Houses and Homes

The English are distinctive in their aversion to flats and their devotion to rows of small brick houses. Travel from Western France across Europe to the Urals and you will see cities surrounded by modern blocks of high-rise flats. The details of architecture will vary, but all coun­tries have found that the obvious solution to cheap new housing to accommodate families moving in from the countryside or demanding improved con­ditions within the towns is to build blocks of flats.

Of course some English people enjoy flat-life, but for the vast majority of them, the basic idea of a home is a brick house with rooms upstairs and downstairs. Here lies a confusion of terms in translating them to and from Russian. The English use the word ' house' for a dwelling intended for one family. They would never say of a 'block of flats' that it is a 'house', and hence 'DOM' has no exact equivalent in English. The English always distinguish 'flat' from 'house', not because a house is grander (it may be a tiny section of a row of dwellings) but because a flat is still unusual, except in city centers, where it is unusual to live anyway. The word 'home' is much more personal, much warmer: Russian ' home' is the place where people live which they have created — its furnishings but also its atmosphere, their sense of other people who live in it, their feelings about its past as well as its pre­sent. Something of the Russian feeling about the privacy of kitchens is found in the English word 'home'.

Some of the grandest of all houses are found in the country. These are large country houses or stately homes, which in some cases are still oc­cupied by members of the land-owning families who originally built them. Many such houses are of historical and architectural importance, and stand in extensive grounds. Old or architecturally interesting houses may be designated as listed buildings by the government.

Flats are found mainly in towns, although they may also be self-contained units in converted country houses or hotels, etc. Modern flats are often "purpose-built" in the form of large apartment blocks or tower blocks, but many large houses in towns have also been converted into flats. Flats may be owned by the people who live in them, or rented from a private land­lord or some local authority. Local authorities are the main providers of rented accommodation.

The brick house is a legacy of the industrial revolution. Employers had to build accommoda­tion for the millions of workers pouring into the cities and at that time the cheapest solution was to build rows (terraces) of small houses, each with two small rooms downstairs and two small rooms upstairs. Lavatories were common to several houses and out in the back yard. The rooms were small because they were heated by open fires, not by stoves, and families tended to huddle in one room, usually the kitchen. Bedrooms were unheated, and to this day many English people find it impossible to sleep except in a cold room with the windows wide open.

As equipment improved, houses became more compact. Today houses are being built all over southern England which are brilliantly designed but tiny — four rooms, kitchen, bathroom and lavatory covering less area than many former Soviet three-roomed flats. That is the small type, and of course many houses are much bigger, with larger rooms and more of them. But essentially such houses are of the same pattern.

Today, with central heating built into all new homes, the 'two downstairs rooms' have often been knocked into one (though in large houses there may be additional small rooms downstairs). Often the kitchen area is open to this large room. The English have small halls (the climate means that people rarely wear heavy winter coats and in any case they do not wrap themselves up as the Russians do so they don't need much cloakroom space) and they often have a bathroom and lavatory together upstairs, but a separate lavatory downstairs.

Almost all such houses will have their own back garden. However tiny, this is much preferred to communal land. The English like to have their own fences, their own little garden shed, and, preferably, their own strip of land outside their front door. The British nation is known as a nation of gardeners.

In the 1960s, architects pulled down many rows of old Victorian houses with no bath­rooms and minimal facilities and put up new shining blocks of flats. Within a few years many of these blocks had become slums, hated by the people who had been moved from the terraces. Many of them have since been demolished, and few blocks have been built since. Architects have gone to semi-detached and terraced houses, each one neat, tidy and pri­vate.

Russian people have a habit of describing any­thing built before or about 1955 as 'old'. In England a house does not qualify as old unless it was built at least a hundred years ago.

If you consider homes of a British and a Russian family, it seems that there are far more interesting contrasts between Russian flat life and British house life. Most of the advantages are to the British, but not all. If in Russia you have hot water at all, you have endless supplies of it. (Many British people still find it shocking, washing up dishes under running hot water! A life time has taught them that they have to pour a rationed amount of water into a bowl and wash up in that. Even if with modern central water heating it is not so necessary. Often they don’t rinse the dishes after washing them up in the foamy water.) Even modern Russian flats often have good wooden parquet ['pa:kei] floors, a luxury in England which has for long lacked wooden supplies. Besides Russian people have discovered the art of making extremely comfortable simple beds.

