I think some of your criticisms are valid Bruss as the past 13 years haven’t been kind to this country. Wealth and poverty have become more polarised and that more than anything runs the risk of destroying the magic of it. On the other hand there’s still much to love about the place and its scenic wonders and quaint streets remain as lovely as ever.
I still can’t think of anywhere in the world I would rather live (although I rather envy Ian Fleming’s approach of getting the heck out of here to Jamaica from Jan-March!)
I was born in Worthing on the Sussex coast, but being sent away to boarding school against my will at 11 broke my bond with the place. I went to Bangor for university and lived on Anglesey, which I adored. I then went to Leicester to do my PhD, which is where I met my future wife. I really like Leicester and wanted to stay there, but the job I was offered was in London. So off we went to sunny South Norwood. We didn’t adore South Norwood, so we moved out to Caterham in East Surrey, which is a lovely place. My wife is from Havant in Hampshire, and when a job came up in Chichester we moved back to the coast and settled in Emsworth in 1992, and have been here ever since. It’s 25 miles from Worthing and only two miles from Havant.
We are literally yards from West Sussex, and the Sussex Border Path runs through the field outside our house. It’s not a cheap place to live, and there are some stuck up people who move into a house and put up those horrible f… off gates and outside lighting, but generally it’s very low key and everyone muddles along fine. I find that the people with ‘old money’ if you like are very down to earth, but it’s the Londoners with weekend homes that think they are wonderful and are best avoided. When £1m houses are advertised as perfect weekend retreats, something is very wrong indeed.
I often wonder if we should move and I fancy somewhere a bit more wild and wooly. The trouble is that wild and wooly places tend to be isolated and also tend to be cultural deserts. We have great countryside on the doorstep, it’s a short walk to the coast, the ferry port to France is only 10 miles away and we have one of the county’s best theatres only a short distance away. When you have to move for a job the decision is made for you, but when you can choose anywhere it’s much harder. We know lots of people here and have everything we need, so I suspect we are here for good. It could be a lot worse for sure.
Oh, there is a lot to love about the UK. My criticism was only a mild one to be honest, but I do think we tend to look at a British past through rose coloured glasses. We do have a great heritage to be proud of overall but even the good old days weren’t of the general populace living in NT type properties with acres of land and tea every afternoon served by a maid. Don’t forget the majority of NT properties have been gifted by families that could no longer afford to run them now that sending kids down mines or setting them to work in cotton mills, while their parents are locked to impoverished wages working the land, is no longer allowed.
Re the last 15 years, yes we have fallen from where we could and should have been but that is a political choice that we won’t talk about on here.
I agree with you @bruss and @HungryHalibut about the good and bad about the UK. Too many people have a belief that in the past it was wonderful, some no doubt fueled by memories of Enid Blighton and other authors’ books and the false picture they painted. Being born in the 50s into an upper-middle class family I lived a very comfortable early life, yet many of my childhood memories are of a country full of decay, poverty and inequality. Then in the mid-70s things changed and the country began looking forward, sadly we now live in a country where many people yearn for an imagined past that never existed outside fiction or rose-tinted press articles.
On a slightly different note but related to this thread I grew up in the suburbs of a city, which is where we are now - half a mile away as I mentioned before.
We spent 17 years living in a much smaller town, where my wife came from, which was fine for me. However afterwards we moved to a small village near to Stratford-upon-Avon. We spent seven years there and I was completely unable to settle. I hated it.
Which is odd in a way because I love the countryside and nature. But there was a sense of isolation and loneliness there that I just couldn’t come to terms with. Although my wife loved it there!
This was really what prompted our move back to my childhood surroundings - and we’re both happy here.
35 miles as the crow flies (Shipley West Yorkshire) - my wife’s fault as we live in a barn attached to her parents’ farmhouse (a few miles north east of Preston). So it’s about 35 feet for her
I live 4,519 miles (7,272 km) from where I was born and grew up. Though I have no ill feelings towards my country of birth, I have no interest in ever moving back.
People occasionally ask me why I moved so far from home, and to a place where I knew nobody and, almost 30 years later, I still don’t really know why, beyond a vague restlessness and a desire not to spend my entire life in one place. Maybe because I’m a middle child? I don’t think I’ll ever know.
Grew up with Dad in the forces, Malta and Germany - as well as East Anglia (three times) .Dad delivered supplies to the SAS in the Dhofar War as well as transiting the atomic bomb from V bomber nation to Aldermaston
Mum was also in the RAF and was wounded by the Luftwaffe in a bomb raid
When he came out of the RAF , we moved to a very small village on the Berkshire Downs when I was fifteen. In my late forties I decided that I wanted to keep an eye on Mum as she was getting frail.
Two days after I moved back and my flat went on the market, she passed away.
So here I am fifty years later living in the same house that Dad and Mum worked for and I paid for
I am still humbled by it
The nearest house at the front is about 400 metres at the font and at the back a kilometre
I was born in Wolverhampton, but my parents - bless them - had the courtesy to leave when I was six months old, so I didn’t get the accent. My father was (one of many of) Billy Wright’s cousin(s), though, so I have the football team. Which is up and down.
Now live in the South of France, exactly 1000 miles (or 1600 km) away from my birthplace. Which is how far a Proclaimer would walk, apparently.
I like Bill Bryson. But I like 300 days of sunshine-a-year more.
@Rod_Smith
And what’s wrong with a good accent?
We are sadly less well off with the demise of regional accents.
That said a Brummie accent is far better than a Black Country one !
