When I was a child, the bottom of our garden was a 3' deep border dense rhododendron thicket that towered over my head. Backing onto our garden fence was a ramshackle old shed with a corrugated iron roof and a metal chimney. I could just see it over the rhododendrons from my bedroom window.
There would often be rattlings and muted bangings. The occasional smoke, sometimes sparks, from the little chimney. Wisps of steam would appear from random areas of the shed.
I had never seen anyone at that house's windows, but I'd read The Treasure Seekers, and I knew what happened in empty houses! Coiners! Burglars melting down their illicit loot!
Dastardly deeds were a-doing in that secret thicket-hidden shed!
There was a police raid one night, with helicopters and dogs, involving several houses on our block. And after that, there were no more noises from The Shed. What more proof did I need?!
Decades later, I met train-mad dh and went on my first steam train ride. The smell threw me straight back to childhood...it was the smell that lingered at the bottom of the garden whenever there were noises from The Shed.
Our neighbour had not been a coiner or burglar. He had been nothing more sinister than a steam enthusiast tinkering happily away in his back garden.
Chatting to my mum about it, she said "Oh, yes, that was X. He was a lovely neighbour. We got on so well. He always helped me prune the rhododendrons, and he fixed so many things for me in his workshop. They moved away when their children grew up. The people who bought the house were nice enough. Kept themselves to themselves. Good neighbours, I suppose, but not the same."
"But what about the police raid?" I asked.
"That was a couple of years after X moved away. It was nothing to do with that house - it was 3 or 4 doors down on our side. They were growing drugs."