Recently Home Truths have been preoccupied with fantasy worlds. This week George Kirby contacted us to tell us how he re-designs premises in his mind … he only has to walk into a room to yearn to re-build it…
George traces his mania for shifting walls around in his mind to a childhood spent with an eccentric aunt, "She was forever knocking down walls, and putting in windows and doors in houses. I think my building fantasies are caused by the frustration of not being a home-owner." George rents and attic. "It’s a territorial thing."
George’s material is wood; he’s a bit of a carpenter and hasn’t actually touched bricks and mortar, although they are his prefered imaginary material, "I’ve not had a place to try it out - I mean you can’t really go and knock people’s walls down, and re-build one in their garden, now, can you?"
As a red rag is to a bull, so a standard terrace house is to George - he’s driven into a frenzy by them, "A terraced house really gets me worked up into building furore! Traditionally the outside loo and the coalhouse are built out the back on the end of the kitchen - people convert that into a bathroom and you can’t see the garden from the kitchen! A kitchen to me is the room you spend all your time in…it’s the most used room in the house.."
In a colourful turn of phrase, George confesses that his "fantasies splurge into reality" when he buttonholes builders, finding out just how you move a bathroom round (run the sewage pipes under the floor), and exactly how much would it cost (£3 - 4,000). "Last week," George admits, "my friend caught me with a tape measure in his kitchen - I used to carry a screw-driver but it made a massive hold in my pocket - but I just wanted to find out whether it would be possible to move the shower and loo at the front of the kitchen, move the kitchen where the shower loo was, move the back door, hack up some concrete for a nice flower bend in the yard.. Oh! I had it all sorted out.."
But would it all be ruined, this fantasy world, if someone were to offer George the chance to put his plans into action? "Oh no!" George is adamant, "I’m a frustrated builder! It must be so satisfying to change the before into after, and more satisfying to enjoy the after because you’ve seen the before…"
