1A The impossibility of sitting still
I
grew up on an ordinary street, in an ordinary town near the city of St Albans in Hertfordshire. But at the bottom of the hill where we lived was a river that ran down the east side of town. I’d play there with my brother at the weekends or after school. It was a place of incredible discovery and adventure. We’d dig in the riverbed, looking for lost treasure: a discarded bottle or a bicycle wheel. We’d hide in the reeds, pretending to be cowboys. Or we’d follow the course of the water, racing along the river bank, not knowing where it would lead us, wondering how far we dared to go before mum wanted us back for supper. Now these were just children’s games. But it says something about the human heart that is true for adults as much as it is for children. On the one hand, we like safety and security: family and friends; food in the fridge; a bed to sleep in; a door to lock at night. We are very domestic creatures, and the idea of home is almost built into us like an internal compass. I think it explains why Grand Designs and a hundred other TV programmes about housebuilding are so popular. 12
