We moved from the Big house when I was five, but up until that time I slept in the smallest bedroom, right next to the dark door behind which ran the stairs to the attic. My Mother told me I would regularly wake up during the night, crying that I couldn't breathe, that something was choking me, and funnily enough  I can clearly remember the sense of foreboding I felt when I had to descend the grand staircase when alone. There was a door to a bedroom directly at the top of the stairs, it was my elder sister's room, beyond which was the bathroom I think.  Each time I would reach the spot where I had my back to the rooms, my hand upon the handrail and I'd be overwhelmed by a presage of something black, dark, sinister even, yet I knew I had to descend to get away.  To this day I have a distinct recall of flight. Somehow, some way my childish stepping became fleet, flight even! Yes, in the sense of winged, it felt like a swoop, a glide and I was in the entrance hall at the bottom of the stairs. I can't explain it.

The door to the attic opened outwards on to the landing and then the narrow steps led upwards into the rooms. It's funny I don't remember feeling frightened up there.  There were trunks and old cases full of clothes belonging to my fathers long dead Aunts, the usual trumpery, hats with tattered feathers, broken fans, ancient musty handbags, old shoes.  All Dad's India photographs black and white, sliding about in a small suitcase and all his uniform from the army. It was dark, no window that I remember only a light bulb and the smell of old things and moth-balls and times gone by. There wasn't anything menacing up there,whatever it was, it was only on the staircase and landing.