Meg‘s talking about the “where do you come from” quandry when you’re not actually from anywhere. My short answer – most recently Birmingham. My long answer…
Born in Chertsy Hospital, which is near London. Or at least near Walton on Thames where my parents lived. When I was One, Dad got a job with BP in Singapore, so we emigrated. We lived in three houses in Singapore and then my parents split. Dad went to Texas and Mum went back to England with us in tow (and that’s another story for another day). We lived with an Uncle in Evesham (Midlands) for 6 months before moving to Weston in Gordano, a small village near Portishead, which in turn is near Bristol.
That’s 6 homes so far. By this stage I’m 9 years old. It’s something like 1980 or thereabouts.
Junior school completed and Secondary school started, Mum meets Stepdad-to-be. The cottage is sold and we move to Dartford for the summer while house hunting in Croydon, of all places. Finding a house in Shirley (with the perfect garden for a teenage boy – 130ft long, the last 20ft being mine to destroy) we move into it and manage to stay there for four years. GCSE’s completed (2nd generation guineapig), Mum gets a job teaching in Winchester, so we move there. Unfortunately, this is the arse-end of Thatcherism so we can’t sell the house. Renting it out we in turn rent one in Winchester in which we live for about a year, give or take. Then, finally we sell the Croydon residence and move into the house my mother still lives in to this day. Given how this tale STILL isn’t over, I wonder how much effect I had on us moving so much.
We’re now up to 10 homes. I’m 19 and John Major is suddenly prime minister.
So, I’m now failing my A levels and am about to leave home. First I move in with my mate Dave and his mum in Eastleigh – his sister has left home so they have a room. It’s a stop-gap measure, albeit a very pleasant one. After about 6 months or so Dave starts dropping hints and I start looking for somewhere more permanent to live. I find somewhere in Eastleigh – a shit hole of a town but it’s cheap and near to Southampton and Winchester where I worked in various bookshops and generally socialised – a stayed there for three years, which wasn’t a bad start. Then it just gets silly.
Deciding to try the academia thing again, I do an Access course at Eastleigh college and, on passing with flying colours, decide on Birmingham to be my university of choice. In Birmingham we have one flat/house per year (three), plus another two afterwards with me good friend Jim. By this stage I’ve failed my degree and decided that maybe I’m not that academically minded and I’m back working in a bookshop again. On meeting Kate in the bookshop (as the legend goes, she sold children’s books, I ran the pornographic fiction) we decide to move in together and do the long-term-dance. Only in London. Two flats down (Finchely and currently Mile End) and here we are.
So that’s 19 homes in 29 years. I’m from Walton on Thames, Singapore, Evesham, Portishead, Dartford, Croydon, Winchester, Eastleigh, Birmingham, Finchley and Mile End.
I’m very good at helping people move house and I can’t get my head around people who’ve lived in the same house in the same town for all their lives. Now that’s weird!