Nicholas Haslam

I tend to look out for things with a resonance to my youth - artists or objects that seemed romantic all those years ago. I never buy anything purely for its value. I like possessions that smile back at me.

It's the fashion, I tell you: big, tall women going out with tiny, tiny men.

I rent a Jacobean-fronted hunting lodge in Hampshire from the National Trust and like to go there as much as possible. I've grown to love it so much, especially when writing my memoirs there at weekends.

Often it's a lack of time, not taste, that leads someone to hire a decorator. A good decorator/client relationship should be like a marriage. The time one puts in needs to be extensive. One needs to listen to them and understand what they like and how they live.