In my experience
‘I’m bringing my kids up in my childhood home’
Lorenza Bacino, 52, lives with her husband, Francis, their son Max, 15, and daughter, Isabella, 13, in a four-bedroom detached Thirties house in the suburbs of north London. Lorenza’s parents bought the house in 1968.
‘Mum was English and Dad was an Italian writer and journalist 20 years her senior. They met and fell in love in Paris in the Fifties. After living in France for a while, they moved to Rome, which is where I was born. And that’s where the story stops sounding so exciting and bohemian! In 1968, when I was two years old, we left Italy and moved to a large detached house with a big garden on a nice street on the outskirts of north London.
Growing up, I was desperate to escape suburbia and start exploring the world. I was an only child and the house seemed like a very austere, grown-up place. I couldn’t see its many positives back then.
I just saw heavy, dark wood Italian furniture, brown carpets and carefully arranged books, art and sculptures. Dad was a very single-minded, and sometimes difficult, man. He’d be busy at his desk while Mum did everything around the house.
I left home at 18 to study languages at university, then lived and worked abroad – France, Italy, Belgium and Australia – over 22 years. I still came back to London to visit my parents, but it was always with a slight sense of dread. Not much had changed in the house and a couple of days there always seemed to be enough. As Dad grew older, his health began to suffer. He was physically infirm and had glaucoma, but still
insisted on trying to go out and do all the things he’d always done. It made life difficult for Mum and I’d end up feeling stressed and upset because I couldn’t do anything to change it. Dad died at 89, and Mum was
left in the house by herself. She had plans to make changes and clear a lot of things out, but in the end never got the chance to see those plans through, as she died very suddenly following a stroke just a few years later. My family and I were living in Brussels at the time, but we were planning to move to Nepal because Francis had been offered work there. Max was four and Isabella was two. Everything was put on hold.
We rushed over to London as soon as I got the news of Mum’s stroke.
She was in a coma for three weeks before she died. It was horrible walking into the house, because everything was just as she’d left it, with washing-up in the kitchen sink
and now out-of-date food in the fridge. So many things started going wrong in the house, too: the boiler packed up, then the washing machine broke down. It was like the whole place was coming out in sympathy!
We did go back to Brussels for a few weeks after the funeral, but it soon became clear that I wouldn't be able to sort everything out
from there. So, we decided to move back to London “just for a little while”, so we could tidy up the property and get it on the market. It felt really strange to suddenly be living in my old family home with my “new” family. The house seemed somehow familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time.
There were so many things to think about and everything took far longer to sort out than I'd originally imagined. I completely underestimated how long it would take to sort through all my parents’ belongings and make decisions about what to keep and what to get rid of, for
example. The truth is, in the end it took about two years to get it all into some sort of order. And, 11 years on, there are still piles of Dad’s diaries and papers I have yet to tackle.
Meanwhile, normal life got in the way. The kids settled at
nursery and school. Francis and I both found new work opportunities in London. We put down roots without even realising it was happening. There was no deep discussion about it. We’d always just assumed we’d move abroad again at some point, but it just didn’t happen. One day, Francis asked me what I wanted to do and I realised that I just wanted to “be”. It felt as if everything had been so complicated and chaotic since Mum died, so now I just wanted to settle down here, relax and be happy together. Besides, by then I’d come to appreciate the house in a way
I never had when I was younger and accepted that it was the home I now needed. We gradually made changes to the property. We repainted and bought new flooring. We got rid of most of the furniture – all the heavy tables and bureaux that had suited my parents’ style, but not ours. I kept Dad’s bookcase, but it’s now full of our books instead of his. There’s still a mishmash of our stuff and my parents’ throughout the house, but it just has a more relaxed feel to it now.
In the Seventies, Dad had built an extension at the back of the house that became his library and
workspace. It had always seemed such a dark and serious place, despite its big window overlooking the garden. We’ve now turned it into the family kitchen. It’s a bright, airy space and couldn’t feel more different. The original tiny kitchen has been turned into a playroom for the children. Now they’re older, they still hang out in there – although the dog has laid claim to it, too! And there’s a large, open-plan living room, which currently has the kids’ drum kit in the middle of it. I think Dad would have kittens if he could see that!
I think the house's biggest draw is the huge garden, though. Again, it’s something I didn't appreciate when I was younger. Mum was a proud gardener, but she kept things very uniform, with a perfectly manicured lawn, neat flowerbeds and a rockery. Our approach is far more relaxed and we’ve allowed it to grow a bit wild, but we love it like that. We’re out there all the time in the summer months.
I do occasionally miss living abroad, but we have amazing holidays instead – and there’s no point in living with regrets. I understand how lucky we are to live here. Overall, there’s a more happy, homely feel to the place now. My relationship with my dad could be tricky at times, but my kids have a wonderful relationship with theirs. They love living here and, while it was certainly a rollercoaster for the first few years after moving in, Francis and I have grown to love it, too.’
“I came to appreciate the house in a way I never had when I was younger and accepted that it was the home I now needed ”