I recently took my best friend to see my childhood home in Kensington, west London. I lived there with my parents and four siblings from the age of one until I was 20; I have not been inside since I was 23, hen it was sold, 43 years ago. Yet it still appears in my dreams.
It occupies a place inside me. I wanted to return to help me understand why it still held such power. As we walked through nearby Holland Park, my body remembered before my mind did.
A warmth spread through me. I thought of family picnics on the grass, ice-creams on hot afternoons, school sports days and sneaky cigarettes behind bushes as a teenager. The closer we came to my street, the more I noticed what had survived.
The backs of the Victorian houses facing the park looked almost unchanged. The trees were taller but familiar. As I turned the corner, my heartbeat quickened.
A large white stucco Victorian house, even bigger than I remembered, as later owners have extended it. The two stone eagles that stood guard at the entrance, which I used to tap every time I ran up the steps, had disappeared. The little coal hole in the front wall was still there.
My twin brother and I invented endless games through that opening. I could see us both there, age six, completely absorbed in a world of our own. My friend and I stood on the opposite pavement, looking up at the house, when the family who live there now unlocked the front door and went inside.
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