Gert Suburban

By Laura Lloyd

Everywhere I go, whenever I see an estate or area of red brick housing, I’ll forever associate it with deprivation of some kind. A harsh sentiment perhaps yet there is always a fondness in its familiarity. As barren as parts of an estate can be with front gardens full of various forms of debris or waste. A soiled mattress, springs exposed and now a home to a host of wildlife. A broken washing machine, oozing with gunk and reeking of mould. Wrappers, bottles, dog ends and dog shit.. The odd abandoned house with windows covered with thick, unsightly metal mesh. Weeds spawning up through concrete like some cancerous expansion of nature trying to fight back. How can something so derelict and bleak be held with so much affection and warmth? Bristol has some rough areas and Knowle West is no exception to being a well-known shithole. In affluent areas, scum can be harder to spot. They hide behind well pruned hedges and three bed semis with two cars and a garage. This warped sense of security appeases the surface level of anxiety of its host. At least in Knowle you can prepare yourself for running into a smack head and know where not to go. The boundaries are clearer. 

My mother's family are from Knowle, she is not ashamed of where she is from, far from it. She is just the opposite of the people you would mostly associate Knowle with. The eldest of four, she was brought up in an honest, hardworking household. She was always taught to be well-behaved, despite all hell breaking loose quite frequently outside her doorstep.  

Nan and Grandad lived on the end terrace house. More or less directly opposite the swimming baths, which were still open when I was a kid. For the last twenty or so years since it's been demolished, it has become some metal-fenced, barricaded barren land, littered with waste, and drowning with weeds. Mum learned to swim there. I didn’t.  

Then there’s the library, directly opposite. A dilapidated building that doesn’t look like it’s changed since the day it was built. Flaking paint, single-paned windows, and there’s never anyone in there because let's face it, it’s Knowle. Christ the King Catholic Church is right next to that, with the nunnery at the back. Never saw any nuns though but that was because being allowed out on your own as a kid in Knowle was a rarity. It was only if Nan was working: she worked in the newsagents next to the old cinema which was demolished too. Another wasteland, but the side of the building next to it has a memorial graffiti which is quite impressive. It is oddly complimenting to the metal railings and desolation it is surrounded by. A tattoo on the brick's crumbling and decaying exterior. The Filwood Broadway was lined with closed shops, tatty shutters and gum plastered pavements. The few that stayed open were the bookies, the bakers, and the pharmacy. The only shop open on the other side of the road was the newsagents and then there was the Chinese takeaway at the other end, by the green. 

Nan and Grandad’s house was yards away, around the corner from the shop. This one had Perspex all around the interior. This was long before COVID days and had far more to do with protecting the stock and the staff from residents than it was to protect from viruses. The only things that weren't guarded by the Perspex were the papers. It didn’t used to be that way. Walking in through the doors and the smell of pure sugar made my nostrils flare. There was sheer delight at being handed the crisp, paper bag and filling it with sweet treats and walking up to the counter. Handing it to a stout, jolly lady wearing a white and red faded stripe tabard. “Don’t eat ‘em all at once babbies!” But this stopped with the Perspex. Nan loved working there but this created such a divide and disconnect that the social element became robotic and impersonal. 

If Aunty Caroline was picking us up, we’d drive over in the Fiesta, the old square-shaped version. Bright red. Slight signs of rust on the arches. It had an odd smell. Like the plastic dash and seat fabric mixed from the sun's heat, not like a new car smell...not fusty or old; comforting. We’d drive from Keynsham through the lanes in Queen Charlton, where we’d pass field after field, with the windows down in the summer. Lush and green. These lanes separated rural and urban. Coming to the end of the lanes signified to us that Knowle was near. Once we’d hit the cemetery, there was only one more bend. Keynsham was more rural then, not like it is now - just a mini mimic of central Bristol's Cabot Circus. Paranoia would make Caroline lock her car in the garage. Wire fences only a few feet high would separate the garden from the lane. This was a people watchers paradise. There was always something happening. We would be deterred from watching and lured inside with ice pops and Tizer. 

We never used the front door. No one did. The lane alongside their house was frequented by the delightful druggies and drunkards. The lane opens out into Barnstaple Court. Washing hanging from flaking railings. Some woman having a slanging match with her teenage son and if he kicks that ball against that car again, she’ll “tan his fuckin’ ass!” To not see a police car in the car park was a rare occurrence. The very strong, unmistakable smell of weed wafted from the flats above the shops. As an innocent kid then, I only thought it smelled like piss. 

“Hello my babbers!” That comforting greeting and the heat from the kitchen was soothing. So was the lino that was lumpy underfoot. Nan was very often in the kitchen making a brew or boiling the absolute crap out of some indescribable vegetable. It would usually be a weekend and she’d be doing a roast. I would almost retch at the stench of cabbage that was boiled to mush and know that I would be handed a beige plate for my dinner. That wasn’t a roast, Nan pretty much hosted a cremation every week – but her apple pie was a winner. She would roll out the pastry on those worn units, so worn in places, that the wood underneath was exposed and you could see the grooves that knives had left behind. It was a galley kitchen, with no room to swing a cat.. Every single nook and cranny was utilised. Plates towering on shelves that did most definitely not look fit to hold their weight. Worn mugs with spoon swirls etched into their bottoms. Everything was worn but this was out of use, not out of neglect. Every item was valued and had its place. 

The dining room. The dining room was an odd little room that was never really used. There were no seats, no table. No one ever ate in there.There was a humongous sideboard filled with random trinkets accompanied by half an inch worth of dust. Another side unit full of old country records and what always seemed like mountains of washing. Sometimes Nan would iron in it. Christmas presents were stored there. Some of Pop’s tools. It was essentially just a giant crap drawer.    

Pops would always be sat directly in front of the TV watching the races or the footy. If his face wasn’t on the TV, it was in the paper - always a tabloid, thankfully never for the tits. You’d only ever get a grunt from him, the only acknowledgment of our existence. At most, he’d tell us to help ourselves to the sweet jar on the sideboard. He was more of an ornament or accessory to the room. He’d be on the settee with the dogs, two spaniels daft as brushes and in their old age, soft as shit. You’d be lucky if you got a seat on ‘their’ sofa. If not, it was a stool or the floor. 

Nan would sit in the armchair, chaining it and intermittently knitting. Nan smoked so many fags she had a nicotine streak through her cropped grey hair. She laughed like a drain, a proper dirty laugh that I can hear ringing through my ears every time I think of her. She’d sit me in front of her and try to teach me to knit. The smell of stale fags all over her nimble fingers and a smoker's cough that accompanied our conversations. Yarns of wool stuffed on either side of her, knitting patterns everywhere. Roses and quality street tins filled with biscuits lined the legs of her chair. There was always some itchy cardigan or hideous knitted sweater handed over that was secretly treasured. They were homebodies and their home was their castle. It had that crazy standard 70’s print carpet that would make you feel like you were tripping out every time you looked at it. Embossed wallpaper, with a paisley pattern slowly starting to tear itself away from the walls. A framed Lowry print. A sandy-tiled fireplace with two giant Bell’s whisky jars on either side, almost full of coins. A huge wooden chiming clock on the mantelpiece, always signifying to us that it was time to go home.