in the 80s. Or, well, I guess late 70s, early 80s.

But Richard Pryor was he was the biggest box office star in the world for a while. And early 80s, he was massive. So I didn't even realise he did stand up comedy until probably my late, my, my late Yeah, my late teens.

When I was about 17, I found discovered that he was, I mean, to be fair, it's only a few years later, it's not a big time difference, is it? But that's when I discovered that he was arguably then and still is, for a lot of people, classed as the greatest stand up that ever lived. You know, is he is the top of every stand up comedian list.

Even now.

I mean, it's one of those things you can't, you can't put anyone at number one. Because it's all dependent upon taste, isn't it? Yeah, no one's the best singer. I mean, I'd say there's very few singers in the world that could match Bouncy and Beyonce.

But others might say, well, actually, I prefer the bloke from the Pokes. But then, I'm a huge fan of Bob Dylan's voice. And I would say my one of my favourite voices of any female singer is Dolores from the Cranberries.

But it's a different style of voice, a different type of voice, or Bonnie Tyler completely. Although to be fair, Bonnie Tyler and Rod Stewart, come on. They must have been related somehow.

Or must have been, they must be related because it's almost same hairstyle, looks similar, same kinds of voices. It's, yeah, I think it's uncanny. They never did manage to do a duet together, which was planned.

They were going to put an album together because they both have the similar voice tone. I mean, they both could sing each other's songs and get away with it. Plus, I think Rod Stewart can do whatever he wants and get away with it because he's a superstar.

As far as I'm concerned, Bonnie Tyler is also a superstar. But she hasn't been around so much, but she was an icon. And I loved Bonnie Tyler.

Tight little lips to the heart. There's a hero. No, that's not one.

That's Mariah, isn't it? We don't need another hero. We don't need another answer. No, that's not Tiffany.

And I can never remember her name. Tina Turner. We need a hero.

I'm looking out for a hero to the end of the night. You gotta be strong and you gotta be right. And you gotta be right.

We need a hero. So that's three songs with the word hero in it. So that's the living room.

Now, what happened is, if you come out of the living room, turn right, you know, again, just go down. There was another room, which was like a dining room. But it's weird because there was two dining rooms.

Or maybe it would be classed as a reception room. I don't know. But we used to have a big table in there and have our Sunday dinners in there and Christmas and stuff like that.

And it was also doors to the outside. And there's a patio. So outside doors there, there's a piano in there, one against the wall.

Because my stepmom was really brilliant on the piano. Great, great pianist, great pianist, pianist. And I used to love listening to her.

I did actually. I used to sort of sometimes just listen. I don't know other way to say it.

She used to play so well. And it's all quite classical stuff. She didn't play anything from the 90s or anything, because, well, we were still in the 80s.

But I think she played some more contemporary stuff that was contemporary at the time, like a bit of Lionel Richie and stuff. But this is really good, really good. I did like listening.

And I still do not, not to her, but I do like listening to classical music and piano. But the problem I find with listening to piano music on, I use Apple Music. But it's clicky.

And it's like you can hear the clicks as it and it just doesn't sound so good. And it's weird because I don't know why. I want to hear the music, but I don't want to hear the banging of the keys as it's being done.

Maybe I'm being a bit fussy. Maybe. And then, so that was that room.

So eventually, though, what my dad done was he knocked a hole in the wall. He had a hole, put a hole in the wall. And he said, I think we were just talking, I think my brother said, we should give it a name.

What? So we got the living room, we got dining room, we should give the hole a name. And my brother said, no, I think my name is glorious. What a glorious hole.

And I said, glory hole, we should call it glory hole. And my dad said no. He said beside is too large.

I said, what do you mean? He said, no, never mind. But it was actually it. It was kind of it was big enough for probably two people to get through.

It was quite a large gap. And it pretty much didn't feel like two rooms anymore. He's actually done the same in his own house now.

He did it last year. And he's lived there for about 100 years now. But he just decided to, to break to go through to the other room.

And what's weird about it is, it just feels wrong. It's after like, I don't know where I am now. I've only been, I think I've been there.

And once since I've done it, and it's disorientating. And that room looks tiny. That gap is almost is a space for some settee.

And it doesn't seem to be any room for anything else. And it just seems weird. It's like, but that seemed like a much bigger room before.

But when they did the room in the big house, it's the rooms still seem the same size, but of course, like bigger now because they're connected. And then coming out of there, turn right out of that room. So it got to the point where we didn't really need to use both doors.

