The White Rose raised me, London made me
Last week, I rushed onto the tube in my usual hurry home to do nothing. I looked around the carriage and smiled. It was a UKIP nightmare; the living embodiment of the vanilla on Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s lapel. Each person notable in her difference to her neighbour. As with my beloved Yorkshire, London too comes with many a flaw, but this is its true beauty. The world city.
First of all, let me just get this out of the way — I’m a very proud Yorkshireman. This is really important, considering what I’m about to say next.
Yorkshire is my place of birth, my home for 18 years and a huge part of what shaped me into who I am today. Yorkshire instilled within me manners, a colourful accent and a proper sense of humour. Yorkshire gave me an openness which is a given, rather than the commodity it seems to be elsewhere. Woe betide anyone who badmouths God’s Country.
I could continue salivating over the White Rose, but I need to make a confession. Alas, London is the only place in this country I’ve truly felt at home. To understand this, I’ll quickly explain how I identify myself.
I’m Black. I would never allow myself to be defined me by my blackness alone, most of all because “black” isn’t really a thing. It’s ludicrously reductive to classify a people from lands as vast and as distant as Africa and Australia under one monolithic umbrella (that’s for another day). Society is as society does and I am a product of that very society — black is the first thing that springs to mind when I think about my own identity, but I’m working to change that. Regardless, my “blackness” is one attribute I laud over most others.
I’m British Jamaican. As a youth, my Jamaicanness was often reduced to either 1) an entertaining impression of my Grandma cussing me, or 2) an explanation as to why I was faster than my peers. To me, being Jamaican always meant home. Not in that my infrequent trips told me I lived in the wrong country (when I do visit, I’m very much “the English bwoy”), but home, being where I felt most at ease. The food, the family, the culture. The music. Lord, the music.
I’m a Yorkshireman. No need to dive back into that one.
Yorkshire, however, is not without flaw. In an overwhelmingly white county, the racially insensitive can at times be abundant. It was in my beloved Yorkshire that my family were the subjects of a petition to have us leave our home when I was no older than two (a 27-year-old single mother and her toddler are terrifying, after all).
I’ve been called a paki, I’ve been in a scrap because an opponent called my half-South Asian teammate a coon (yes, you read those two incidents the right way around — racists often find it tough to understand their own prejudice). And yes, I did recently catch a glimpse of a golliwog sat proudly on a neighbour’s windowsill in the year our Lord 2019, shrugged my shoulders and thought “well, it is Holmfirth”. Whilst these incidents may be too numerous to list in full, none were that serious. Similarly, none of these experiences are confined to the North of England, but London’s rich multicultural history makes you feel much less vulnerable. Let’s call it strength in numbers.
My fascination with London started as a child. Most trips looked like this — Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Highbury. But in 1998, I visited Jamaica for the first time. After that, no trip to London was the same.
Gone were the days I’d gawp at landmarks; Brixton Market was my Mecca. We’re talking Brixton in the 90s and early 00s — less Franco Manca, more Buju and bammy. Until then, I had only known a white world, with the odd colour speckled here and there. As the trips became more frequent, the sights, sounds and smells made me feel like I was home. I’d found the feeling I didn’t even know I’d been looking for; People wearing the clothes I’d been made to think were incorrect, every other car playing music nobody would connect with in my home town.
Back to Holmfirth I’d trot, feeling rejuvenated, reinvigorated. I’d test out ways to inconspicuously position “eyup” alongside “bruv” and throw a string vest on my pigeon chest with pride, not caring about the inevitable Limewire viruses now coming courtesy of Wiley, Dizzee and Meridian. I revelled in this new string to my bow of identities and I couldn’t wait to make it permanent.
Around a decade later, I strapped my degree to my back and moved to the capital. Those Newcastle university days reduced to a fond memory, I settled a stone’s throw from my belle, Brixton. What may be big step in a venturing northerner’s life, couldn’t have seemed any more routine. This wasn’t leaving home; this was just moving from one to another. However this time, my token days were nigh.
Sure, between the hours of 9 and 5, the office resembled my old school photos (below, in case you’re curious), but the grad-scheme is still a reflection of the Nation’s wealth. There were times colleagues thought it hilarious to act unable to distinguish between the few black faces in our cohort (and in some cases were actually incapable). I still clench both fists when I think of the chap whose narrow-eyes asked me if I was sure I didn’t DJ in my spare time (shout to my old colleague, DJ and apparent doppelgänger, Phil).
When 5 came around, leaving the imposter syndrome in its wake for another day, I felt right at home. So at home that I’ve had the audacity to complain about the changing landscape of the community I’d moved to. I recall once having drinks with my Auntie (an adopted Brixtoner of almost 30 years). As we sat and we laughed and we joked, we would occasionally lament about the influx of avocado and eggs Benedict to the neighbourhood, conveniently ignoring that I’d boarded that gentrification juggernaut merely months previously.
Nevertheless, here I am. The sights. The sounds. The people. The music. The fashion. The creativity. The freedom of expression. The opportunity. The lack of judgement. The colours. It all feels like mine in a way that Holmfirth, in all its beauty, could never.
I will always feel a certain comfort in seeing the Shire’s rolling hills on my sojourns north. Crisp air, *mostly* good folk. Proper roasts and proper fish and chips. Yorkshire is the cocoon I needed to shape me into the person I some day hope to become. Just as Emley Moor mast will always be a beacon for me, my heart will always belong to Yorkshire.
Yet, London has become my home. I know I’m not unique in saying this; I know of people of all races, genders and sexual orientations who feel the same, but it has allowed me to flourish and find my voice. I often wonder if I would have gained the courage to write and talk so freely about my experiences had I not made the move. I’m doubtful. Do I think I would have ever truly learnt who I am without doing so? Possibly not.
In order to protect itself from this mad city,
while consuming its environment,
the caterpillar begins to notice ways to survive…
The caterpillar goes to work on the cocoon.
He can no longer see past his own thoughts.
When trapped inside these walls, certain ideas take root, such as
going home, and bringing back new concepts to this mad city.
The result?
Wings begin to emerge, breaking the cycle of feeling stagnant.
Finally free, the butterfly sheds light on situations
that the caterpillar never considered, ending the internal struggle.
Although the butterfly and caterpillar are completely different
They are one and the same.
— K. Lamar
Last week, I rushed onto the tube in my usual hurry home to do nothing. I looked around the carriage and smiled. It was a UKIP nightmare; the living embodiment of the vanilla on Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s lapel. Each person notable in her difference to her neighbour. As with my beloved Yorkshire, London too comes with many a flaw, but this is its true beauty. The world city.
Home/həʊm/ noun — A place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates.
I’m Black, I’m British Jamaican, I’m a Yorkshireman. London is my home.
