While I was setting up the Channel 4 soap Brookside, in 1981, I had to think about relocating from London back to Liverpool: I’d moved south after the success of the BBC children’s drama series, Grange Hill, which I also created. Time was a scarce commodity, however, and I was wondering how I would manage this when I happened to see a “For sale” board outside a house called Delamere on Mossley Hill Road.
It was one of the “desirable roads”, so I stopped and looked in through the double gates. There stood a classic white-stucco, three-storey Georgian merchant’s house, complete with a gas lamp to one side of the steps, which led up to double entrance doors. I’m not sure I fell in love with the property, but the Scouse “that’ll do for me” sprang to mind.
I quickly called the estate agent, and on discovering the house was on the market for £82,000, said I’d buy it. “Don’t you want to see inside?” he asked, surprised. No, I said — as long as the property survey confirmed it was worth the cash, I’d proceed. The hardest part was hanging on to the gas lamp because the owner didn’t want to sell it. It became a dealbreaker, and I always say I bought the gas lamp and got the house free.
I also nearly made a mate for life, as the owner kept coming back for bits and pieces he suddenly remembered were of great “sentimental value”. One day, I came home to find my dad in quite a state because he had called round to find the previous owner taking away a section of sandstone wall. They had exchanged a few words, and in the end I had to get the lawyers in to “ask him” never to come back. That finally cured his sentimentality.
The six-bedroom house had a large hall, lounge and small room at the front that I turned into a library. At the rear, a sitting room overlooked the garden, and a small flight of stairs led to the kitchen, with another one down to the old cellar.
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I developed a soft spot for that property, not least because I celebrated my marriage to my wife, Alexis, there, and it was our first home together. It was also where my dad — who had been disappointed when, at 21, I’d given up my job as a trainee quantity surveyor to become a writer — conceded I had a proper job after all.
He came to visit one weekend, and I found him staring through the floor-to-ceiling lounge windows, out across the lawn, with misty eyes. Then he told me he used to drive buses down this road, looking at these houses, never thinking he’d live to see the day when one of his own could afford one. He never again asked when I’d get a proper job.
We lived at Delamere for nearly 10 years, but when Brookie moved into its golden period, people were endlessly knocking on the door asking for jobs. And by then I was travelling to London twice a week for business meetings, so I wanted to be nearer the rail network.
So we moved to Cheshire (the Scouse bit near Runcorn), which cut the journey time, and used our old home to house visiting directors. When the Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks, which I also devised, first started in 1995, we even used it as the house of one of the characters, Kurt Benson, until all the neighbours complained about the disruption. Then it became a staff house, until, after more than 20 years, we eventually sold it for about £450,000.
Needless to say, I took the gas lamp.
Highbridge by Phil Redmond is published by Century at £12.99. To buy it for £11.69, inc p&p, call 0845 271 2134 or visit thesundaytimes. co.uk/bookshop