An address without a postcode

Text: an original contemporary community-column-style practice extract.

The form asked for the address at which I had lived when I was eight. I remembered the caravan’s blue curtains and the field beside it. I remembered the post arriving at the farm office. I did not remember a number on a street, because there had not been one.

The online boxes required a house number, street and postcode before I could continue. I could not enter the farm’s address without suggesting that I had lived in its building. The help text said to supply the address as accurately as possible, then prevented me from recording the difference. I closed the page and telephoned. The person who answered added a note that the form had given me no place to write.

The application could then proceed. That was a useful response, but it depended on finding time to call and being able to explain the problem aloud. My childhood home had been ordinary to me. On the screen, it had become an exception requiring permission. A form needs a structure; it also needs somewhere for a life to fail to fit that structure without being treated as a mistake.

In this extract, the writer tries to show that a standard form can exclude valid experiences.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved. Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.