My father’s greatest love (beside his wife and children) is his garden. It is a wondrous place. From the kitchen window (the heart of the house) the garden beckons you. It sort of mirrors the kitchen in a way. There are no perfect flower beds in my Dad’s back yard, rather a deliberate wilderness of fruit and vegetables, trees and shrubs, long stretches of lawn and swings and slides that have now become our childrens’ playground. At the top of the garden, the Northern Line railway runs its last course north to High Barnet.

Autumn was the most magical of times. The trees gave us their fruit and my mother made good use of them in the kitchen. What was left on the ground became mouldy bombs that we hurled at unsuspecting commuters reading the late papers on their way home, moving far too fast in their trains to notice where the splat originated. A beautiful thing it was for a boy aged 11.

The most imposing tree in the garden was the one which gave us Bramley cooking apples. It produced each year in such abundance that it kept us in apples until Spring. Anyway, of all the things my Mum made us, baked apple (from the Bramley tree) was my favourite. I am not sure if I have it right here — Ma, if you ever get to read this, please correct any errors — but I remember it being as simple as this.

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