Currently lurking in the Essex suburbs, to answer the earlier enquiry...

[ZK] Portland, Oregon USA now, but formerly of various parts of the UK, and originally growing up in the fine Surrey outpost of Ilkley, W. Yorks.

Alan Titchmarsh grew up in Ilkley. Fact. Is Oregon east or west?

[ZK] Of what?
[Location] Currently, just in Bucks (by about 300 yards from Beds) Very close to the Herts border, too - in fact, I drive through all 3 counties to get to work.

[Watty] Well that's a coincidence. I was born in Chorleywood, which happens to be on the Herts/Bucks border: I was born on the Herts side, by a couple of hundred yards. (A road actually runs along the border, and is appropriately called "Shire Lane" - the odd-numbered houses are Herts, the even numbers are Bucks. Or it may be the other way around.) Not so near to Berks or Beds, though.

Whereas, having gone to school in darkest mid-Somerset, now I live in Manchester...