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Oh, my God, my thirties blew! Forties are great.

Forties are good! I'm thinking with my brain now, which is a lot more clear, and women seem to appreciate that. It's a wonderful decade where you're in control of yourself but the women are still interested.

The fifties - they seem to have taken place on a sunny afternoon that asked nothing of you except a drifting belief in the moment and its power to satisfy.

If I really had to pinpoint my happiest days out of the United States, I'd choose those Fifties military days in Britain, particularly my time in South Ruislip. I had a ball.

The 1950s would be my ideal decade because I'm actually very traditional; I enjoy being at home, and I'm a complete nester.

I get nonplussed by all the Fifties retro-revival aesthetic. Would we really want to be in our pinnies in our kitchen weeping? I find the kitchen, housewifey aesthetic repugnant.

It captures a lot of the spirit of the '50s.

What was so good about it was that the set that they originally built stayed there, and weathered over the five years. It got five summers and five winters of weather. It became more and more authentic as we worked in it, and they added bits to it.

If I could have gone on describing to you the beauties of this region, who knows but I might have made a fine addition to the literature of our age?

Let me give you an idea of Fifties Britain. The war had ended ten years before, and most people had returned to their gardens and allotments hoping life would revert to how it was before the hostilities.