First House

I bought this house in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the early 80's for £9,000 (that's €13,400). It had an outside toilet, no bathroom at all and the kitchen was in a tiny room on the back. There was just a lighting circuit with one two pin wall plug in one room.

At the time the Housing Executive, which performed the same role as a local council in the rest of the UK, was giving grants out to modernise these houses as there were so many of them in such a backward state. I got one of these grants and had it rewired, a new kitchen and bathroom put on the back, there was lots of re-plastering etc. etc. so all in all it turned out really rather well.

In the photo mine is the middle one; not that there's much difference between them. The car on the left was mine. It's a Volkswagen Polo, the one and only car I've ever owned.

This house did not cost very much but it was in a reasonably okay area. In fact at that time in Belfast houses were extremely cheap indeed because the city was effectively gradually depopulating owing to the strife and violence which are commonly called "the troubles".

First house I owned