The most difficult question for me is, “where are you from?”
I guess for most people, it wouldn’t cause any difficulty, but I dread it. What do I say? Where I am living now? – to which the answer would be a different place every month or so. Do I say where I was born and if so the country or the town? Do I say my newly adoptive country and the one whose passport I am travelling on?
One of the reasons that talking about where I am from is upsetting is that I was often told tales to by both my parents; my father because he was a compulsive gambler and my mother – well just because. Both were Scottish, although they met and married in Southern England and my father’s family was from Warrington in the north. My mother told me that I was Scottish and born in Motherwell, which I took for granted until I saw my birth certificate aged around 16. It revealed that I was born in Warrington Infirmary. When I confronted my mother with this, she said I was born on a train and that she had had me in Motherwell, but the train didn’t take us off until Warrington. Nah. My first memories are of living near Salford, Manchester but we moved when I was 10 so I never saw that as home. We moved to Warrington, I guess to be near my father’s family, (but I hated the place and moved away as soon as I could at age 17.) After that I was all over the place: Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside; Lowton near Leigh Lancashire; Musselburgh Scotland; Ironbridge Shropshire; several places around Birmingham; Denton Manchester; Glossop and Wingerworth in Derbyshire. I finally settled in Sheffield where I lived for almost 30 years and although I call it “home” – I am very aware that I was not born and bred there and still feel like an incomer.
As a humorous aside, I once asked my mother where I came from and after she gave me a short and rather cryptic “birds and the bees” talk – I said … “well my friend Philip comes from Birmingham and I just wondered where I came from.”
So I’m English really, although I don’t feel I’ve ever accepted the fact since finding out as a teenager. I am often happier when I am in Scotland, but then again I don’t feel I fit in there as I have only lived there for about 3 years (in bits) out of my 66 on this planet.
My other issue is that if I say UK – which is MY preference, people assume I mean England and often talk to me then about Brexit which is another painful memory for me and something I moved to get away from. I managed to get my Irish citizenship through my Mother’s mother, (my mother never told me her mother was Irish – another birth certificate discovery!) so I have an Irish passport and have to say Irish if I am being asked by an official or even an Airbnb host where I am from. See I told you it’s complicated. I also soon found out that if I say I am from Ireland particularly in bars – I usually am treated like a long lost brother – provided the person asking doesn’t know Ireland too well and then trips me up with asking about particular counties or regions of which I know very little.
The one time this really backfired was in Graz, Austria. I was roaming an area new to me (I had only been there a few days) and was looking for an open bar. I couldn’t find one but I did notice someone drinking at a Mexican burger joint – so I popped in, fully in the knowledge that it would be bottled beer, (I prefer draught) but happy to get something.
I didn’t attempt German, but asked the owner if he spoke English and he confirmed he did and the guy drinking confirmed he did as well, even though I hadn’t asked him. So I ordered a beer which was brought to me and a glass and then the question was then asked. “Where are you from?” Now I don’t quite know why I said Ireland. Certainly I didn’t want to get into the Brexit conversation and the guy at the bar was already unsteady on his feet so I know he could have got argumentative. But I did say it … and reaped the consequences. The bar owner responded, “Oh it’s a beautiful country and so warm, you must feel really cold here!” Now in hindsight, perhaps I should have just smiled and moved on, but whilst I agree Ireland is really beautiful, it is certainly rarely warm and would be much colder than Graz on an August evening, so I said, “not warm, what makes you think that.” “Because it’s next to Australia, said the owner.” “No that’s New Zealand,” said my tipsy friend, “Ireland is part of the UK.”
Now I couldn’t let that one go, I felt at pains to explain that Ireland was NOT part of the UK but was close to it. So then the bar owner looked the country up on his phone and passed me some of the photos he had found … of glaciers and hot springs. At this point I have to confess I gave up and spent the next 30 minutes or so talking about how “we” coped with the ice and snow and the high cost of living in Reykjavik. It got more and more bizarre and as I left I was given a drunken hug by the other customer and was told that he loved me and will never forget the Iceland man. I’m sure he forgot by the following morning.
Likewise I often forget that I am no longer in the UK and talk to my students about “here in Britain” when I am at a desk in the middle of Spain or Italy. So will I ever lose the connection to the UK?
At the moment I am thinking I will go back every year for a month or so – but obviously as I get further away that might get more and more expensive (and time consuming.) I am also aware that part of my travelling is to look out for somewhere to live out the rest of my life. I don’t feel comfortable in the UK and worry about how I could afford to go back as every time I am there the cost of living has shot up again. The reasons I go back to Britain are to check out how friends, (mostly co-counsellors and people in Sheffield) are doing; to check on my storage and if possible get round to reducing it. Also to get some of the health checks I need, though these may be easier to do whilst I am on the road, but I would have to pay and then factor that into my expenses. I am also aware that there might be a pull back to the UK should anything happen to the people I care about. Obviously having no family ties helps but I have acknowledged the call when I have seen friends getting married or (more often at my age) having a funeral.
And talking of funerals, I have made it clear in my Power of Attorney statement that I am happy to “be disposed of” in whichever country I should die in – should it happen on my journey. Not something I want to think about too much but of course it could happen at some point. So then it will not be so much of “where do I come from,” but more of “where will I end up.” Before then I hope to complete the journey to Florianopolis Brazil, the place where I first had the idea of travelling around the world. There’s a long way to go yet though, in more ways than one, and probably quite a few more occasions when I will hear the words “where are you from?”
