AND FINALLY

Why home is always in our hearts

INVITED by BBC Radio 4 to make two inter view programmes in the series One To One (Tuesdays at 9.30am), I had to think of a subject, so (with the help of producer Lucy Lunt) came up with ‘Home’.

What does it mean? A place — or an idea? Cushions and curtains — or family love?

My home has always been hugely important to me, ever since those first pokey student bedsits which I’d festoon with scarves and beads to hide horrible furniture.

I feel incredibly lucky to have a lovely home, but I also know I’d be capable of creating one on a desert island!

So last week I interviewed a student called Alan, who has experienced homelessness through family breakdown. A resilient young man, he now seems to have rebuilt his life, but it was touching how much he still longed for his parents to be back together, even though he knows it’s impossible.

For him, ‘ home’ means precious memories of lost happiness with beloved people — and most of us will understand that. (Should you want to listen to this, you can do so on iPlayer or the Radio 4 website.)

In contrast, on November 3 I shall be talking to someone at the opposite end of the age range. The great novelist Penelope Lively has lived in her house for 24 years — as long as Alan has been alive.

For her, ‘home’ i s an accumulation of symbolic values — in treasured objects which restore to her a part of her past. I completely identified with this. It made me think of many letters to this page, mourning beloved homes l ost because of marriage break- up or financial pressure.

It’s all too easy to minimise what this means; how much ‘home’ is an essential part of someone’s self-image.

When government ministers talk glibly about older people ‘ downsizing’ to release large homes for the young, they betray a woeful lack of understanding of what this involves.

Far more than bricks and mortar, the meaning is in the memories — as both Alan and Penelope Lively told me. And that can’t be dismissed.

Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB, or e-mail bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk. A pseudonym will be used if you wish. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.