My childhood home held magic worlds that spun a protective web around me. The radio set competed with the record player as the most coveted entertainment hub in our spartan living room.

As I listened in awe to the little men and women hidden inside the radio, my ear pressed close, I could almost cancel the noise of the argument just a few feet away.

There was no point, the spell had been broken, irrevocably. I headed for the cool, dark haven of the pantry.

Being small in a busy household allowed me to slip in and out of rooms unnoticed, giving me the freedom to create worlds far away from this domestic dystopia. None of my older siblings was available to escort me to a friend’s house.

The pantry was nestled next to the kitchen, and was one of my favourite escape hutches.

The earthy smell of flour in a sack larger than me, root vegetables and a giant enamel tin containing a months’ worth of sugar for a family of 10 created a safe hiding spot for a small child. I could daydream about the characters in the Peter Rabbit storybook.

Hours later, I woke on the cool cement floor. My mother was banging pots and kettles around in the kitchen. She swore softly under her breath.

These harmless words helped her express her frustration with her school teacher husband who demanded impossible economy from her.

Somehow, baking cookies and washing and ironing other people’s laundry, she managed to feed and clothe us all.

The flour sack in the pantry would make its second debut as sets of handstitched dresses cut to Butterick tailoring patterns. All of us wore the sack dresses in their new, lovingly made guises.

My sister had used one such pattern to make a fancy ball gown. I touched the soft fabric of the cascading frills. Somewhere at the back of the townhouse, doors slammed and girls raised their voices.

I had little interest in these occasional arguments between my teenage sisters. They only entertained me when they performed a music show in the room: the dressing table on spindly mid-century-style legs was the piano, which my sister banged with enthusiasm as she belted out a Barbara Streisand hit in soprano.

The sweet scent of floral colognes and body sprays hung heavy in the air. When the feminine scents became too much for me, I headed to explore the boys’ room.

The garage had been converted into quarters for the boys. My brothers and a cousin rooming with my family slept here on metal-framed, spring beds that closed like clams if you sat on the wrong spot.

I hadn’t figured out the trick to avoiding the scary clamping bed and avoided the beds. In a corner, a wooden shelf held infinitely more interesting treasures than the girls’ room did.

Photo novels with glossy covers shouted adventure, intrigue and drama to an older reader. I thought it curious that the people in the book didn’t look anything like me. They didn’t have skin and hair like me.

It was okay though: I knew they were trapped in the magazine forever. Next to the stack of magazines of masked men, cowboys and crooks, Indians and fearful maidens, was a little bicycle fixing kit.

It smelled different from the earthy smell of the pantry. These kits kept my brothers out on the streets, free from the chaos in our home. I couldn’t ride a bicycle and my brothers were unlikely to teach a five-year-old sister on their Raleighs.

It was much more rewarding to start my money-lending business, Malone’s Nickel and Dime, from these quarters.

I hid jars full of coins given to me by grandparents and visiting aunts, and reluctantly doled out a few to my brothers, who were keen to impress their dates at the only local bioscope, The Lyric. The rest would pay for cigarettes, smoked secretly in the backyard.

In later years, I realised many of us had created alternate worlds for a brief escape from the drudgery of the working-class struggle.

Malone’s Nickel and Dime, the piano concert and daydreams in the pantry laid the foundation for a rich inner life.

No matter how uncomfortable a situation became, I knew that one part of me would always remain only mine. My imagination.