I have been thinking a lot about what the word ‘Home’ means to me these days. I always considered my home town as my one and only home for a long time and I think most people when they are a child or teenager say they ‘hate’ their home town or city because ‘it’s boring and there is nothing to do’. I used to think the same thing when I was a teenager for sure, but my outlook on my home has changed a lot in the last few years.
When I was younger I couldn’t wait to move away from where my home town of Northampton some day but I never really thought about where I would actually go or what you would have to think about when you move to a new location like what job I would do. When I did slowly begin to think about where I would go I was adamant that it would not be in the UK.
I think I felt this was as I’d never really traveled around the my home country or the wider United Kingdom until my early 20’s other than the odd trip to London as a kid. In fact I don’t think I really had any appreciation for my home country or my home town until I left.
The first time I really moved away was when I moved to Australia for a year to work on a working holiday visa. I was looking for a bit of an escape due to a number of things going on in my life at the time so saw this as a bit of a restart. Oddly, I’d yearned to move away for so long but at first I didn’t really enjoy it, more so due to circumstances like not being able to find a proper job for some time and hemorrhaging money. After a while I moved in with my then-girlfriend (Now wife!) and I was still a bit snobby in my attitudes towards areas that were in my opinion slightly ‘rough’.
We’ve all got these kind of places in our home towns or cities, right? I was fortunate enough not to grow up in any so I guess I had this superiority complex in a way about where I would or wouldn’t live when I moved away from home (were it so easy!). I did have an apartment in my home town for a time too but again, I was lucky that I could afford a pretty decent place at the time.
In Victoria, Australia we lived in a place called Footscray, around 5km west of Melbourne city centre. I moved into my girlfriends really nice apartment but remember walking around the block to get my bearings at first and thinking ‘This place is a bit rough and run down’ or ‘dodgy’ to be really British about it. I guess It was true in a sense that it wasn’t the best area but I’d simply wrote it off from the start because I saw one street with some houses that didn’t look great and a bit of trash here and there.
I remember my Girlfriend saying to me that I’m too picky and haven’t given the place (or the country) a chance and she was right. She encouraged me to start really exploring the area and use the bike that we had to see more of it than I would by walking. Once I began cycling I began to see the area was a great mix of different cultures, comprised mostly of Somalian, Nigerians, Vietnamese and everything else in between. I discovered some great bakeries, restaurants and cafes just by cycling around and talking with local people.
I found a great cycling route along the Yarra River that would take me to a few other suburbs or directly into the city and slowly I began to feel like this was somewhere I could call home. I became more and more familiar with my surroundings and felt like I could potentially reinvent myself in Australia. Unfortunately, after some time our Visas were expiring and we had no chance of remaining within the country.
I remember when we had to leave Australia, I felt like I was leaving behind a country I was starting to call home, for a long time after returning to the UK I’d have dreams of cycling my usual route, going to AFL games at Marvel Stadium and having friends over like we always did. After Covid happened and due to moving far from any friends I’ve never quite recaptured the social aspect of a new home. I do often get asked if I would like to move back and as my circumstances have changed I’m not entirely sure I would really.
The first place we lived in the UK was back in my home town for just over a month while we looked for work. I felt a bit like I was being dragged back to a place I’d wanted to escape, however being able to see my home town through my wife’s eyes and her experiences, gave me a much better appreciation for where I came from.
To be able to see her really interested in where I was from, in England in general and the little quirks that came with a town in the East Midlands it really unlocked something within me that helped me to find appreciation where I perhaps couldn’t before, no just within my town but the country as a whole. This town I used to find so boring actually had charm, we had something we were famous for (Shoes!), great shops and restaurants if you knew where to look and great nature on our door step. There were and still are aspects I wish would improve but I certainly wouldn’t call it a horrible place to live, not by a long shot.
Not long after arriving in the UK it was time for us to move to Slough as my Wife found a job at Heathrow and frankly, we didn’t have much time to be selective so we took one of the closest places we could that had an apartment available. Moving here wasn’t something I was particularly happy about, however in the end it got me to where I am today, both professionally and mentally because I learnt a lot!
