On a summer’s day in the house where I grew up in Stockton-on-Tees, the smell of bread from the art deco bakery at the end of the road, mixed with the occasional bracing dose of ammonia from the ICI factory, was the defining fragrance of my youth. Our postwar “homes for heroes” council estate was a great place to stay out all day and all night — wide, empty roads to play football in, snickets to run and hide in, the Black Path by the cemetery, full of conker trees and slopes, to speed down in homemade pushcarts.
My dad was an electrician — a handy skill — at ICI, and the basics of wiring stick with me. My mam was a tea lady, then