Perhaps it is because his own prefab has just five rooms (or six if you include the hall) that 'Tubby' Lard has long been fascinated by the Biblical line "My Father's House has many rooms." ("No", the vicar's assistant told him, "it does not mean the Almighty works in the hotel industry").
While prefabs do not have "many rooms" there are "many rungs" on a prefab estate's status ladder. As the sculpture of Jacob's Ladder on the front of Bath Abbey so vividly demonstrates, there is no escaping from prestige hierarchies irrespective of which side of eternity you are on. Even the angels seem to be pushing and shoving and flapping their ways to the top.
Outsiders always assume that everyone who living on a prefab estate is of roughly the same rough status. But "Au Contraire!" as the slick salesman in the ivy-entwined immaculate corner prefab always says. This is a prefab resident who spends evening after evening mulling over the differences between Jacobins and Jacobites without there being a string vest or a bottle of brown ale in sight! You can imagine how upset he was when a photo-journalist from the 'style section' of the New Yorker turned up and asked if she could take some pictures of the interior of his shanty house slum!
Working out exactly which status rung our own prefab stands on is is a tricky exercise. The old man used to be confident that our ranking will be "rather good" (a favourite phrase). However that was before he returned home from a particularly exacting night in the Golden Fleece and
collided with the front door post. (It will never be the same again). It is possible that our prefab might have slipped down a status rung or two. Of course we take such defeats squarely on the chin. There is always consolation in knowing that the Capability Brown-style light green speckled hedge in the front garden will stay resplendent come rain or shine, and that is enough to keep our spirits up.