Having covered some half a hundred cities, towns, villages, and wide spots in the road during the last tow years, George and I fairly wallowed in the comfort of our own home base.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The great houses of Britain have, for centuries, been the guardians of much of our history, not just of the families who built and lived in them, but of the people who worked there, of the local area, of all of us.
I grew up in a commissioned house in the next suburb over, Mount Abbot. It was a two-bedroom house with me, my brother, and my two sisters. Mum and Dad slept in the lounge, and we didn't have wallpaper.
While I enjoy spending time in L.A., Britain is my home.
I was brought up in a flat in North London - virtually the last building in London, because north of us was countryside all the way to the coast, and south of us was non-stop London for 20 miles.
There was a time in my life when I was going in and out of houses that were extraordinarily different - from a working-class terrace in Northampton to the homes of friends who were really very wealthy. It was quite an odd position to be in, I realise looking back, and quite a nice one.
As a Midlander and a big walker, I'd always loved ridge and furrow fields, the plough-marked land as it was when it was enclosed. It is the landscape giving you a story of lives that ended with the arrival of sheep.
I vaguely remember we had an air-raid shelter in our yard. We lived in a semi-detached house with a small garden in the suburbs of Salford, a couple of miles from the docks.
My story is the story of many postwar British families. Upward mobility. A council house and then new affluence.
I built the ideal house down in the Caribbean. All Englishmen dream of leaving the rain of England and getting a place in the sun - out in the grounds with separate guest houses; that is the ideal scenario.
My wife was delighted with the home I had given her amid the prairies of the far west.
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