The Gap in the Curtain

Polygon Press 2012 edition

Living at Oxgangs is quite clear in my memory and vivid in my mind; as the cliché goes, it seems only like yesterday; however it is actually forty years since I lived there and of course some of this blog goes back fifty years ago-half a century.Because it remains in one's mind's eye and the houses remain, in a strange way, one thinks that world still exists-that one only need step through the gap in the curtain and the families and that day to day life continues to exist and that one can pick up and revert to that former way of life. However, the reality is quite different; it's later than one thinks, when one reflects on the number of mums and dads and others who headed up each household who are now dead. My father Ken Hoffmann; Molly and Dougal Swanson; Mr and Mrs Stewart; Helen and Charles Blades; and Charlie Hanlon are all individuals who I'm aware of.

In wanting to capture a flavour of that time this is certainly my story, but it may be interesting to see where the story goes especially if others contribute their stories-their memories and also to comment on the daily blogs. It’s my interpretation of life at 6 Oxgangs Avenue, the day to day, month to month, season to season and year to year life seen through the eyes of a child, a boy and then a youth, but reinterpreted through the prism of a man of fifty six years of age. 

I know from the afore-mentioned occasional exchanges between my mother, sister and brother that we will spark off one another recalling things from the past that we had either forgotten or thought we had forgotten or be given a different perspective or a surprising twist, sometimes quite different from how I had perhaps seen or viewed an individual or an event.