About four or five years ago I began to re-establish my connections with Cheshire where I had spent some of the happiest times of my childhood. Visiting the station cafe by the edge of the forest I noticed a photograph caught my attention:

The cottage in the middle there, the second from the right, is my Gran's old cottage. It was demolished over forty years ago, but the pair on the left are still there. This is how they look now, from just inside the forest:

And here they are from near the top of the hill at the back:

The cottage on the right there was where my Uncle, Aunt and Cousin lived for a few years after the war, while Uncle Arthur was waiting for the job he really wanted. It was Coronation year when he got that job and they moved into their new place. An amazing suite of rooms in this fine stately home where Arthur was butler to one of Cheshire's aristocrats.

I don't know which was the more magical to me - my Gran's humble cottage or Lord and Lady Cholmondeley's lovely home. Both have given me the memories that make me regard myself as a man of Cheshire.