13 things you’ll only know if you grew up at my parents’ house in Coleraine Road, Great Barr, B42

We all remember being alive in the past. Sometimes we remember shops that were in the same place as a different shop is now, or that bus tickets were slightly different. And we all grew up in our own local area – how mad is that? The internet papers are full of it as the past makes us feel good. But how much of a person that grew up at my parents’ house in Coleraine Road, Great Barr, B42, are you? Find out by looking at this prime number of things you’ll only know if you grew up at my parents’ house in Coleraine Road, Great Barr, B42.

 

• The hot water won’t be on if the heating isn’t, (and the heating won’t be on until October) you’ll have to run a bath with the shower.

• The circuit board that provides hooky cable should be unhitched if you’re not watching the sports or the movies, as they can tell, you know.
• Bin day is Wednesday.
• There’s no point trying to break in by climbing over the back fence into the garden if you come home a bit drunk one Christmas eve in the early ’90s. You’d still have to put the window of the back door to the lean to through and that is simply not worth the hassle.
• The bloke next door has pinched a bit of garden up the back by the shed, but it’s not worth challenging him on it, just give him the cold shoulder.
• The alarm code is a portion of the old phone number before we switched from British Telecom to the Birmingham Cable Company and had to get a 681 number.

  

• It takes exactly four minutes to walk to the number 16 stop by the Beaufort pub. If you leave at 7:25 you’ll get to school on time.
• You can’t get Channel 4 as the aerial has to point to the Wrekin rather than Sutton Coldfield because Hamstead hill is in the way. The TV will sometimes go green when it’s been on for a bit, if it bothers you you’ll have to switch it off and let it cool down, banging it does no good.

  

• Peter the ex-rabbit is buried in a shoebox at the front of the flowerbed to the right of the garden. Don’t let the cat dig there.
• You need to turn that bloody music down, it’s 10 o’clock at night.
• You ‘usually pay’ £4 for a taxi into town. Perry Barr cars are on 356 1914.

  

• You need to keep the shower curtain inside the bath, and don’t spend too long in there as we’re not made of hot water.
• The orange juice is your dad’s.