Over the years, whenever I have told people that I grew up in the English Lake District, the general response has been "Oh, it's so beautiful there!" But since the TV series The Lakes has been on our screens, I hesitate before revealing the location of my formative years. I'm sure everyone thinks my youth was one long orgy.

I don't remember all that sex going on when I was there. I walked over large areas of the Lake District in my 12 years there and not once did I spot a pair of bare buttocks bobbing over the next ridge. Yet the way Jimmy McGovern writes it, Cumbrians are having it off in every alley, forest and disused barn; behind every outcrop - even in rowing boats. To paraphrase William Wordsworth, "Beside the lakes, beneath the trees, knickers fluttering in the breeze."

And as the series has progressed, the people having the sex are getting older. First it was young Danny and Emma; then the headmaster's wife and the chef; then just about everyone else and the chef; then Emma's mother and the priest. If Emma's grandad can get his nose out of the milk jug long enough, I'm sure he'll get lucky soon.

At the risk of sounding like one of those men who say they buy photographic magazines for the ads, the main reason I watch The Lakes is for the scenery, which reminds me of home. I look past the guilt-ridden faces to the dry stone walls behind them. Beyond the bare bums to the calm surface of Ullswater in the distance. Over sad, shrugging shoulders to the slate roofs. I take in the distinctive Cumbrian light.

Hard to explain, that last one. I don't know what causes it - my theory is it's the golden bracken on the fellsides, though it'll probably turn out to be nuclear leakage from Sellafield. All I know is, there is an orangey hue to Cumbria. A few years ago, I bought a pair of Ambervision sunglasses and found that every time I put them on, I got powerful Cumbrian flashbacks. It was only when we actually went there that Trish could see what I was on about. Up to then she had thought I was suffering from some kind of rose-tinted-glasses nostalgia.

People's perception of the kind of life I led in Cumbria is not helped by the name of my home town. It's always raised a bit of a snigger in New Zealand. Generally, I avoid mentioning it. When people ask whereabouts in the Lake District I am from, I say "The north end." Sometimes they start guessing. "Keswick?" "No, a bit further. Between there and Workington." Usually that will suffice, as I've taken them out of the areas they know, so there is little point in pursuing it. But now and then someone will persist, as a Ragtime advertising rep did once. Cornered, I took a deep breath and told her - Cockermouth.

For a moment, she stood silent. Then an inane grin broke out. As usual, I began justifying it. I burbled on about how the river Cocker flows into the river Derwent at that point. I pointed out that William Wordsworth was born there, as were Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian and atomic theorist John Dalton. Bing Crosby made a video for "Gone Fishin'" there - they had to buy a trout from the local fishmonger, to stick on his line. Mary Queen of Scots once slept there. Mind you, she really slept around.

At that point, the rep called out across the office for everyone to guess where I was born. I swiftly informed her that I wasn't born there. She froze, eyeing me suspiciously, knowing there was worse to come.

"So where were you born?"

I braced myself for further humiliation. How could I tell her I was born in Maidenhead?