Gran's Tangerine Dream

Mitzi (the old bitch on the right) with Bobby the budgie at my Granparent's house. I can see Jar Jar Binks in the wallpaper!

My grandparents house in the late seventies/early eighties, I remember was a sea of orange. We’re talking burnt orange, marmalade orange, bruised-apricot I remember the centrepiece in their kitchen was a glass-topped table surrounded by six leather swivel chairs in pumpkin orange.

I often spent the summer holiday at my grandparents house, mostly because my older sister Jezabel couldn't be trusted to look after me, both my parents worked, so I was shipped off to the Orange Kingdom.

I've been sifting through some old photographs and came across this one of me squinting, not at the sun, but at the orange globe ceiling lamp in my gran's living room, the photo must have been taken towards the end of the summer holidays because I looked so fat, I was fed chips, followed by daily knickerbocker glories, shop bought tangerine trifles decorated with piped cream and glace angelica, B&B pudding the slices of bread of which where spread thickly with butter and marmalade too, and the treacle sponge served by the slab accompanied by custard.

Here are the matching curtains, I'm also wearing an orange t-shirt with a picture of Scooby-doo on the front. The hair! My sister used to tong it so I looked like Joanna Lumley's character Purdey from The New Avengers.

My parents had very conservative tastes, an ecru sofa in the living room, white walls throughout and plain oatmeal carpets looking back at it now, I finally understand why mother's taste in decor was so anodyne she must had been traumatised as a child by all that colour growing up.