So we stopped using the first door on the right hand side as you go into the front door. And settee and sofa was in front of that. I think it was probably locked.

So we never used that door anymore. Didn't seal it, just didn't use it. Use the other door to go in.

And yeah, it's just what we did. So turn right out there, go up a bit. There was there was a cupboard under the stairs.

So that's where the Hoover was kept. Maybe some carrier bags, things like that. I don't know what else I can't remember.

And then just go down and close the door first, obviously, because you don't want people tripping over it. And go back down. On the right hand side, there was a toilet.

So we actually had three toilets in the in the building inside, which is handy because there was six of us. So it's quite nice, at least six of it, if three of us could go to toilet at the same time. If needed.

And then and that was just a basic toilet. It was a little bit of a storage room as well, to be fair, it was never that tidy in there. You get used to this put stuff in there, like a junk room, a junk room where you could poo, basically.

And then and a sink, of course. So you come out of that. Turn right, which led to another dining room, which had a table and chairs and stuff where we always used to sit.

We'd sit in there during the week. I remember sitting there on a Saturday and burger and chips, it was nice. But it was this table, but these chairs are all connected, like one big bench on either side with a back on it.

And my dad had that in his new home as well when he moved in 86, 87. And there was a cabinet on the left hand side, I think, or was it further up, maybe the other side. And it was, I think my dad's got that as well in his house.

It's one of those like dark brown cabinets with space for like, I don't know, I don't know what it's called, but it's got a little bit of space for stuff or plates and cutlery, drawers, things like that, you know, for the nice cutlery. And then go through, there was a kitchen. So originally the kitchen, it's not a bad size kitchen, it wasn't huge, but it was it was a good size.

And the kitchen, the units were cordoned off. So that was the way out of the house, the back way into the garden. So there was away from the kitchen part.

So door was on the right hand side going out. And in about 2013, maybe 2014, my dad put a new kitchen in. And I think before that, because we had a toilet outside, an outside toilet, which I think originally was a coal bunker.

To be fair, I think that's what it was originally. And then someone put a toilet in there, you know, 10, 20 years ago, whatever, because we didn't didn't need coal anymore. So my dad took that out and knocked through the kitchen into that bit where the toilet was, and put a big, built a kitchen, almost what I see an area for us to eat a little bit of squash.

But we all got around it with table and we'd have our dinner there. Maybe we'd eat our breakfast in there and stuff like that. So that was, yeah, I think he did that before he changed the kitchen, before we put in a new kitchen.

And yeah, put a big patio in the back way. I remember he put a driveway in the front. I helped him do it.

I don't know how helpful I was. If I'm honest. I don't know.

But I turned I was there. I was there. I also did some pointing.

I thought he taught me how to point. And if you're gonna say I go like that, you know, no, I don't mean point as in pointing to people. And it's basically where you, you take out the in my memory, you take out the it's, you know, not petrol, you know, the the cement in between the bricks of a building, you just take out a little bit of that and then you put some more in.

And it just I've got no idea why. I don't know why it's called pointing. I don't know what the point of it is.

Yeah, I'm not even gonna pretend to know why. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I've got no idea why I did it.

I was told to do it. I just did it. And I quite like doing it, actually.

And then there was the garden, we had a plum tree, which is why I don't eat plums. Because every year when the plums arrived, plums with everything. Everything.

I mean, just, I mean, first of all, I don't like plums anyway. But if there's enough sugar, plums are nice. I've you know, for me, I found like a plum crumble.

Plum pie, if it's got enough sugar in it to make them sweet. Plum jam, if it's got enough sugar in it to make it sweet. As long as it's sweet, I was all right.

Plums on their own? No. I've never liked, I never particularly liked the plum in my mouth. I'll be honest.

Just don't like just the taste. So, and also, there was the aftermath of the plums. So they'd be fallen on the ground.

And then the wasps would arrive. And they'd be eating the plums, and they would be drunk. Which I always find a bit of a weird concept.

So yeah, they, I didn't like the plums. I think we had an apple tree, we might have even had a pear tree as well. Not 100% sure.

But we had grass. There was a mess, we had two hills. Sounds like a house is really massive.

Okay, a pile of dirt. You know, not a hill as in like, you know, it was just a big mound of dirt. And we just kissed this before the, the building at the bottom of the garden, poor cabin thing was put there.

