'I was born on 25th May, 1938, in the front bedroom of a house in
Orton Road, a house on the outer edges of Raffles, a council estate. I
was a lucky girl.'
So begins Margaret Forster's journey through the houses she's lived in,
from that sparkling new council house, to her beloved London home of
today. This is not a book about bricks and mortar though. This is a book
about what houses are to us, the effect they have on the way we live our
lives and the changing nature of our homes: from blacking grates and
outside privies; to cities dominated by bedsits and lodgings; to the
houses of today converted back into single dwellings. Finally, it is a
gently insistent, personal inquiry into the meaning of home.