British homes have similar basic furniture - beds (double beds for married couples), tables, chairs, armchairs, cupboards, shelves (now British families are less fond than they used to be of glass-fronted shelves), lamps, radio, television, stereo, record players and, of course, DVD or CD players. People in Britain can choose their styles and materials; they can select their favourite patterns and shapes for lamps, crock­ery, cutlery, towels, linen, chairs and their furnish­ings, curtains, and materials.

Floors in English dwellings are generally carpeted with modern synthetic carpets. Kitchen floors are covered with vinyl ['vainil] or tiles. Their kitchens and bathrooms are full of useful consumer goods and useless gadgets.

Fridges are smaller than in Russia, but many families have freezers where they can keep prepared frozen food or freeze their own home-grown food. (Hence there is far less jam-making and home-preserving than in Russia.) The English usually can buy excellent kitchen knives and other tools, expensive but good-quality pans and sauce­pans, and all sorts of plastic contrivances where the Russians have wooden ones. Washing machines are almost universal for family homes; individuals can take their dirty clothes to a launderette. Tumble driers, which dry the clothes but leave them unfresh are common in America but not in Britain.

For cleaning their homes English people have vacuum cleaners, as well as brooms, brushes, dusters and all kinds of polishes and creams for dirty windows, damp, filthy baths and so on. As usual the British may not run out of detergent or toilet paper, and they may have all sorts of electrical gadgets (which sometimes don't work), but daily life has many similarities with that in Russia: sinks do get blocked, damp walls grow mould, children spill sticky food onto carpets and telephones mysteriously refuse to make connections.

Besides the above mentioned technologies and stuff used inside the house, British people can get certain outside services in their area. In Britain many households receive daily deliveries of post, milk and a newspaper, usually in time for breakfast. A milkman does a milk round, visiting a number of houses in an area. In towns, electrically op­erated milk floats are used and other goods, such as potatoes, eggs, fruit juice, etc. can also be supplied by the milkman. There is a daily postal delivery to every house, however remote. In towns, older schoolchildren can earn pocket money by delivering newspapers (called doing a paper round) before they go to school.

Older children and students also earn money by doing the baby-sitting. This and other services are often advertised on a display board in the window of a newsagent's or any small local shop. Repair men, also called odd job men, electricians, gardeners, window cleaners, painters and decorators, plumb­ers, domestic cleaners (called daily helps) and child minders (= women who look after children during the day while the parents are at work) also often advertise their services in this way. Services are also advertised in the " clas­sified ads " section of local newspapers.

Many services can be ordered by telephone and a special telephone direc­tory, the Yellow Pages, lists firms according to the services they provide. You can order a cooked meal to be delivered from a Chinese restaurant or a pizza restaurant. If you want to send a present to someone, you can arrange for chocolates, flowers, etc. to be delivered. Many of these delivery services use motorcycles.

Shops and offices in town centers provide services such as dry cleaning, shoe repairs, photocopying and the use of fax machines. In launderettes you can wash and dry clothes in coin-operated machines.

Most people given the choice would prefer to own their houses rather than to rent them. Consequently renting is usually left to the young (from private landlords) and the poor (from local authorities). But private housing means a market economy, which means an ability to pay. If you can pay, you can have; if you can't pay, you can't have. Obviously a lot of people cannot afford to hand over the full price of a house (an average, not-very-special house will cost about five to seven times an entire annual salary before tax.) So such people have to live in council estates (= groups of council houses laid out some way from the town centre). A typical council house is either semi-detached or terraced.

Council flats and houses are built and owned by the local council. After the Second World War, a lot of high-rise council flats, known as tower blocks, were constructed. Some were as high as 20 storeys and so badly built that they had to be pulled down only thirty years later. Modern council housing estates are built differently. There might be a mixture of two-storey terraced houses, together with a four-storey block of flats. There are play areas for children and there is often a community centre where people who live on the estate can meet. A recent development has been the growth of sheltered housing. This con­sists of blocks of modern flats or groups of small houses specially designed for elderly people. They are usually situated near the centre of a town, close to shops and other amenities, and have a resident warden. As with council houses, the residents rent their homes from the local council. Since the 1980s, council tenants have been able to buy their own homes very cheaply if they have lived in them for over two years. By 1993, 1.5 million council houses had been sold, but only 5,000 council houses or flats were built to replace them. This means that it is now very difficult to find cheap housing for rent — a real problem for the poor and unemployed. Most homeowners have bought their house by means of a mortgage loan through a building society or a bank. Houses are usually bought and sold in Britain through an estate agent, using the legal services of a solicitor.

