At the (surprising) age of “almost 70”, Nigel Slater is “off-the-scale happy.” As our co-founder Matt Gibberd discovers in our latest Homing In podcast, his late Georgian house in north London plays no small part in that contentment. Over the course of their conversation, the pair discuss how Nigel spent the first 10 years of his life in a similarly happy 1950s mock Tudor house in Staffordshire. After his mother’s death, he moved with his father and step-mother to a secluded cottage in Worcestershire and he talks openly about living with adults who didn’t want him around. From then on, Nigel found lifelong company in the kitchen and the garden. In his 20s, he began his career in food as a waiter (“I’d go back to that in a heartbeat”) and it was during this time that his home in London burnt down. The fire presented Nigel – an avid notetaker and committed diarist – with a “fresh page”. It has taken decades for that fresh start to settle into the home it is today – a nest that has been beautifully and slowly feathered; a place that brings peace, nourishment and sensory delight to his daily life and the lives of those who have the pleasure of passing through it.

“Nigel is the first podcast guest ever to make me cry,” says Matt Gibberd. “I’m a big fan of his writing, and suspected he’d be a kindred spirit, but spending the day with him in his house was an overwhelming experience I wasn’t prepared for.

“He lives around the corner from where I grew up, in a pared-back way that feels very familiar. In this remarkably honest conversation, he outlines the essential role his home plays in keeping him on an even keel.

“We discuss what it’s like to suffer from panic attacks, and how they’re triggered by the built environment. He tells me that whenever he arrives in a building he hasn’t been to before, the first thing he does is check where the exit is so that he can plan his escape.

“We touch on the childhood trauma that he wrote about in his brilliant memoir, Toast, from his mother’s death to his father’s bullying. We discuss the roots of his lifelong interest in gardening, why he keeps a daily diary, and the importance of smell within the home.

“This is a conversation I’ll remember forever. Thank you, Nigel.”

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