POLLY HUDSON

I moved out of my parents’ house in Hemel Hempstead, Herts, when I was 18 but I definitely still considered it home until quite recently.

It was the house I was brought home to from the hospital after being born, the place all my formative memories happened, where I felt truly safe.

It’s only in writing this that I realise that, actually, it doesn’t feel like home any more – and it hasn’t for the past six years, since my dad died.

Turns out “home” has nothing to do with the building and everything to do with who is inside it.