I like paintings with a bit of history behind them

I like paintings with a bit of history behind them.Ten years ago, I wrote a series for the BBC called Jerrybuilding, investigating architectural relics of the Third Reich. During the war, he was called up to join the Navy and was supposed to be sailing on HMS Hood. He broke his ankle that same evening, falling, pissed, on the quayside and couldn’t sail, thus avoiding certain death as the ship was sunk by the Bismarck in the North Atlantic with loss of 1,400 hands. He spent his recuperation with my mother, during which time he made great friends with the wife of a local nob, Lord Normanton, and they did a flit together.

Steve is a brilliant painter, taught, along with Dougie Fields, by Patrick Caulfield and Howard Hodgkin, but he has since given up painting and become a fabric designer.Another favourite, a modern, slightly surrealist piece with a Flemish look, is by Peter Lucas, a friend of my parents. It’s a large portrait of an unknown but very enigmatic character. As a family, we enjoyed frequent free passage across the Channel, a luxury unheard of in those days for people like us. I believe that my grandfather had a fancy woman outside Saint-Malo and we got to know the area and its inhabitants very well, spending riotous evenings at La R?lade. So I was introduced to an unusual variety of flavours that educated my palate as a child.My passion for art and architecture has led to quite a collection of pictures that cover most of the walls Among my favourite pieces is a painting by Steve Walton.

He brought back boxes of spices sealed with solder that he used to recreate the flavours that he had become fond of, and we ate these dishes regularly at home.My mother’s father worked for Southern Railways who ran ferries to Saint-Malo and Le Havre. In here, I have a proper industrial gas stove where I cook several times a week. As a child, I had an unusually broad education in a variety of cuisines. My father had been in the Paiforce, a combined army of Persia and Iraq, and had enjoyed recipes cooked by his Afghan chef. Last autumn, a flock of several hundred little finches landed in our garden at once, stopped for a minute and promptly took off again – off on their holidays to Africa, I suppose.My kitchen has magnificent views through the steel-framed glazed wall that faces east. At the moment, I’m watching the progress of two Slovenian kit houses that are being built by friends of mine in the alley down below It’s a great spot for bird-watching, too.