Rhys on Home

 I’ve just returned from a trip to England, mainly to let John be with his many relatives. It was a lovely time, full of big family dinners, delicious lunches, cream teas and an endless stream of people coming and going. I enjoy being there, I love Cornwall and John’s family, but it is not home. Cornwall was somewhere we took vacations when I was very young. As sort of magical place that was different.

We also spent some time in London. London again is a place I know well. I spent a big chunk of time there, both at university and then living on Queen Anne Street behind Oxford Circus, working for the BBC at Broadcasting House (I could get up at eight thirty and be on the set by nine!). But again London is not home.

Which made me consider what exactly home is. I have lived in California for over fifty years. I have raised a family here, but is it home? I do find myself longing for the simple life in England, going to the village shop or the pub and meeting the neighbors. California is always fast paced, lots of traffic, new buildings.

So it was interesting for me to spend a few days in Bath, the city of my birth. I didn’t live there after the war when my parents moved to Kent where my father ran a factory, but I was a frequent visitor. My aunt Gwladys lived there, my godmother,--I could almost say my fairy godmother because that’s what she felt like to me. A single woman who had had a high powered job in the Admiralty during the war only to be kicked back to a secretarial position when the men came back. She quit and started teaching business instead. Long summer vacations gave her plenty of opportunity to travel and she traveled constantly. Everywhere she went she brought me back a doll. .I have them all in a cabinet and can name where they all came from.

From a very early age my parents would put me on a bus in London and Aunt Gwlad would meet me in Bath. There we would do exciting and different things: we’d go to a Persian restaurant and sit on cushions to eat. We went to plays and the opera. We visited her many and diverse friends like the old lady who lived alone in the mansion above the city, and we’d often have morning coffee with her friends in the Pump Room where an ancient orchestra played.

I left John in the hotel and wandered around Bath on my own. That was the road to my grandmother’s house, a lovely Georgian with molded ceiling. That’s the Francis Hotel where we once had an elegant lunch with my aunt’s haughty friend. And Pultney Bridge had a wool shop where I once was bought yarn and skirt material. It all came back to me. Look John,Jollys. They used to have lovely cream cakes (it was now shuttered). I remembered swimming in the Roman Baths before they discovered the bacteria content was not safe!  This time I indulged in the safer but more expensive new Thermae Spa with its rooftop warm pool. Such a treat.

I think a place knows when you were born there. I could feel it whispering ‘welcome home’ to me, and then, more disturbingly, ‘you don’t want to leave again, do you? You could come back here. Live a simple life here. Sit in the Parade Gardens and watch the river fall down the weir.’  So tempting. But we packed our bags and caught the train to London. Now home will have to wait until next year.

So Reddies, do you have a place that is definitely home for you? Or are you still looking and hoping to find it?