First-time buyers (= people such as young married couples setting up home for the first time) almost always buy their houses this way. A typical loan is for up to 90 per cent of the price of house, repaid over 20 or 25 years in monthly installments. Take this sample family:

If spouses are both earning full-time, their joint income might be £26,000 before tax. Tax would reduce that to about £18,500. Then they will pay for gas and electricity, perhaps £1,300 a year, £650 for television, £350 for insurance and water rates. Total spent on the house which is covered by a standard Russian rent would be £8,300 a year, getting on for half their disposable income. That is fine if they can use the other half of the income for living, but a great burden if, say, the girl wants to give up work for a time and have a family. If they move into a bigger house, they can take with them both the money from selling the flat and the debt. In practice this means simply paying a larger mortgage for a larger house. For older people, as the debt gets paid off, financial worries improve steadily, but for young people house-buying is an exciting but burdensome commitment. Why not then rent a house? Unfortunately there is always an enormous queue for housing subsidized by local authorities and councils try to allot homes to those most in need — which do not include the young. So the alternative is private renting, and in this housing sector, rents are enormous. So you are paying minimum £5,000 a year anyway, and if you leave for somewhere else, you have gained nothing from all that expenditure. Better at least to have a twenty-year loan and your own house at the end of it all.

So as you can see the major problem for English people is not the cost or availability of basic consumer goods — on the whole these are cheap and getting cheaper — but the cost of housing. Since the British pay such an enormous proportion of their income for the roof over their heads, other parts of other choices in their lives, such as where they live and what they work at are immediately affected by the decisions they take about housing. That is why some people choose to live in a mobile home on a caravan site (usually called a home park).

Many people in Britain have no home at all, with the number of the homeless increasing. This increase is mainly due to changes in the way social security benefits are paid, periods of rapid increase in house prices, and a sharp decline in the number of council houses being built. Local authorities have an obligation to provide accommodation for home­less families in their area and many families are housed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation until permanent housing for them can be found. The homeless also include young people who have run away from home or a children's home, elderly people who have no family, and the mentally dis­turbed, all forced to live wherever they can. This often means " living rough ", begging or travelling by day and sleeping in the open or in door­ways at night. The big cities, especially London, have a large number of such homeless people. One part of London's South Bank area has come to be called "Cardboard City" because of the many people living there in huts made from cardboard boxes.

There are some free hostels for the young homeless, but these are for short stays. The charity Shelter works on behalf of the homeless, and the Sal­vation Army, a religious charity, offers them food and shelter.

House vs. Home

A person's home is as much a reflection of his personality as the clothes he wears, the food he eats and the friends with whom he spends his time. Depending on personality, how people see themselves and how they allow others to see them, most have in mind an "ideal home". But in general, and especially for the students or new wage earners, there are practical limitations of cash and location on the way of achieving that idea.

Cash shortage, in fact, often means that the only way of getting along when you leave school is to stay at home for a while until things improve financially. There are obvious advantages to living at home: personal laundry is usually done along with the family wash, meals are provided and you pay minimum rent for it if any at all.

On the other hand, much depends on how a family gets on. Do you parents like your friends? Are you prepared to be tolerant when your parents ask where you are going in the evening and what time you expect to be back?

If you don't like the idea of living with the family, the possibilities are well-known to you already. You can find a good landlady and rent a room till you make enough money to buy a flat or a house of your own.

Most families in Britain live in their own houses, rather than in flats or apartments. The houses are not always very big, and they are often built very close together. The saying ‘An Englishman’s home is his castle’ is well-known. It illustrates the desire for privacy and the importance attached to ownership which seems to be at the heart of the British attitude to housing.

But British people have little deep-rooted attachment to their house as an object, or to the land on which it stands. It is the abstract idea of ‘home’ which is important, not the building. This will be sold when the time and price are right and its occupiers will move into some other house which they will turn into ‘home’ – a home which they will love just as much as they did the previous one.

