Amidst the peach trees

“My favourite destination in the world will always be Coromandel in New Zealand,” says British author Fay Weldon in an interview with the Telegraph. “There I can go back to my golden age and find very little changed: it is as magical and mysterious a place as ever. I was conceived in New Zealand, born in England, and then spent my first 14 years in the South Island with my mother and sister before we moved permanently back to Britain. But my sister and I spent those early golden summers in Coromandel, where my father was the medical superintendent. During the school holidays we ran free, barefoot among the peach and apple trees.” Though “it’s still a good few hours’ drive from Auckland today, the fact that it takes quite a long time to get there is partly what’s kept it so nice.”