We just moved that big pile of mud, which was taller than me, big old pile, move it from one part of garden to next, with no apparent reason. I never really understood why we were doing it. But it seemed important to other people through it to be done.

And lots of flowers on the sides of the garden. So outside, there was grass, but on each side, like where the fences between the grass and the fence, there's lots of flowers all done. And I think my stepmom might have been doing that as well.

I think she was quite into we had hanging baskets outside. Yeah, we did. I'm pretty sure we did.

Someone did. I'm pretty sure we did. And they were maybe outside the front as well as outside the back.

Big old fence at the back, which did have a lock on it on the inside, I think. And it's one of those push down things to get it open, like one of those locks, those opens on the on the wooden gate. But it was a dark alley.

And it's quite long. Well, it was the girth, the length of the girth of the no, the length. Yeah, the length of the house from the back to the front.

So you go out, you go into the back entrance. And so I guess it's the front entrance when you go in the front bit, there was no gate at the front, you just walked in. But there's a gate at the back.

So there's definitely there was an obstacle when you're trying to go in the back where it was a little bit harder to get in the back than it is the front. But because that thing, and sometimes to be fair, because it was locked, I wasn't very good at like reaching it either, because I wasn't very tall. There wasn't much there.

And I think we sometimes we'd leave stuff, you know, bikes in in the alleyway and that, but you know, there wasn't a big, there wasn't a massive gap between the houses. Now I'm thinking about I don't think it could have been even my my arm length between the two. But I might be making that up.

Yeah, there wasn't a big, big gap between the two. Because our house was semi detached. But the good thing about it is the part that was connected to the other house hardly didn't affect us.

Because it was the part where the stairs was. If that makes sense. So only the only rooms that were connected to the other house would have been part of kitchen probably.

Downstairs, that was it. Everything else was the other side where it was detached. Upstairs would be part of my little brother's room, right, that that would have been connected to the other side.

And part of the other room that I sometimes that I stayed in for a little while at the back of the house that was kind of guest room. So that was the only two rooms that were connected to next door. The rest of it was just the stairs, you know, and that wall and then upstairs on my floor where I ended up living.

Yeah, probably my both my brother's room. So my brother's room, my older but not not oldest brother, his room would I suppose be connected to the other room. On the other side, and my other brothers would be connected.

But my room wasn't where I slept. So I, I literally the whole whole time I lived there. Part from for six months when I lived in the spare room.

I didn't share a wall with another. Well, that's not true. I shared a room with my parents room.

Because there was a wall there. So I could. Yeah, we're sharing that that wall.

And I was sharing. Yeah, I was sharing the wall with my other brother. Because he Yeah, he had the big room when we was at the top.

So I did share, you know, I guess other rooms but not. And he was the noisiest one out of everyone because he used to play loud music. He used to play Elvis.

Although I do love Elvis. But sometimes you know, I was I wanted to go to sleep. And I think there was a period of time when he didn't really do anything.

He was kind of going through a little bit just left school and he wasn't doing much. So I yeah, he used to annoy me. I should let it go, shouldn't I? It's only been 50 years.

And what else? Yeah. So the gym, but the way I got my weights from was to go down the road, come out, turn left to the high street. And it was just there was I don't think it was right on the corner or a lot of them might have been.

But I'm pretty sure there was a charity shop and then the sports shop. And that's where I got all of the also got a curl bar, a curl bar, which is like a bit like that shape. So you could do that.

And one of those ones for the it's kind of it's just another way of doing it. So I've got like three different bars. I don't know if that's a tricep bar.

To do one more time. Not on my head. So yeah, I was I didn't know I was going to do a tour of my childhood home.

But it seems I have. It was quite dark in the living room though. I don't know why it's almost because we had a big because there were big houses, like three stories high.

So across the road was exactly the same three stories high, which meant when you're at the bottom, you go across the road. There was no way for the sun to come in because it's blocked off from I mean, you get sun if he was at the top of the building. But the other building was blocking the sun from really getting into the into the window.

So yeah, that was a bit weird. Good for the TV, you know, because there's no sunshine on TV and no light distraction as such. Yeah.

But my friends, yeah, he says trousers fell down. That's that's I don't know how I got talking about doing a house tour. The house tour.

That's I guess that's what I'm going to call this recording house tour. Childhood house tour. I had no clue that was going to happen.

So I'm going to go. Thank you for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself.

Be gentle with yourself. Lots of love. Bye