The Secret Door by Sue Widdicombe - Roddy Phillips

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The Secret door by Sue Widdicombe
My overriding memories of the house where I spent my formative years
are of numerous doors leading from room to room and of the numbing
cold in the winter months.
My father, who was born 5 years after the death of Queen Victoria and
had lived through the austerity of the First World War, did not feel the
need to heat the house. After all there was a solid fuelled aga in the living
room and a small open fire in the lounge, surely that was enough
The main part of the house was 15 th century and was rumoured to have
been owned by Anne of Cleves.
The side door of the house became the main front door which opened
onto a hallway with 4 doors. Directly opposite the front door was the
curved door leading to the lounge. The lounge was an unusual room, in
that it had 2 square corners and 2 rounded corners and a curved door
occupied one of the rounded corners.
This part of the house with high ceilings was added at a later date. The
lounge lead into another small hallway which was the main front door.
The door was divided into 2 and opened out onto the front garden. It was
never used except by the postman delivering letters through the letter
flap.
From this hallway a door lead to the dining room which was never used,
except at Christmas and family gatherings.
My mother a keen gardener and had ambitious plans for growing her own
bananas. She had 3 banana seeds, which she sowed 3 months apart. Her
reasoning was she didn’t want a glut of bananas all at once, as there were
only so many bananas you could consume at one time without them
going off.

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The banana plants grew and the fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk
seemed to become a reality. The banana plants were moved from room to
room until their final resting place in the dining room.
In the dining room the banana plants grew making the room seem like an
impenetrable jungle. However my mother’s dreams of growing her own
bananas were shattered when a particularly cold winter killed the plants
and all that remained were the brown withered leaves and thick stems.
The dining room opened onto two steps that descended onto a polished
brick floor, uneven from centuries of wear. This was the living room
where the solid fuelled Aga pumped out warmth all year round.
The living room had 2 doors on one side, one door lead to a walk in
cupboard with a bread oven that was built into the side of the chimney.
The other door led to the cellar with the high brass door knob, which was
permanently shut. What secrets lay behind the door
At the local primary school in Ditchling we had begun a local history
project on the church. The church had secret passageways and it was
rumoured that a tunnel existed between our house and the church.
My mother would open the cellar door twice daily to fetch coal from the
cellar for the aga. When my mother had absent-mindedly left the door
ajar, I would rush over to see what lay behind it.
A single light bulb hanging from a cable illuminated a dark and
mysterious place. Thick cobwebs hung suspended from the high ceiling
and almost vertical brick steps covered in coal dust, descended into the
dark cavern below. The smell of damp, musty and stagnant air wafted
upwards from the cellar.
The sounds of a shovel scraping over the floor & buckets being filled.
There were sounds that came from the cellar when there was nobody
down there. Sounds of falling objects, could there be a restless spirit
active in the dark caverns of this house
Another door could be heard opening and closing, scraping over the floor
as it shut. A door to where To the secret tunnel that connected to the
church

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Sometimes my mother would spend what seemed like an age in the cellar,
what was she doing Where was she going, what was she trying to hide
There was only coal down there surely
The sounds of heavy objects being moved around and scraping, clanking
noises echoed around the cellar, what was going on down there Was she
using the tunnel to the church Who was she going to see
As time passed and I started to grow up I asked my mother to take me
down the cellar. I wanted to see what lurked in that dark place filled with
cobwebs and strange sounds.
As I slowly and nervously followed her down those steep brick steps, I
followed her around the corner which, opened up into an open space.
Another light bulb hanging from a cable threw shadows against the dark
wall. Puddles lay on the floor mixed with coal dust, which gave the cellar
its damp musty smell.
In front of the wall to the right were numerous racks of wine bottles.
Bottles filled with homemade wine. Wine made from the fruits of the
hedgerows, the garden and almost anything it was possible to make wine
from.
The door that I could hear scraping along the floor opening and closing,
was now in front of me. Was this where the tunnel began
My mother opened the door and I hid behind her. My heart pounding, I
covered my eyes and peered between my fingers, in anticipation of seeing
what lay behind.
To my great disappointment a pile of coal lay there, which had been
delivered through the cellar window by the coalman. There wasn’t a
tunnel, or any skeletons, just coal and bottles of wine.
Ends