On Home-Sickness and the Wonders of Ladbroke Grove

Don't get me wrong, Oxford is a beautiful city, but sometimes I feel like dropping everything here and going back home. 

The word "home" has different meanings for everyone. It brings up different associations, different images, and different memories. For some home is a physical entity; maybe a house, or a flat. For others home is certain people; family or friends. It might not even be the place you were born, or the place you grew up. Maybe it's the place you feel happiest, safest or most comfortable.

For me, home has come to mean all of those things. I grew up in Ladbroke Grove, and although it's been through some changes recently - yuppification is the word that comes to mind - for me it has and will always be, home. Despite brief stints abroad as a child, and as part of my degree, I've spent my entire life returning to my family and friends in West London.

My relationship with home hasn't always been rosy though. As a child, and at secondary school, family situations meant that home as a 'physical entity,' wasn't always my favourite place to be. Added to that was the fact that for a significant period during my teenage years, I felt unsafe going out in my local area. Of course I had places and people that I loved and felt happy around, but I spent a long time wishing I could be anywhere else.

Then I came to Oxford. At first I absolutely loved it. I felt safe and thought I had found a great group of people to surround myself with. I wasn't worried about missing home. After a while though, I started to realise that actually although I didn't feel physically threatened anymore, I felt emotionally threatened by the people and the environment that is sometimes synonymous with being here. I found that a lot of people made fun of my accent and the reputation of my home, making assumptions about me, which they often didn't restrain from sharing, based on that. A number of people announced that they were scared of me (which always struck me as odd, I mean, if you're scared of someone, surely you wouldn't say it to their face?) Perhaps my favourite comment was "I would feel safe walking down a dark alley at night with you". 

Whenever I go back to the dark alleys of London, I realise that actually, I feel so much more comfortable there than I ever have at university. I have certainly made friends in Oxford from similar backgrounds, who I love dearly and feel I can honestly be myself around, but I have also met people who have lived very comfortable, sheltered lives, that I just can't empathise with. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having that kind of life, of course, but I must admit that to begin with, I didn't feel like I could be myself around those people. 

I realised very quickly that the environment I grew up in had pushed me, in a way that other people's simply hadn't, all the way out of my comfort zone, and into achieving my goals. I also realised that instead of trying to escape that, I should be grateful and honest about it. Now I have a whole new appreciation for the places and people of my childhood, because without them, I wouldn't be half the person I am today. From the moment I understood this, I've never tried to modify my accent, or dilute myself or my background in any way. That's because I'm proud of who I am and where I'm from.   

As I sit here now, writing just before the final push at the very end of term, I miss home so much it physically hurts. I miss the familiar streets; the faces that I grew up around, and that I can't go anywhere without seeing; the sounds and smells; the atmosphere; even my home basketball court, and the state of its rims. What I'm saying is, that although I can totally understand the need for growth away from home, and the occasional change of scene, I also value, beyond expression, the memories, stories, and the way my home has developed me as a person. I hope that whatever homes means to you, you've found the same strength and potential from it as I have.  

In memory of my grandmother

A year ago today, I lost my grandmother. She was 94.

Known to her friends as "Quinnie," she wasn't a particularly gregarious lady. She wasn't prone to displays of emotion, and she rarely talked about herself. Nevertheless, the few times she did open up to me taught me everything I needed to know about her.

Growing up, her family was extremely poor. She once told me a great story about how much trouble she had got into with her mother when, after months of eyeing up a pair of patent leather shoes in a shop-window near her home in Derby, she saved up her pocket money and bought them. I had never thought of her as rebellious or adventurous before then, and it still makes me smile to think that as a young girl, she did something so simple and yet so scandalous. Although she would never have discussed, or probably even thought about it herself, I think this was what made her so generous in later life, and not just materially generous, but generous with her time, and hospitable. Even as she got older, and had trouble walking around her small flat, she insisted on cooking the whole family a meal whenever we visited her. 

During the war, she worked as a bus conductress, and she sometimes told us about the people she encountered in those difficult days. She described many of them as rude, obnoxious and impatient, and it always seemed to me that these experiences gave her the unfailing patience she showed me throughout all the years I knew her, even when times were hard. Every year she, my mother and I would visit my grandfather's memorial together. I vividly remember one year her quiet and tearful confession that not a day went by that she didn't think of him or miss him, and yet despite her visible pain, she had neither a sharp word, nor a reproach for anything. 

Towards the end of her life her declining health kept her in and out of hospital. Even then nothing changed. She remained the same generous, kind, and patient woman I had always known. Of course, she had some less-good traits which the years exacerbated. She repeatedly asked me how "my friend" was, without any further indication of who she meant. She absolutely could not fathom that I study Spanish and Russian, and asked me every week how the French was going, and whether I had ever considered studying German. She also had the habit of stopping suddenly in the middle of the street and pointing at things with her walking stick, sometimes even hitting them, just to make sure we knew exactly what she was talking about. If anything though, these features, that sometimes drove me up the wall, were another thing to love about her: her trademarks.

One of my favourite memories of her was a dull, grey afternoon we spent sheltering in her flat. After a couple of rainy hours, I piped up that I thought the downpour would stop soon. My grandmother looked thoughtfully out of the window for a few seconds and concluded that it wouldn't. At the time I thought she was just being pessimistic, and that she would be wrong, but she was right. It rained all day. For me, that moment summed up exactly how a lifetime of struggle and hardship had formed her. She was a wise, patient and caring woman, and I would give anything to see her again to talk about my friend, or about how surprisingly enough, I've never really wanted to learn German...