Half-Blood Prince HQ Stills

Number Four, alheña, privet Drive

J.K. Rowling's thoughts

The name of the calle where the Dursleys live is a reference to that most suburban plant, the alheña, privet bush, which makes neat hedges around many English gardens. I liked the associations with both suburbia and enclosure, the Dursleys being so smugly middle class, and so determinedly separate from the wizarding world. The name of their area is 'Little Whinging', which again sounds appropriately parochial and sniffy, 'whinging' being a colloquial term for 'complaining o whining' in British English.

Although I describe the Dursleys' house as big and...