It is hard to pin down the precise date when a group of us decided to "have a go!" at setting up a Prefab Philosophy Club. (The "have a go!" phrase was inspired by Wilfred Pickles, the folksy Yorkshireman who hosted the "Have a go, Joe!" BBC radio quiz broadcast which ran from 1946 to 1967).
One of the first projects of the Prefab Philosophy Club was to take a leaf out of Walter Benjamin's book and encourage residents to make "maps of their own lives." Benjamin's idea of "aura" had impressed us all. This was only to be expected since prefabs are saturated with a very distinctive aura or atmosphere of their own - and the idea of mapping out our own lives was made us appreciate this all the more. Here is Benjamin's own effort (he lived from 1892 - 1940) at sketching out his own 'life-map' in pre-First World War Berlin.

"I have evolved a system of signs, and on the grey background of such maps they would make a colourful show if I clearly marked in the houses of my friends and girl friends, the assembly halls of various collectives, from the 'debating chambers' of the Youth Movement to the gathering places of the Communist youth, the hotel and brothel rooms that I knew for one night, the decisive benches of the Tiergarten, the ways to different schools and the graves that I saw filled, the sites of prestigious cafes whose long-forgotten names daily crossed our lips, the tennis courts where empty apartment blocks stand today, and the halls emblazoned with gold and stucco that the terrors of dancing classes made almost the equal of gymnasiums."

This was the life-map conjured up by one of the members of the Prefab Philosophy Club (her nom de plume was Spinzoza Dice). What Walter Benjamin had done for pre-war 'Berlin'we would do for post-Second World War Twiverton!

"We have evolved a system of signs, and on the green background of such maps (laid out on the baize of subbuteo table football pitches) they make a colourful show. We have clearly marked in the prefabs of our friends and girl friends and our key gathering places. These include the 'jug and bottle' entrance to the 'My Full Moon' public house, the fish and chip shop run by Mr and Mrs Tobins, the open bedroom window of prefab number thirteen through which - on one quite unforgetable occasion - a young lady dressed only in her swimming costume gave us a friendly wave, the kerbstone on the corner of Woodhedge Road where we sat and pondered our futures, the bendy tree in the 'wooly bed' in Pennyquick Wood, the not-over-prestigious cafe hut in the football ground, the playing field that stands on top of the old coalmine, the secret pathway to the Gothic turrets of Brunel's railway tunnel, and the green emblazoned with daisies and buttercups on which the dazzling prowess of our sporting skills would be displayed to an awestruck world.