upstairs/downstairs

The Nuns Moor Road house stood on a corner, which meant it was bigger than the rest of the houses on the street, with four bedrooms instead of the normal three.
At some point, it had been divided into two separate flats. Up until I reached the age of 11 or 12, we lived on one floor and rented the other one out to a succession of tenants. The first ones I remember were an Asian family, but there were also a Chinese couple, a bunch of hippy actors, and, for a couple of years, my Uncle Bruce and his wife and young family.
I started at nursery really young, pretty much as soon as my parents split. My Mam took a job as an Art teacher at the local comprehensive, Rutherford - former pupils include Hank Marvin and Ant off Ant and Dec - and didn't have any choice but to enrol me and Wor Kid in nurseries.
I'm told that I hated the first one and cried on pretty much an hourly basis. But when I got to two, I started at Ashfield, a short bus ride away to the badlands of Elswick Road, and the tears subsided.
Ashfield was an imposing Edwardian building with a walled garden to the back.
My earliest ever memory is probably of the day I visited Ashfield before I started there. I can remember standing at some French windows, looking out over the garden and thinking "yeah, I think I'm going to like it here" to myself.