As Mum perambulated my little brother in a large Victorian pram, the rest of us skipped beside her through Walthamstow in the early ‘90s. My sister and I often wore matching dresses from granny, and my elder brother had a large red anorak with trainers. We were all close in age, and I was in the middle. Every morning, the four of us would walk to school together; even from the age of five we didn’t need any parental intervention. Running through the alleyways when we were late, then stopping by the corner shop on the way home, we’d buy penny sweets with coins taken from Dad’s drawer.

I remember the bin bags of hand me downs that would occasionally be dropped off at our house from family friends. I felt indignation at such offers, though reluctantly I would soon be wearing my brother’s anorak to school. It had Lego badges down the arm, and sure enough my classmates would make fun of me, keen to remind me I was wearing a boy’s jacket. The Martin house was ramshackle and scruffy. With a large forsythia bush at the front that never got trimmed, we’d shy away from inviting our friends round, in order to avoid any embarrassment about ‘the bush’. Not to mention the piles of papers taking up half the corridors and the stacks of books. Luckily, the aesthetic of 72 didn’t occupy my mind too much as a child though, as my interests lay elsewhere.

For the holidays, we’d escape 72 and pile into a cab headed for Paddington to spend time in the South West. My grandfather had the proud title of Bishop of Exeter, so for those intermittent periods in the ‘90s, we had a palace as a second home. I remember once recounting these tales at primary school only for my teacher to cross out my ‘grandparents palace’, to ‘place.’ But a palace it was. Over those summers, we’d have Mrs Bea the nanny to play with us; we’d ride the tractor with Steve the gardener, and would roam the huge grounds. At Christmas time the whole extended family would come to stay. After the church service, held by my grandfather, the congregation would be invited to the palace for coffee morning in the drawing room. My siblings and I would sneak in to sample the Appletizer and Ritz crackers.

My Grandfather retired in 1999, so with it came the loss of our second home. The Martin household has never moved though, and its foundations today are still held up by books. Now they are piling up to dangerous heights, and I have to protect my daughter from a tumble down. My mother carves her own space amidst the cluttered living room, where the mantelpiece is decked with cards kept from each celebration. But still the company and the clan is as comforting as it ever was, and we all remain magnetized to its pull.