When I was little, I lived in a three-hundred-year-old thatched cottage in Devon. I went to a primary school called Brampford Speke, other villages around had wonderful names too, such as Cheriton Fitzpaine, Nomansland and Black Dog.
On a distant hill, called Raddon Top, stood three solitary trees which at Christmastime looked like the Three Wise Men – especially at twilight when the stars appeared.
The village in the story is based on a real village in Devon which had a pub called the Three Tuns Inn. People from many places around the world live in harmony in this peaceful English village.