Burgess left England in a Dormobile in 1968 and spent many of his later years in Italy and Monaco. Here he reflects on the food he cannot generally get hold of while living in Europe:

‘Living abroad as I do, I miss various things which Europe does nto care to import from Britain – our incomparable butcher’s pork sausages, for instance, and all our cheeses except for a synthetic cheddar. A dish I particularly miss is a good London mixed grill as served in one of the old chophouses – bacon, a sausage, a kidney, a lamb chop, a grilled tomato, a steaming load of chips. And, of course, Worcestershire sauce. This last is obtainable in Europe, and even French chefs slyly top off their savoury dishes with a few drops. HP Sauce, from whose label I learned French when I was four, is rarely around. This, whose quality has not changed in all my seventy-odd years, recalls, when I sniff the bottle, the working-class kitchen of my Lancashire home. It is the lowly equivalent of Proust’s madeleine.’

Harpers and Queen, 1990

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