At the time though I was pretty annoyed because I couldn’t be in my home town with some form of security and I also couldn’t be in the place I had just started to call home, Footscray. I certainly didn’t want Slough to become my home and, in a sense, it really never did, it was a stop gap in our lives until we got to somewhere better.
Being In Slough, particularly during the first year and a half of the Covid-19 Pandemic really was not fun which is probably why I don’t have any fond memories of the place. My Wife and I tried to make the most of a bad situation but took as many opportunities as we could to get away and in the brief windows where we would visit Northampton I began to miss it more and more. I was lucky in finding work in Slough which I enjoyed and still do enjoy but it was clear that we were not happy in the location.
We tried to move out a few times but if we put offers on apartments we usually missed out. It got to a point where we would be looking for new places to live every few weeks but a part of me was stuck thinking perhaps there is a chance we could go back to Northampton or back to Australia, or possibly even my wife’s home country Japan. The latter was never really feasible but it was something I’d hold on to at times as if it were going to happen.
Eventually we got lucky and our offer was accepted on an apartment. We moved to a nearby town called Maidenhead, it was actually somewhere we visited quite often because it had a great area near the Thames River and it was also somewhere we put an offer on an apartment before but missed out. We’ve been here for about a year now and I find the town a bit of an odd mix between my home town and somewhere like Windsor, it has enough familiarity to me to be comfortable but enough about it that’s different like the closeness to amazing rural areas.
I think it’s more than just the location though. I started to make friends with people from work who lived in the area, I was encouraged to join things outside of the norm for me like Park Run where I’ve now made even more friends. It’s things like this that are slowly starting to solidify that this might be somewhere I could call home for the foreseeable future. My son will be growing up here for one thing which means our roots as a family are already planted, but that isn’t to say we couldn’t relocate one day.
Speaking of my son, he was born in Japan and during that time my wife and I stayed in Yugawara a small town in Kanagawa prefecture. The story of his premature birth is best saved for another day but I wanted to talk a little about my time in Yugawara. I’d been to Japan loads of times but never got the chance to go with my wife and stay in a family setting, away from the cities and tourist attractions I’d become familiar with.
I had only met my wife’s parents once before when they visited us in Australia but I always felt close to them when we would chat on video calls. I can’t explain why but they are quite different to my own family (other than not being English obviously!) not in a bad way but it was just refreshing. I love my own family but this was something different. While times were tough during my wife’s recovery my in laws all worried about me, encouraged me and looked after me. We went on some great short trips together and got closer as a result.
Yes in a way I was a tourist in the country, I didn’t have to go to work or do chores etc but I felt comfortable here. The quiet, the absolutely astounding nature like the mountains and rivers and just the quaintness of the area. It was almost like the area was stuck in time, the old buildings mixed in with only a handful of modern ones, the elderly population mixed in with the surfers and tourists to the areas onsens. I was a minority there at the time and yet I didn’t feel like one.
I got to freely explore the area to keep my mind and body busy while my Wife and Son recovered in the hospital. During that time I just walked and walked as much as I could, up mountains and down mountains, down side streets and to amazing parks. I was looked at with shock by some residents, it was a time where not many foreigners could go to Japan and why would one be in this town?
I don’t really have an answer to where I call home these days. I’m slowly warming more and more to where I live now but also have an attachment to where my son was born in Japan and the experiences I had there even in a brief window of time. Regarding my home town each time I go back it’s changed, more building here and more roads there, businesses have come and gone and it doesn’t quite the same as when I lived there.
That’s not a bad thing but the more I’m away the more I lose attachment to it outside of some constants like the street I grew up on or my favourite place to go and of course my family. What I’m trying to say is that the feeling of being home can change over time. Home may not be the place you grew up or the place you lived for a long time but it could be where you feel most comfortable. I’m desperately trying not to copy Thor: Raganaroks line about Asgard not being a place.
My son is currently 4 months old, he was born in Japan and has not yet come to the UK but he will always have at least two homes in the general sense due to his heritage. I wonder if he will feel more English or Japanese over time and where he would consider his home?
I’m curious to know your own feelings on the word Home and what that word means to you so don’t hesitate to leave your own thoughts in the comments section and thanks for reading my ramblings!
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