Most of this early life Ive forgotten But there is a memory of sitting or perhaps balancing at any rate precariously on some vantage point near an upstairs window and looking at the houses as they faded away into the distance Later on there are other phantoms  faces that I cant put names to my mother ironing towels in the back room of a house that I dont think was ours snow falling over the turrets of the great mansion at Earlham