I have lived in four places. The first three of these were Barnet, Croughton, and Milton.
 

Barnet My early childhood, I spent in Barnet, part of the northern sprawl of Greater London. On the edge of the main urban area, it was suburban and green and would probably qualify as a commuter town. Historically, it was the site of a decisive battle in the Wars of the Roses in 1471, and it was partly through the celebrations for the 500th anniversary of this battle that I (as a young boy) developed an interest in heraldry and flags. At the time I lived there it was still fairly sleepy, despite being built around one of the main roads north out of London. I lived at the northern end of the town, near an area called Hadley, which had open playing fields and woods suitable for a young boy to romp in. The photo shows Barnet High Street as it was at around the time I was born (not far from the area of trees in the centre of the picture at the very top).
Croughton The happiest and also the saddest times of my childhood were spent in the quiet village of Croughton nestled only an arms-reach from the end of the Cotswolds at the southernmost point of Northamptonshire. This village, surrounded by largely open countryside, was a perfect place for a ten-year-old's exploration and imagination. Sadly, my father died during the time I lived there, and it was as a result of this that my mother and I moved to New Zealand. The picture shows Croughton as I remember it in the mid 1970s. The thatched-roofed building to the left of middle is the school. I lived in the building at the far right.
Milton My mother had no family of her own, and so when my father died she made the brave decision to move to New Zealand, where his family lived. At that time, most of them lived in or near Milton, a small town in the southernmost part of New Zealand's South Island. Here I went to school, skinned my knees, broke my heart, and did all the other sorts of things which teenagers do. I can't say that I was particularly happy there, but it was an important part of my life, so I can't ignore it. The image shows the town from the air, viewed looking north. (NB: this is not my original photo. I hope to get my own picture up here sometime soon).

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Dunedin and Otago

The largest city of the southern South Island, Dunedin has a long history by New Zealand standards, being founded in 1848 by Scottish settlers as the capital of the new Otago province, growing rapidly during the gold rush of the early 1860s, and building on its firm foundations with many institutions, including the country's oldest university. Prior to the 1840s, whaling settlements and Maori villages (pa) dotted the coastline of Otago. It is from one of the latter, Otakou, that the region takes its name, which is variously translated as "solitary village" or "the place of red soil". Dunedin itself takes its name from the Gaelic form of Edinburgh, Dun Edin, although it should be noted that Dunedin is pronounced with a long 'e' sound, unlike its Scottish antecedent.

Mark Twain once said that the Scots were travelling to Heaven when they reached Dunedin, and stopped here, thinking they'd arrived at their destination. Although I wouldn't go into quite that much hyperbole, it must be said that the South Island is blessed with some of the world's most spectacular scenery, and Dunedin is a natural gateway to much of this scenic wonder.

Dunedin lies at the end of a long natural harbour, formed from the collapsed crater of a long-extinct volcano. A number of hills rise to 700 metres (2,500 feet) around the city, most prominently Mount Cargill, named for Captain William Cargill, the co-founder and early leader of the Otago settlement. On the southern side of this crater is the undulating Otago Peninsula, home to about 5000 people, and considerable amounts of wildlife, including albatrosses, seals, and penguins.

Beyond the crater of Dunedin lies the bulk of Otago. To the south is the fertile Taieri Plain, and beyond that the bush-covered hills of the Catlins Coast; to the north is the rugged East Otago coast, and to the west is a rugged badlands of sparse arable land and strage rocky outcrops called the Maniototo. Beyond this lies the scenic and tourist wonderland of the southern lakes and mountains known as Central Otago, with its two centres, Queenstown and Alexandra. Here orchardists and vintners grow apricots and grapes, skiers ski, and tourists go jetboating and bungy-jumping.

Today, Dunedin is a city of some 120,000 people, and the last couple of years has seen some growth after years of decline. A major influx of foreign students from southeast Asia to the university has given Dunedin a very cosmopolitan feel. These have mixed in with a city which still has a predominantly Scottish ancestry, along with smaller Maori and Pacific Islander populations. Various waves of settlers at other times have also added to the mix, from the Chinese who came here at the time of the gold rush to waves of refugees and immigrant workers ever since (which have left their mark in the forms of the local Lebanese, Dutch, Polish, Jewish, and Cambodian populations), and - in recent years - overseas students coming to the university, notably from East and Southeast Asia.

Traditional industries, such as the railway workshops, have declined in recent years, but the knowledge economy has done Dunedin well, and the University is the city's biggest employer. Other IT and related industries of note include the city's award-winning natural history documentary television and high-tech computer graphics research companies.

It is a standing joke among more northerly New Zealanders - particularly those from Auckland, New Zealand's largest city - that Dunedin is subantarctic: cold, wet, and rising briefly above freezing point only in mid-summer. For the record, Dunedin's year-round daily average high and low temperatures are around 16 and 4 degrees Celsius, in comparison with 19 and 12 for Auckland. Snow has fallen in the centre of the city on about eight days during the last decade, although the hilly nature of its outer suburbs make snow an annual occurrence in some of them. In mid-summer, the temperature here frequently tops 30 degrees. Furthermore, our average annual rainfall is only about 800mm, compared to Auckland's 1200mm.

Dunedin contains a couple of notable quirks. It has the world's steepest street (Baldwin Street, in North East Valley). It is fervent in its support for sport (almost 1/3 of its population can turn up for major sporting events at Carisbrook). And it has a very prominent art and music scene, which briefly led to it being regarded in the music press both here and overseas as being a possible source of The Next Big Thing In Music. In some indie music circles as far afield as the US and Europe, the term "The Dunedin Sound" is still recognised as referring to a particular style of jangly guitar-based rock music. Today it is slowly becoming a trend-setter in another way too, with a small but thriving fashion industry.

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