Every prefab has its secret places. There is endless speculation on what the Swileys in prefab number twenty-five keep hidden away in the brown suitcase in the back of their (always locked up) coalhouse. Our secret places are the compartment of the travel trunk which stands in the hallway (the rent book, bank book, passports and fire insurance papers are kept here) and the bottom drawer in the cupboard with built-in metal drawers in the sitting-room. This serves as the treasure trove for valued cultural artefacts. Take a lucky dip here and you could retrieve any of the following: a Football Monthly or Woman's Own, assorted pieces of Meccano, scores of subbuteo table footballers (many of which have been unfortunately decapitated), a miniature relica of world champion Juan Manuel Fangio's racing car, a guide to the night sky purchased in
the London Planetarium, a picture of John Charles signing for Juventus football club (this marks the start of International Football Capitalism), a bundle of Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained!
labels from the Children's Book Club, a cigar tin with an unlit Dutch cigar inside, and a hit-record from the Platters called Smoke Gets In Your Eyes which is biding its time until we get a record-player.)
One of the most unsettling books lent to the old man by Dai 'Tolstoy' Lectic (resident of prefab number one and one of our leading literatis) was the Selected Writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. It had one line which impressed us all a lot. It was about redeeming the past and transforming every 'It was' into 'I wanted it thus!' "If only we could do that!" the old man said. Most of the other sections of the book did not go down well at all. Nietzsche seems to have been keen on weak people perishing. Those who live in fragile temporary constructions like prefabs are weak by definition, so that was all of us done for. Dai 'Tolstoy' Lectic told us that Nietzsche's sister was an unpleasant woman who turned Nietzsche's home into a Nazi shrine and museum.
It is said that not long before he died Nietzsche saw a horse being savagely beaten. Instead of joining in the fun and giving the weak horse an extra beating - which is what some readers might have expected - Nietzsche embraced it and started to weep. This image of the beaten horse being caressed by the philosopher was to linger in the imagination of some people on our prefab estate for a long time.