I was born on 29 September 1961, Saint Michael's Feast Day, in the Shrubbery Maternity Hospital, Basingstoke. My early life was complicated by the separation of my parents at a very young age. I and my two sisters spent time with various foster parents within Hampshire. My memories are few and fragmented from that period. Although there was never any question that my mother and father loved the three of us, both found life very difficult for different reasons, and neither were able to take care of us.

When I was three and a half, my father's twin sisters decided we three should be brought up together.

My sisters and I each dealt with the insecurity of our early years in different ways. My energies were spent pursuing music and other creative activities, and the unconventional background of living with two aunts who had arrived from India a decade earlier as young teachers, and who experienced prejudice, taught me a great deal about tolerance and the wider world. My circumstance gave me a thirst to learn about the differences between us, and the things that bind us together.

My aunt Merlyn who was the linchpin of our new family unit, a strong, warm and beautiful woman, died when I was fourteen. My mother died when I was nineteen, and my father, who had tremendous potential that was never realized, when I was twenty three. My aunt Connie later flowered after her sister's passing, and continued to encourage me unconditionally in all my creative pursuits.

•  The first wine glass contains earth from the site of The Shrubbery, the old maternity hospital, now demolished, in Cliddesden Road, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England. This site was the place of my birth

•  The second glass contains earth from Mansfield Road, my first home

•  The third glass contains earth from outside the Hammer and Tongs, my father's favourite drinking hole

•  The fourth glass contains earth from the grounds of Saint Annes Infant School, my first school

•  The fifth glass contains earth from the grounds of Parklands, the renamed place where I often visited my mother as a child

•  The sixth glass contains earth from Worting Road Cemetery, the place where my mother, my father, my grandmother, my grandfather, and my aunt lay buried

•  The seventh glass contains earth from outside the old Registry Office, the place where I married

•  The eighth glass contains earth from outside the Maternity Wing of North Hampshire Hospital, the place where our son was born.