Trailer trash

How Dad’s caravan living taught me the power of place

In the space of three generations my family has gone from tenant farmers on my Dad’s side and immigrants from India on my Mother’s to… well, me.

My dad’s parents patiently put what little money they had aside for years until they could buy some former agricultural land in West Oxfordshire. They didn’t know if they would be able to build on it but not for one more day would they be under the threat of eviction from a tenant cottage.

With three children in tow, they lived in a caravan on the site, a period of time my dad fondly refers to as his trailer trash years. Brick by brick, in what I routinely think of as a completely inspiring and mind boggling feat, together they built a bungalow.

Dare I say it, they didn’t have time for any millennial wonderings of ‘what if?’ or ‘can we manage it?’. I’m sure those thoughts were there but that post war generation seemed to just meet them face to face, for better or for worse and lo and behold a few years later on January 1st 1965 they moved in.

A photo taken for a local paper. Beloved Skip the dog was known to be loyal to the hilt but partial to nicking Sunday joints

My mum’s mother was 13 when she arrived from India into the Liverpool docks, stepping off the boat with her mother, brother and sister. As you can imagine, we don’t have a great deal of photographs from this time. Partition had been a factor in their move but more critically my great grandmother had decided that an unhappy and oftentimes abusive marriage was not for her.

She got up one day, gathered her children and she left.

When I have my moments with this bold and beautiful business I am building I remind myself of the steely resolve and effort required to travel across the world by boat to an unknown place with your children. Or the strength needed to break ground one frosty morning and begin anew.

I remind myself that I am walking in the footsteps of my family giants, don’t worry Mum and Dad, I won’t embarrass you here but you are they too.

So why, dear readers, have I ‘gone off on one’ this week, indulging myself in a bit of multi-generational romanticism..? I share this because I want you to know how powerfully I feel about the importance of place and of home.

Whether leaving your home behind or building it for yourself from scratch, I know the transformative power of it. In the short term I might help you save money on tiles or understand your aesthetic better but what’s really in it for me is helping people feel more like themselves within their own four walls.

I don’t aspire to be the face of an enormous company knocking out variations of the same interior over and over. I aspire to work closely and carefully with handfuls of interesting people for whom I can bring more ease and joy to this thing we call interior design.

Most pressingly, I want people who have worked with me to feel at home when I leave.

Perhaps there’s something I can help you shift the needle on? If so, I’m grateful to share the following review from lovely Jo McCarthy who recently used my consultation service to do just that:

Hi Sabrina

I am honestly blown away by the level of detail and thought you shared with me. I trust your judgement and you've unlocked something important for me.

Thank you!

Until next time,

S

My Uncle Tom and grandad marked a key turning point in the build, August 1964