I was born into a world which, for the most part, was home-made. My grandfather and my father had built our house: windows, doors, floors, all the furniture, my cradle......all of it crafted from wood. All from our forest.

The milk came from our cow, the eggs came from our chickens. The first snacks I ever had were lengths of rhubarb which I dipped in the sugar tin. Sweet and sour. We didn’t have any bins, because there wasn’t any rubbish. The village shop sold only vinegar, sugar, and anything which could be wrapped in paper.

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 Every Saturday, the air was filled with the smells of freshly-baked bread, scrubbed wooden floors, and wood. My father was a carpenter. That’s how I started drawing. I was always happy when he had to make a door. He always used to have to cut eight little boards out of the frame – to make the joints – and he always gave them to me. Rough on one side, smooth on the other – just like life. I used to draw on them with my carpenter’s pencil. More than anything else, what I drew was the stories that the neighbours told when they came and visited my father’s workshop.

Sitting amidst the wood shavings on the floor, I would look up and listen: I’d hear about the family who fled on foot with their children and two cattle for three months, first towards Kazakhstan, and then away again. Or about my maternal grandfather, who got a bullet through his cheek in the First World War, as he was crouching on the battlefield. It took a part of his tongue away, too.