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The red-brick cottage where my mum and dad grew old stands alone in fields at the point where the Cheshire Plain thinks about rising towards the Peak District.
A clump of oaks loiters to the west in the middle-distance.
asserted
clump → see → distance
The River Dean burbles busily beyond the confines of the cottage's little walled garden.
asserted
Dean → burble → garden
A lifetime ago, before my son was born, my wife and I would make the journey up from London and stop the car at the end of the driveway so my daughters could race down to the front door, ring the bell and squeal with delight when my parents feigned astonishment that their two angels had appeared out of nowhere.
uncertain
angels → bear → astonishment
My dad died during the Covid pandemic and at the end of 2024, my mum, who played Emily Nugent, later Emily Bishop, in Coronation Street for 56 years, moved to a home for retired actors, actresses, directors, producers and musicians on the north-west outskirts of London.
asserted
who → die → London
The week after I drove her away from Kennel Cottage, I went back to deal with what was left behind.
asserted
what → drive → Cottage
They reached the stage where my dad refused to throw away aluminium foil bottle tops from pints of milk and my mum was seized with anxiety whenever I visited lest I tried to throw away some of the old newspapers that stood in solemn piles, like sentries, at every turn in every room.
asserted
that → reach → room
Oliver Holt and his mother Eileen Derbyshire, who played Emily Bishop in Coronation Street for 56 years, in the 1960
Eileen Derbyshire as Emily Bishop (L) and Betty Driver as Betty Turpin (R) in Coronation Street
The house was stuffed with the story of our lives.
asserted
house → play → lives
I found all my old exercise books from King's School, Macclesfield, all my old football jerseys.
asserted
I → find → School
I opened a suitcase and found cuttings of every article I had ever written for The Times, The Mirror, The Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail.
asserted
I → open → Sunday
Mum had snipped them all out with her trusty pair of big silver scissors.
asserted
Mum → snip → scissors
Even though my kids had grown up, my parents had never dismantled the brightly coloured toy house that sat in one corner of their dining room and had provided hours and hours of joy as an imaginary cafe from which my daughters served imaginary lunches.
asserted
daughters → grow → lunches
My younger daughter had drawn a picture of the globe on a page of Coronation Street script paper, and written on it: 'Best Cafe in the World' and it had been stuck to the kitchen door with a piece of Sellotape for nearly 20 years.
asserted
it → draw → years
I located The Beatles autographs that John, Paul, George and Ringo signed when Mum met them at Granada TV when their superstardom was in its infancy.
asserted
superstardom → locate → infancy
Mum kept them in a concealed drawer that could only be opened by reaching into another drawer and pressing a hidden lever.
uncertain
that → keep → lever
An auctioneer arrived.
asserted
auctioneer → arrive → ?
He told me no one buys brown furniture any more.
asserted
one → tell → furniture
I hired skip after skip after skip for it and for the mountains of bedding, clothing, papers, books and bric-a-brac that spilled from the cottage's every pore.
asserted
that → hire → pore
For a few months, I became Cheshire Demolition's best customer.
asserted
I → become → months
It sounds melodramatic, I know, but there were times when I stood by the side of one of those skips, holding a well-thumbed road atlas that had been my dad's bible or my mum's old dressing gown or the place mats we had laid out on our dining room table during my childhood, the ones with impressionist paintings of Montmartre and Notre-Dame on them, and froze.
asserted
we → sound → them
They were time machines that transported me back 50 years.
asserted
that → transport → me
I am an only child and I was holding things my parents had treasured in my hands.
asserted
parents → hold → hands
Now I was betraying them.
asserted
I → betray → them
I apologised out loud to my dead father and my absent mother for what I was about to do.
asserted
I → apologise → what
'Sorry Dad, sorry Mum,' I said, as I hurled something else they had loved into the bright yellow abyss.
asserted
they → say → abyss
I opened armies of albums and gazed at battalions of faded black-and-white photographs of relatives I did not recognise and family friends I did not know and wondered if another human being would ever look upon their faces again.
asserted
being → open → faces
The thing that haunted me most was my dad's handsome old desk.
asserted
that → haunt → me
We always called it 'Karl's Desk' as it had been bequeathed him by a Swiss friend and Dad had, somehow, managed to strap it to his Land Rover in the 1950s and shepherd it back from Interlaken to Stockport.
asserted
Dad → call → Stockport
In my mind, this feat had assumed such epic proportions that I imagined it as a scene from the epic movie Fitzcarraldo.
asserted
I → assume → movie
But I didn't have any space for Karl's Desk at home.
asserted
I → have → home
I felt I was being dreadfully disloyal to my dad when I persuaded the auctioneer to take it away.
asserted
I → feel → it
I felt like I had let him down one last time.
asserted
I → feel → him
It sold in the Macclesfield branch of the auction house for £50.
asserted
It → sell → 50
It was when I moved into the garage that I found the Coronation Street scripts.
asserted
I → move → scripts
They were crammed tightly into cardboard boxes that had been brought with us from house to house over the years.
asserted
that → cram → years
Some were typed on pages of light blue, some on pages of off-white.
asserted
some → type → white
The later ones had 'Eileen Derbyshire' printed in capitals across every page.
asserted
Derbyshire → have → page
The dialogue and stage directions leapt up at me.
asserted
dialogue → leap → me
They read like the transcript of my mum's life.
asserted
They → read → life
She brought Emily home through her good times and bad times, too.
asserted
She → bring → times
In January 1978, when I was 11, Emily's husband, Ernest Bishop, was shot and killed in a wages snatch at Baldwin's Casuals.
asserted
husband → shoot → Casuals
…and 88 more, not listed.
The Aporia