The houses themselves are just investments. An illustration of this lack of attachment to mere houses (as opposed to homes) is that two thirds of all inherited houses are immediately sold by the people who inherit them, even if these people have lived there themselves at some time in their lives. Another is the fact that it is extremely rare for people to commission the building of their own houses. Most houses are commissioned either by local government authorities - for poorer people to live in – or, more frequently, by private companies as ‘ property developers ’ who sell them on the open market.

There is one exception to the rule that ‘homes’ are more important than ‘houses’. This is among the aristocracy. Many of these families own fine old country houses, often with a great deal of land attached, in which they have lived for hundreds of years. They have a very great emotional investment in their houses – and are prepared to try very hard to stay in them. This can be very difficult in modern times, partly because of death duties (= very high taxes which the inheritor of a large property has to pay).

So, in order to stay in their houses, many aristocrats live lives which are less physically comfortable than those of most people (they may not, for example, have central heating). Many have also turned their houses into tourist attractions. These are popular not only with foreign tourists. British visitors are also happy to be able to walk around in rural surroundings as they inspect a part of their country’s history.

1. What is the most hated chore? Why? How often do you do it? Who usually does it?

2. Who does most of the chores in your house?

3. How do you typically avoid doing chores? What are your regular excuses: studying? Going out? It is not your turn?

4. Do you recycle your rubbish? What do you do if the container is full?

5. Who does the odd jobs around your house – electrical, hammering, painting?

6. Who does the shopping?

7. Who cuts the grass (if you live in a house)? Who waters the houseplants?

8. Who washes the dishes?

9. Who cooks?

10. Who makes sure the bills are paid?

11. Who is usually first to answer the door/the phone?

Britain's temperate climate, with rainfall throughout the year, makes it possible to grow a great variety of plants and shrubs, and for many people gardening is a creative and satisfying pastime. Even for those living in towns and cities it is an opportunity to create a small piece of countryside beside their homes.

Most British houses, even in towns, have a garden. Often there is a small flower garden at the front of the house and a larger garden at the rear, where flowers or vegetables are grown. Both front and back gardens often have a lawn.

Not all gardens are purely decorative: some are cultivated to provide home­grown vegetables and fruit, especially in summer. For families with young children or pets, a garden is considered almost a necessity. Many houses have a patio at the rear, a paved area between house and garden where people can sit and have meals in the summer. The edge of a garden is usually marked by a fence, hedge or wall, and neighbours often chat to each other “over the garden fence”. Flowers grown in the garden are often used to decorate the house.

Many homeowners spend a large part of their spare time gardening. Most gardens are laid out fairly formally, with flowerbeds arranged around a lawn, or vegetable beds running at right angles from a central path. Apple, plum and other fruit trees are frequently found in back gardens and there may also be decorative trees such as firs, birches or willows. Owners of large gardens sometimes have a tennis court or swimming pool in their gardens. Orna­mental features may include a fish pond or a bird bath. Brightly coloured models of gnomes are sometimes used as a rather eccentric way of dec­orating front gardens.

People often specialize in growing particular types of plants or vegetables. Many enter these in competitions at local shows, where prizes are awarded for the finest flowers and the largest vegetables. The worldwide known gardening show takes place every year at Chelsea and is visited by the members of the Royal family. Keen gardeners usually have a greenhouse for their plants. Town-dwellers who only have a small garden may grow vegetables in an allotment, one of the small plots of land let to individuals by local authorities. Most towns have a garden centre, selling both plants and gardening equipment and furniture.

A Bit of Gardening

Nora: What are you going to do on this beautiful warm Sunday, Harry?

Harry: I think I shall do a bit of gardening. Will you help me, Nora?

N.: Of course I will. Shall I put on my gardening boots?

H.: Yes, do - and so will I. I'm going to dig up that dead tree at the bottom of the garden.

N.: Shall I be able to help you?

H.: No, I don't think you will. You can be cutting off the tops of the dead flowers by the wall, or you can pull up the roots. We want the ground to be quite clean before the winter, don’t we? You will see when I have finished - or I'll see when you have - and then we'll think of something we can do together.

N.: Oh, Harry - will you please paint the roof of the shed? That really does make the garden look untidy.

