We’ve just spent our last night at our Norfolk house. I sit here in the rather bare vaulted sitting room typing this on the red sofa, with faithful Dude by my side. My friend Dan is on his way up in a huge can to collect the rest of our furniture and belongings. In a few hours, I’ll walk out of the door for the last time. I’m almost in tears as I type this. I know it’s the end of an era – but it will never be the end of a love for Norfolk that lies deep within me.
My mother spent her teenage years living in a farm in Stibbard, not far from Fakenham. We would come to the Norfolk coast for day trips to Hunstanton or Wells. I spent four years at university in Norwich, then spent another year living in Wymondham in the runup to the 1987 general election. Eighteen years later I spent two years fighting the North Norfolk seat. We bought a lovely little cottage in the village of Swanton Abbott, but were forced to sell it to cover the debts I had built up in my campaign. I remember saying to John, that when we were back on our financial feet, we’d return and buy another house. This we did, in July 2013 when we found our beautiful St Andrews House, just a couple of miles away from Swanton Abbott in the small hamlet of Lamas. Or Lammas, as locals like to spell it, even changing the village signs!
I have loved every moment of living here, but the sad truth is that in the last couple of years events have conspired to keep us away, and we can no longer justify keeping it. It’s taken a year to sell, but here we are. In a matter of days, it will no longer be ours. Being a Cancerian, I am a very sentimental person and I get very attached no non animate things. I even remember kissing a Tractor goodbye that my Dad had sold when I was a child. I know that’s how I will feel when I leave this house for the last time later this evening. By that time it will be empty of all the clutter we have built up over the last ten years. But it will remain full of wonderful memories. Apart from one less than wonderful memory – the day Dude escaped from what we thought was a secure garden.
I never, ever want to relive those three hours, when we genuinely thought we had lost him. We looked for him in vain. For someone who’s normally good in a crisis, I was a complete emotional wreck. I’ll never forget the phone call from Iohn, who like me had been touring the countryside shouting Dude’s name, telling me that a lady had taken him in and then taken him to the vets in Aylsham who had identified him through his microchip. I’ve never felt such a sense of relief, and absolute devotional love.
Of course I’ll come back to Norfolk to visit friends from time to time, but it will never be the same.
People who live in Norfolk know how lucky they are, and I count myself fortunate to have been one of them.
Thank you, St Andrews House, for all the hours of pleasure, respite from the rat race and shelter you have given me over the last decade. I hope the new owners will be as happy there as we have been.