Julia Miles lived at 23 Polstead Road between 1986 and 1991. She recounts her lasting impression of community and the contrast with her life before and after a crucial five years here. She is the author of “An Ambassador’s Wife’s Tale”, a good read.
Table of Contents
Pre-history - before moving to 23 Polstead Road
As a child growing up in North Oxford, I never liked Polstead Road. It seemed a dank and mournful place, although I had a friend, Mary Jacobus, who lived in one of the houses between Chalfont Road and the Anchor. I enjoyed visiting her and eating her mother’s radishes straight from the earth.
The road always seemed so gloomy and cold, made worse by the pub, whose unrelieved brickwork felt brutal. Occasionally there would be an unkempt, suspicious-looking person lolling around on the wall outside, but usually the road was quiet, forlorn-quite godforsaken.
1986 - a shock
It was a shock to find myself living at number 23 in 1986. It happened like this: We were evacuated from Libya in 1984 after PC Yvonne Fletcher was shot while policing a demonstration outside the Libyan Embassy in St James’ Square.
After a few weeks in Marston, I managed to rent a damp house with a medieval staircase from my husband’s Oxford college, and we lived there for a year until we were suddenly sent abroad again. I had no motivation to go, especially as my two youngest children were happily settled in Oxford schools. So I dragged my feet.
We decided to sell our idyllic house in a Hampshire field where the trees we had planted had begun to grow, and the stream continued to babble through the bottom of the garden, and days appeared sunny and carefree, and come to live in Oxford. It was a hard decision, especially as the day we went house hunting.
We flew from our post abroad on a freezing February day, with snow greying the sides of the roads. There were ten houses for sale in Oxford, and after we had reduced the choice to two, for reasons of location, price, condition, etc., it was evident that Polstead Road would be our landing place. It had never looked worse.
Music
I had had a bad experience of semi-detached living, and for five years was driven mad by music 24 hours a day: his daughters’ pop all day and into the evening, and his own overnight listening. I once rang him at 4.00 a.m. to ask if he could reduce the volume; It’s Schubert, he said, as if that made a difference. I love Schubert but not at full volume in the early hours.
The family whose house adjoined us, had a dog flap. I didn’t know such things had been invented until their dog used the facility with great crashing exits and barking during the night. Eventually some students who lived on Woodstock Road and in the throes of revising for their final exams called the police, and thankfully the dog was brought under a degree of control. But sleeplessness was an aspect of those five years.
The house we bought had been a ‘house in multiple occupation’ (HMO). The council was only too pleased to allow us to return it to a family house, so we had to call the builders in.
We spent the winter of 1986 living with a blue plastic sheet as the fourth wall, while the builders took their time removing six kitchens and several bathrooms. A bedroom and bathroom served as our kitchen and living room, but at least the children were getting a proper education, and we could visit the other two in boarding school. But my husband was posted in Luxembourg, which meant regular trips by various means to visit him.
Events - and the police
I was able to commandeer our car, as he had an official one abroad, but ours had diplomatic plates, which got me into some strange wrangles. I was working in Bicester Probation Office when I was questioned about these plates, and the result was nasty bullying, as I was considered a ‘toff ‘.
But after a morning when my husband was collected by taxi and a driver with a thick foreign accent, only for an RAF chap to appear smartly on the doorstep at the appointed time, ready to take him to the airport, did the police get involved. Oliver had not been kidnapped as feared, but we were put on a watch list, despite our protests that it was completely unnecessary.
We forgot about it until one day the police contacted me to say they’d noticed a suspicious car outside our house with the letter ‘L’ on it. I tried not to laugh when I explained it stood for Luxembourg, not Libya.
The police seemed quite difficult to get rid of, as they next requested access to our first-floor front room as they wanted to do some surveillance of the house opposite. Naturally, they wouldn’t specify what they were looking for, but after that we assumed it was a brothel, as there were some shady characters and flashy cars coming and going, on and off. So, the police took up residence, and we never knew more, but it was intriguing.
Community
So those were some of the bizarre events at number 23. But what we all remember with great pleasure was the party held in St Margaret’s Institute to celebrate 100 years of the road. Polstead Road had not just a good community spirit, but also a lot of talent, and the event was memorable.
A scratch orchestra was formed with my 8-year-old son, Hugh, playing the cello. That was sufficient achievement, but to my horror and amazement he took it upon himself to become the maître d’. After the main course had been cleared away, he stood up and announced, ‘All those living in even-numbered houses could get their pudding’. Obediently, everyone did.
It took us a long time to sell the house in 1991 as the market had experienced a bit of an upturn since we’d bought it five years earlier and there was more competition. Our estate agent remarked that he wondered if his board had grown roots.
1991 - Moving on
Finally, we succeeded, and we moved across the Woodstock and Banbury Roads to a larger property, but on a road with no community spirit at all.
After the excitements of life near the canal and Port Meadow and our jolly and noisy neighbours, we felt we resided amongst the Living Dead. Long Live Polstead Road, which doesn’t seem as dank and dreary nowadays.
