Losing my ‘haunted’, mouldy flat was awful. I swore I’d get it back – and I did | Claire Jackson

Some people long for a storybook house, but I found sanctuary in a home in the woods, where saucepans were said to move by themselves

In our end of year series, writers and public figures remember the place or time when they felt most at home

We’re playing with a Playmobil house. Well, my friend’s son is playing with it. I’m moving my plastic familiar unsurely around what is, proportionately speaking, a cavernous room, awaiting his next instruction. The child scoops up a selection of miniature white goods. “This is an incredibly unrealistic portrayal of the type of house most people live in,” I tell him. He jabbers happily, picking up a tiny kitchen utensil.

Toy houses – with their big square facades, nice big front doors, smoking chimneys, lots of windows, grass on either side – bear little resemblance to most living arrangements. We’ve got (slightly) better at acknowledging the mother doesn’t need to go in the kitchen while the father is out (with the boat?), but these products still hook us into the capitalist, home-owning dream. Among myriad accessories, Playmobil offers a Victorian Dollhouse Fence Extension, a claw-foot bathtub and garden terrace furniture.

Claire Jackson is a journalist who writes about classical music, art and animals

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