Life

Radio review: House of Dreams tells a tender love story

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann is an Irish News columnist and writes a weekly radio review.

Nuala McCann
Nuala McCann Nuala McCann

House of Dreams Radio 4

You and Yours Radio 4

When you step into Stephen Wright’s house, you live by his rules... that’s what he says with a flourish.

His is the house of dreams – beautiful dreams, broken dreams, even nightmares.

It all began with outsider artists – inspired by their places in France, he began his own dream with his partner, Donald, at their home in East Dulwich.

Now the house is covered with objects – photographs, toys, records, glasses – the broken and the whole are there - trinkets and souvenirs of other lives.

His parents’ false teeth are cemented into the wall at the gate – he passes them and he sees their faces and whispers a tender hello.

Some of a friend’s ashes are inside too – she’s present.

There was a lot of grief – he lost both his mum and dad and his Donald, in a very short time.

After that, he lost heart in the house of dreams for a while. But the artist and the lover in him rose again.

His new partner, Michael, doesn’t live with him in the house – he recalled going in there for the first time and 40 dolls all staring fixedly at him.

But Michael knows love and confesses his heart still leaps when he sees Stephen coming towards him.

This was a tender, warm love story about beauty and loss and all that it means.

People send Stephen their treasure and he finds a place for it.

The House of Dreams is worth a visit.

To coincide with freshers’ weeks across the country, You and Yours asked how financially savvy students are.

On afternoon drives up the road from the city centre this week, crowds of young people spilled out of the pubs onto the pavements – clearly they’re starting early and perhaps the loans are in.

You and Yours reported that surveys suggest students are turning to high-interest, pay-day loans or credit cards.

Former students confessed to using such loans and spiralling into debt.

“Getting a £1,500 overdraft - as an 18-year-old you immediately go out and buy a bike – you go crazy, it’s impossible, you got no-one telling you what to do with it,” said one man.

He talked about taking a credit card because you got a free popcorn maker with it – he made popcorn twice.

Another woman remembered being wooed by a bank with the promise of a free sandwich maker ....

Our collective aversion to talking about money at home and in schools snowballs said one expert and blogger.

Maybe it’s time to change that.