The Magic Of Growing Up By The Sea And Why You'll Never Be Quite As Happy Anywhere Else

When I visit my family home in Cornwall, I'm reminded how sharply the past can intrude on the present, in the form of a million memories hanging in the air, writes REBECCA LEY (pictured right and top left as a child). Everywhere I turn, in that remote house (bottom left) by the sea, there is an imprint of my former self and those of my younger sisters. Happy echoes of the past, the endless golden summers spent running down to the beach, overlap with more difficult ones, not least my dad's slow, wild disintegration due to dementia. It's a house that will always be a part of me and that holds much of the key to who I am. So when my mother recently announced that she was considering selling it, I was floored.