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Door Stepping

Door Stepping: First House

First House

BBC Radio 4 - Door Stepping, First House

Remember the house you grew up in? Would you like to go back and visit? Jude Rogers does.

4 Extra Debut. What if you could to go back to everywhere you’ve lived? Jude Rogers revisits the homes that shaped her memories. From 2017.

Does anyone stay in one place anymore? 

Statistically, moving house is one of the most stressful things we do in our lives - whether finding somewhere to live, moving in, moving out - we leave traces of ourselves scattered in kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, flat shares, student lodgings and childhood homes. 

Would you like the chance to go back ? To see who lives in your old bedroom, what colours the walls are painted and which posters are stuck up with blue tack? Or what has happened to the swirly hall carpet your parents laid? 

In this series, Jude Rogers travels back in time, to visit the places that she's called home over nearly 4 decades - a journey through front doors, differently configured living rooms, extended bedrooms places shared with family, friends, boyfriends and most recently, her husband and child. 

Some surprises are in store, as buildings change dimension in her memory, moments of joy and tragedy return, and a sense of continuity is found. Gentrification, shifting social movements and nostalgia, all observed with a candid and personal eye. 

This opening episode, finds Jude nervously approaching the house she lived on a new-build estate in Wales, where she lived up to the age of 5. The garage is gone, the back garden built on... but then she steps inside to find...?

Producer: Sara Jane Hall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2017.

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