back in the old town

Last week I took my daughter to register at her chosen college. Much to my surprise she has ended up at the college in the borough I grew up in, and at the college I would have gone to had I not gone to my school's sixth form. It's a surprise because living in a city I had hoped and expected that my children would take advantage of the city colleges, but she wouldn't even go near Birmingham Metropolitan, or BMET as it likes to call itself. It probably hardly matters. Most colleges these days are new, architecturally designed buildings and offer the same courses.  This college is brand spanking new.

The old college had been a 1970s municipal type building up the High Street, sat amidst all the more glorious Victorian buildings. I should imagine it's been knocked down now. I don't know as there is not much reason to go up the High Street anymore because all the shops are now centrally located. Or at least the units where shops should be are. The town library is, or was up the High Street too, I don't know if that is still there, and same with the town hall. That was also where the old gala swimming baths used to be, the beating social heart of the town, until that was knocked down too.

This new college looks stunning, with it's high glass frontage several stories high. It gives me vertigo to be in the reception area and look up. It was built on the car park I used to park my old Talbot Avenger on when I worked for BT in a building across the road, since turned into a hotel.

The college might have changed but thankfully the people haven't. All the kids looked and sounded the same as when I had lived there, and that had a visceral affect. I felt glad. Something, at least, has stayed the same.

I enjoyed being back amongst the Black Country accent. There is something about it that lends itself to sarcasm. In fact, it is hard to say anything in a Black Country accent that doesn't sound sarcastic. And I mean that as a compliment. When Black Country people talk they always sound half-amused and cynical as hell. We have a dry wit, a weary way of looking at life, that can diminish any event into a joke that was half expected. I mentioned to my daughter that she would now get a Black Country accent and she was adamant that she would not. It's not "posh" enough for her. She considers it "common". I don't quite know where she gets this snobbery from, but she does remind me of myself at her age.

I could not wait to get out of that town as a teenager. I wanted to live in London or New York, in the cities that I saw in films and on my TV. I wanted adventure and I thought that just by moving away from my home town I would find it. I didn't. Not really. Not anything I couldn't have found in my home town, only better. I lost a lot when I moved away. I have an idea that I would have been very happy marrying a local boy who worked as a builder or a van driver, buying a little starter home, and spending life hopping around between home, work and our families and friends. Sending our kids to the local school, knowing everyone, having a local to drink at and grandparents on the doorstep to babysit. I thought you could just create a community wherever you went, but it turns out you can't. When you move away from your home town every community you manage to be part of is only ever transitory and makeshift, made up mostly of work colleagues who come and go. I have spent the better part of my adult life feeling lonely because of this.

But I was not destined to stay in that town. That sounds grand, but it's true. I knew that I wouldn't be happy there because, for reasons that escape me, I was drawn to the liberal, multicultural, arty cities. I wanted to spend a life amongst books, and art and writing and all that seemed to be elsewhere. The fact that I never managed to become part of any art scene, that I am still struggling to find work in my chosen field, does not make that any less true.     

I hope my daughter doesn't have the same struggle. I hope she knows exactly what she wants and where she wants to be and that when she gets there she is welcomed and can make a home there. She's smart enough, but getting what we want out of life is not always down to us.