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Matt Bowen was born in 1971 at Newport, Gwent and raised there, at 39 The Moorings.
There was a big old house at the end of our street -- the mansion. They pulled it down when I was about ten I think. That must have been around 1980. Big and black it was, darker than everything else around.
Full of holes and rooms that you couldn't get into, we were banned from going there by our parents, and so we played there most weekends. Bats and tramps lived there. We would dare each other to go into rooms while the others made noises outside that travelled round the old house.
Looking back at it now, I can't really remember the shape of the house itself, or where all the rooms were. In fact I don't think I went into many of them at all. I only had a limited amount of bottle, and every time I went there it took all I had just to go into the first room you come to.
The house seemed to look different every time you went so you never got over the fear of going in for the first time. I guess it would look tiny now and not so dark and spiky. But I can't go back: they pulled it down.
I guess it was too dangerous to leave up. If it had been up to me I don't think I would have been brave enough to pull it down, not even now. That would open up all the rooms and let out whatever was in there and even now 30 years on I guess I still fear that house, although not as much as I did before I wrote this.
Matt Bowen, 2002
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