“For years I have lived in the flats, rooms and garrets of this city, the drawers in the human filing-cabinets that stand in blank rows down the streets of Kensington and Notting Hill.  Yet when I talk of home I think of that damp green valley near Stroud where I was brought up.  The boys I went to school with have long since grown and fattened, got married and gone bald, and they would probably have to give me a very long look before they recognized me if I turned up there again.  But that is my home, and the image of it the day I left it is still more real to me than long years in this crowded capital city.”

—  Laurie Lee

An Obstinate Exile, p. 43.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)

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Laurie Lee 22
British writer 1914–1997

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