To say Hethersett wouldn't mean anything to most unless they had personal knowledge of Norfolk. Sometimes I say Hethersett which is a village six miles from Norwich on the London Road.
Technically I suppose I come from Hellesdon which is a suburb of Norwich. That's where I was born and raised. Sadly for people of a certain age the word Hellesdon conjures up connotations of the mental asylum that was pretty notorious in the 1950s and 60s. Today it's a psychiatric hospital but for us oldies it will always be known as the Loonie Bin. That's not me being horrid but just how it was viewed by us kids when we didn't know any better.
I may have mentioned before that I grew up in a greengrocer’s shop run by my mother. My early days living there and my schoolboy memories are all covered at some length in my autobiography which I'm still working on and which I hope to publish by the end of the year.
But back to my roots. I'm proud to be a Norfolk man in the same way that people who come from Yorkshire are proud of that fact.
Norfolk is a county of contrasts. At its heart is the beautiful city of Norwich, a place I often criticise but a place that will always be in my heart.
I live in South Norfolk which to some might be a tad nondescript. But I would urge visitors to the area to visit the market town of Wymondham. It's as good as any market town in the country.
But North Norfolk is my real delight. Those huge expanses of open country, those broad and beautiful beaches and the quaint coastal villages with their hidden mysteries that just cry out for investigation. There's even a windmill at Cley where you can sleep in a bedroom formerly inhabited by James Blunt - but that's enough about him.
I think the only place in the UK I would have preferred to have been brought up in is Liverpool because of its history and musical heritage. I would just have been old enough to have gone down the Cavern Club to hear some of the greatest music ever written.