The Prefab Files navigation Setting the scene The prefabs go up in Bath Twilight falls on the prefabs The end of an era A salute to the prefabs Historical archive A panoramic view of the Twerton prefabs Contact

A Panoramic View Of The Twerton Prefabs

Climb onto the roof of the corrugated coalhouse and you had a panoramic view of the entire prefab estate. On the back road 'Copper Jones' could be seen adjusting his cycle clips and pausing to survey his terrain. An oil-stained face peers up from the underside of a motor-bike side car and studies the policeman's every move. Two boys wrestle on the green. A girl leans out of her bedroom window to show off her new swimsuit. A queue forms outside the Co-op grocery van ("share number 24419!")

On the hills to the north grey clouds swirl around William Beckford's Tower.  Profits fom a slave plantation in Jamaica helped build the Gothic novelist's pile.  (There is no escape from history here!)

Rain starts to fall on the prefab estate.  Mrs Hill rushes out to take her washing off the line.  Semprini's Serenades crackle from wireless sets.  The Slileys in the next door prefab are having another row.  A roar goes up from Twerton Park as
the ball thuds into Myrthyr Tydfil's net.  It is followed by a groan - the goal has been disallowed!  A train races through Carr's Wood into the ghostly dark of Brunel's tunnel.  In the front garden of prefab number twenty-four the light green speckled hedge bides its time.

The prefabs were a foreign country
They did things differently there.