But let us begin with a confession. I was made a northerner, not born one.
In an act betraying serious lack of consideration, my mother gave birth to me not in south-west Durham, the part of the region where I grew up, but in a sedate resort of the kind to which most people go to die. I breathed my first air in Hove.
So that's the skeleton out of the cupboard without delay. My parents, who had lots of North Eastern family connections (mainly Ryhope, Tynemouth and parts of Newcastle), moved to Shildon only a few months into my life. It was the least they could do.
And there I stayed for my entire childhood and, indeed, into early adulthood.
When I moved away, it was first to Stanley, the north-west Durham one, and then to Darlington and finally to Newton Aycliffe. Marriage to a French lady who likes the North East but not as a place to live, soon led me back south - London, then Bristol, then London again.
In 2004, we moved to Paris. After three-and-a-half years spent there and in the south of France, we returned to London, but only for as long as it took for me to organise another departure, this time to Abu Dhabi. It is a long way from Shildon, though as you will discover in my very next posting, Shildon has a habit of catching up on you wherever you go.
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