Chapter 1

Beyond the wooden entrance doors was a tiny hallway (only useful for parking wet umbrellas) with a further set of double glass doors, and through these was the large hall paved with black and white marble squares. The paving throughout the house and grounds, much of it mosaic, was beautifully done by Mr Schwarz, who had built the house for himself originally. The hall was furnished with a walking-stick stand, the oak settle which Mother had carved in the 1890s, and which held rugs, cushions, and other paraphernalia for motor-car travel, a very large oak armchair also carved by Mother on which she had carved 1900 as that was the year she finished it but later wished she�d said 1899. Under the gong hanging on the wall stood a Savonarola chair.

Going anti-clockwise in the hall, immediately on the right was Dad�s consulting room which was furnished with a roll-top desk, an examination couch, chairs and a glass-fronted bookcase. The window looked onto a yellow banksia rose creeper and a red hibiscus next to the front door.

Then came the wide staircase and round the corner from it was the heavy glass door to the playroom (which will be explained later), then the pantry which Mother had contrived in a minute space by getting cupboards built above the garage - an oddly-shaped slip of a room with a broom cupboard, a shelf below the hatch to the kitchen, a small sink, and a high counter onto which one had to swing oneself up to reach the cupboards and shelves which contained crockery, vases and many precious items. Two earthenware water filters also stood on this counter.

The kitchen was next, which had a gas stove at first - in fact the whole house was piped for gas, but we had electric lights from the beginning and an electric stove later. The kitchen was furnished with table, chairs and various cupboards and shelves, and was barely adequate for all the cooking and the serving of the servants� meals. When we acquired a fridge many years later it was placed in the hall next to the playroom door.

The most lived-in room in the house was the morning-room, a small narrow cramped room but somehow one in which we all lived very happily. It had a bookcase (with a cupboard below which housed family games), a sofa and a morris chair against one wall. On the opposite side was a chest of drawers with the telephone, a fireplace directly opposite the sofa, Dad�s big armchair into which he hurled himself regularly every evening after dinner and then filled the room with pipe smoke, then a gate-legged table and Mother�s upright chair where she played Patience frequently after dinner. There was a cushioned bankie against the tall windows, which opened out above the back garden.

The main downstairs rooms all had double wooden doors, with glass panels just above eye level - one stood (but not when I was two and a half) on tiptoe to see who was in the room. The bedrooms also had glass features, but they were single doors with fancy opaque glass.

The dining-room had three of these doors - from the hall, to the greenhouse and back garden, and to the drawingroom. The large expandable table, 12 chairs and the vast sideboard were of oak. Mother�s desk was in a corner, and there was a bookcase which held books whose titles became very familiar to me as we all knelt in daily prayers after breakfast - wide-eyed I was busily learning to read. We all, including the cook and the housemaid, read a verse from the Bible in turn, and I took "synagogue" in my stride quite early on, to the family�s surprise.