H.: It shall be painted! But not till next weekend.

N.: And you shall have a glass of beer when the tree is dug up. I'll bring it out to you.

H.: That'll be very nice - I shall certainly be ready for it.

N.: Are you going to water those new fruit-trees?

H .: No, I shan't do that, because I think it will rain tomorrow. But I'm to cut the grass.

N.: I'll cut it if you like.

H.: No, you just clear the flower beds and then we'll see. Now, what tools shall we need?

N.: You will want the spade and fork, and I shall want the trowel.

H.: I say, how black those clouds are getting: I think it's going to rain.

N.: Thenwe shall have to put off our gardening until this afternoon.

H.: I hope I can still have my glass of beer!

-...a pan on fire

-...an open tap flooding the bathroom

-...a child drinking a chemical product

-...cutting your finger while preparing a vegetable stew

“My mother was speaking on the phone while a piece of meat was cooking on a pan in the kitchen. As my mother spoke, the meat got hotter and hotter, until it caught fire. She went on speaking, and the flames coming from the meat got taller and taller. A neighbour who happened to look out his window saw the flames and ran to the door of my mother's flat. My mother was still on the phone. The neighbour banged on the door and alerted the son of the speaking mother, he was watching TV at that time. It must have been a very interesting programme because the son had not smelled anything or seen any smoke, only the neighbour. Anyway, the son filled a bucket with water and... yes!, threw it on the burning mass!!! The whole kitchen was black, the mother shocked and crying, the TV deserted; the person at the end of the line... “

Nora: Harry, can we talk about money for a minute?

Harry: Of course, Nora. What's worrying you?

N.: Well, the point is that I'm afraid I’ll have spent my month's housekeeping money by Saturday.

H.: But it's only the middle of the month!

N.: I know. But then there were all the expenses of Peter's party. Besides, this house is getting more expensive to run every month.

H.: So you think the house isn't economical.

N.: I'm sure it isn't. It's too large, and it costs us far too much. Besides, I think I want a change. Do you know, in July we shall have been living here for fourteen years?

H.: Shall we really? That is a long time. But I like it here; I don't like moving about.

N.: Suppose we found a slightly smaller house - we could sell this one easily, couldn't we?

H.: Yes, of course; we shall have finished paying offthe loan by then.

N.: But let's think about it.

H.: All right - but let's not do anything hasty. Now, this seeping money. Will ten pounds be enough? That will cover the household expenses.

N.: Yes,but …

H.: Something else?

N.: Harry, look at this hat. There. What a sight am I?

H.: Nonsense, you look very pretty even without it.

N.: Do you realize that in exactly one week from now I shall have been wearing this hat for a whole year?

H.: Nora, I give in. You shall have a new one tomorrow.

N.: Well, as a matter of fact …

H.: I know. You … (think what Harry might have said here; discuss possible finishing with a partner.)

This is the way I look at it.

You must see it from my point of you

As I see it, the facts are these …

I’d like to talk about …

I’m not talking about …

I’d like to make some brief comments about …

I’d like to call your attention to …

One of the problems I have in mind is whether …

I’d like to ask about …

I’m always wondering whether …

In answer to your question I’d like to say …

Citations about houses and homes:

1. [A house is] a place where you can scratch any place you itch. (Henry Ainsley)

2. [A house is] the great object of life. (Josiah G. Holland)

3. Where we love is home. (Oliver Wendell Holmes)

4. [A house is] a place we go to change our clothes so as to go somewhere else. (Elbert Hubbard)

5. That’s the part of the world where people know when you’re sick, miss you when you die, and love you while you live. (Samuel Johnson)

6. Home is where you go when other places close. (Joseph Laurie)

7. Home means wife. (Mishna: Yoma)

8. [Home is] not where you live but where they understand you. (Christian Morgenstern)

9. [A house is] the girl’s prison and the woman’s workhouse. (George Bernard Shaw)

10. [A house is] a rendezvous for burglars. (Elbert Hubbard)

11. [Home is] a place where the great are small and the small are great. (Anonymous)

12. [Home is] the strength of a nation. (Lydia H. Sigourney)

13. [Home is] a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience. (Sidney Smith)

14. [A house is] the thing that keeps a man running to the hardware store. (Robert Zwickey)

WRITING

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