There is a solitary grandeur about a cluster of prefabs marooned on the edge of a stony hearted city. Not that prefabs are natural loners. Like buffalos they prefer to hang together in herds. This gives them with a sense of defensive security against a condescending and sometimes threatening world.
While prefab design has much to commend it there is one critical flaw. Their walls are far too thin-skinned. This makes prefabs too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. (As our goldfish - frozen solid in its bowl last December - would tell you if it could.) The prefabs' critical Achilles' heel is a lack of thickness. "The same cannot be said of prefab residents" as our enemies always say.
If someone is visiting someone who lives in a prefab (yes, such a thing does happen!) and is in need of directions there is no point in stopping someone and asking the way to "twenty four Newtin Road." A baffled stare wil be the only response. But ask to be directed to "The Prefabs" and there will be no problems at all. The slick salesman who lives in the immaculate prefab on the corner of Woodhedge Road used to take offence when people referred to him as living in The Prefabs. "My abode is forty-six Woodhedge Road, not The Prefabs!" would be his crisp response. Today he has come to terms with his fate and wears his Prefabs designation with pride. "Just as one has 'The British Empire', 'The Establishment', 'The Royal Navy and 'The Reform Club', so one has 'The Prefabs'."
Officials in Town Halls assigned with the delicate task of the Naming Of Names have to steer a perilous course between the Scylla of elevation and the Charybdis of ridicule. Neither Cheyney Mews or Dust Cart Alley would fit the bill as as the address for a row of prefabs. Middle of the road neutrality is the obvious course, and this explains why most all prefabs are located in Roads. In fact roads are right up prefabs' streets. Show me a row of prefabs in the Royal Crescent and I will show you a coalhouse with a diamond-studded roof! Or as the Naming Of Names official from the Guildhall told a Bath & Wilting reporter "If we gave one prefab a bourgeois appellation they will all want one!" Devalue the currency of language and the world would be turned upside down!
Not far from our prefabs and camouflaged behind a cluster of trees is a home for ladies who cannot speak or hear. Tag along with Ronnie Rogers' mum when she does her cleaning job there and you will go into a large room with a high ceiling and a circle of chairs. This is where the residents spend their days. From time to time some of them can stand it no longer and they
will race out into the garden in a flood of tears. Come And Cheer Us Up House should be made the home's new name.