Rosa Ainley - 2 Ennerdale Drive: Unauthorised Biography

First and always, I want to thank Jo Henderson who makes everything possible.

Many people have contributed to the development of this work. Excerpts from the book were delivered as readings at the Architexture conference at University of Strathclyde in April 2008, and at the Writing Gender and Space conference at Warwick University in March 2009. I am grateful to the organizers, Craig McLean (Strathclyde) and Charlotte Mathieson and Arina Cirstea Lungu (Warwick).

I am indebted also to staff at the archives I visited in person and online, especially to Maggie Wood and Zo Brealey at the Museum of Domestic Architecture at Middlesex University. Tim Brittain-Catlin and Elain Harwood made useful suggestions for readings on suburbia. Among the readings and comments that helped shape the book, those from Katherine May and Vanessa Norwood were particularly useful on the opening sections.

Working with Kirsty Hall was an invaluable process that deepened my understanding of what I was trying to do and why, with this book and beyond.

Heartfelt thanks go to Janet Harbord and Sarah Turner for support, enthusiasm and contributions to my thinking on the project; to Pekoe Ainley, Tim Holmes and Charles Mowbray for feeding me with stories, contacts, genealogical information and materials; and to Sarah Cooper, who kept asking when can I read it?

This is the one. This is that one picture of me with my dad, the single photograph of us to go with the single photograph of the two brothers, Ant and Richard. Theres no doubt here: this is me and him. Look at us! It wasnt so hard to find, not too hard to find something when Im the one choosing both the categories and the hiding places.

And only then I remember: its me and my dad in the picture and its me who made the picture too. I said its one of my favorites, thats because I made it. I made it into what I wanted, as far as I could go before Photoshop. I cut it up. Simple. It gets to be a habit. I decide who goes to the party and I decide whos in the picture. It shows everything I want the world to know about me and my dad. Id somehow forgotten that had to mean theres a whole lot I didnt want the world to know. I can almost write myself into feeling his arm holding me up around the waist, and how big and strong and secure and forever that felt. Its less a breaking apart of my little girl memories than a confession of my own hand in the making of them. Now I can feel the pasting over of that impression as if I am the photograph. Its like a shock. My revisionist editorial imaging is only part of it; its all been cracked open otherwise. And thats a whole other story, or maybe this is it.

At the time, all I wanted was a picture of me and my lovely dad, dammit. Mine mine mine. Just us, so that I could imagine I was more than one of three orbiting satellites. I wanted us, no one else. At the time of the Kodak Instamatic I was the one in front of it and him behind. It wasnt even a few pictures of us two alone, its none and I wanted one at least. I figured that my brothers had enough exposure in thousands of 2 inch-square prints taken before I arrived, so I thought I could take this image and remake this story, recreate this particular moment to suit all my needs. This is what all photographs do, I know, reconstruct real memories in real or imagined spaces, in fictional timespaces. Ive turned it around: a fiction constructed in a real space. I might not be the detective but Ive tracked myself down. Whos the guilty party now?

The lies and comforts of pictures. Im getting there. I need to hold the illusion that he was mine, while bearing the knowledge that he was short-term, time-share dad. It doesnt change it after all. Thats still me and him there in the spotlight where Ive placed us. I wanted to keep hold of the seven-year-olds version, with no other interventions. When youre young you do think things are going to last forever. I know there are other stories now. These are other strands and they coil up together somehow. I know some of them and some of them I dont like and I dont want to know. They dont block each other out.

I cropped it, discarded the rest of the family even though its one of very few of the family together. I cut them off: my mum and my two brothers. It looks as though I think I can get rid of any of them when I feel like it. I was at it then too, trying to control something that will never be mine. I cant really afford to be so cavalier in my picture editing, but I could say that I made them absent because they are absent. So why not? My family, why shouldnt I? My need for a whole family picture may be great, possibly even too overwhelming to be admitted to, or to imagine fulfilled. The state of the family means that reconstructing the pieces, the sections and slices of family can be more desirable because more achievable in the imaginary and in the image. Unlike the dream of my mums party, this time I will fix it right. I will imprint a permanent version that I can always return to and that will never be damaged or lost. These are my thoughts as I concentrate on this picture. And that the process of making and remaking is as it should be. Im still the director here, but Im very much a player in this tableau and somehow at my own mercy in the end, caught in the plot myself, resisting my own stories. I cant even remember my own moves. Some detective. There are so many layers in this little tale, one that I originally thought brought a wry-edged ending to the bigger story, that Ive caught myself out. I cant quite either show or hide all I want to.

Its one of my favorite pictures. It still is. My dad is dangling me-the-toddler on his lap. Im wearing that Look at me and my dad! Arent I clever? expression. Hes huge, clasping me effortlessly about the middle with his good arm as though Im a soft toy. He holds me securely, nonchalantly, because its nothing unusual. He does it all the time. His hand is larger than my face. Its around 1963.

We spent plenty of time together during the day before I went to school and at that time that earned us plenty of attention, which I think both of us enjoyed. I did, a little beam in my big dads orbit. He cut something of a figure and he liked to stop and talk. In photographs he often looks as though hes reciting lines. Couldnt get him off the stage either, just like his dad. And after I started school he often used to take me there in the morning and walk me back again in the afternoon. He worked at home quite a lot, and was probably at home not working quite a lot too. Thats what actors do.

It looks like Im leaning back into his chest, my head tucked into the crook of his neck, his chin appearing to rest on top of my head. Maybe its because he has to crane his neck over the top of my head that his gaze looks unfocused, just over there. His left (bad) arm would be resting on his leg, possibly beneath my left leg but theres a pub-garden table, really a glorified parasol stand, blocking the view. Its out of season so no umbrella is necessary in that flat light. The thin metal disk of the table slices us horizontally, cuts me off above the knees, revealing the end of one trouser leg and two feet in white socks. The plinth cuts my dad vertically along the left shoulder. I wonder who composed this picture so badly, with the table in the foreground. Whoever it was would have used the Instamatic, about the size and shape and weight of a half-pound of butter. Dont forget to wind it on, someone would always say, although you couldnt forget because if you hadnt wound it on, the mechanism wouldnt allow you to depress the shutter button the next time. While the film was being advanced the camera gave a satisfying mechanical sound, pleasingly climaxing as the requisite number of sprockets was passed through.