As a child, on visits to Finland in the 1960s and '70s, I was constantly amazed by the way people lived. At home, in the Yorkshire army officer's quarter where we lived, I barely encountered the modern, let alone the really comfortable. Designed before the First World War for a large family plus servants and animals – the accommodation included a scullery, butler's pantry, paddock and orchard – our house was huge, rambling and uncomfortable not to mention freezing cold in the rainswept, windswept northern winters.