This was at Bognor. This little house on the sea coast. It was... it had been, I think, a sort of coastguard house. It was built about 1820, I should think. It had belonged to my grandmother and she had given it to my mother. It was very pretty and had about three acres of ground, I think, probably not more. Very, very uncomfortable. No central heating, one moderately nice bathroom at the far end of the house from the best bedroom. But we loved it and you just walked down out of the garden and onto the beach – that was the great thing about it. Didn’t even have to cross a road. So one swam all the time and my parents always in the summer and they used to have lots of people down for weekends.

In those days, people were much less fussy about their creature comforts than they are now. It’s so strange. They would... they would have come frequently with a valet or a lady’s maid. On the other hand, they never seemed to mind there being only three inches of tepid water in one bath which they would have to queue. The things I did mind... I mean, I’ve never wanted a valet one little bit, but I do quite like an en suite bathroom. They never got anything like that. It was far more uncomfortable for them. I mean, just to have your cuff-links put in your evening clothes seems to me to be frankly unnecessary, but a good bathroom does help. Anyway, people used to come.