There I was, covered in straw, surrounded by various farmyard animals, my newborn skin shivering at its first contact with the northbound wind...
So maybe the circumstances of my birth aren't directly comparable to those of the Messiah, but they're close enough. I was born in a place outside of London, a scary, unknown patch of land that's rarely seen in our national media or discussed by our politicians, unless something really terrible happens there. That's right, I'm talking about the rest of the country. Ahem.
I was born and raised in the East Midlands, in a place that could easily be described as both a post-industrial cesspit and a rural idyll. I'm not even kidding. My county has been used as a metaphor for shit in both Peep Show and In The Loop. You could be living in a town where, because of poorly cleared away Ironworks, your children are born deformed, where both the teenage birth rate and the obesity rate are higher than most of the town's young residents. Or alternatively, you could wake up every morning in your four-poster bed and smell the fresh country air as you make your way to the window and look down on the picturesque village below, knowing that in twenty years time most of the elderly villagers will have passed away to be replaced by commuting out-of-towners.
To try and get back to my original point, what I'm trying to say is that I have lived in an underrepresented area of England since I was born, and living there has shaped me in ways that I can probably never fully articulate. Not only are my views on my own community affected, but also other areas, peoples, and ways of living. A person's view depends just as much on where they stand as where they're looking. In particular, living in a place like mine - which only really satisfies the elderly, the unimaginative, and the stressed - has strongly affected the esteem in which I hold our capital.
"A person's view depends just as much on where they stand as where they're looking."
Throughout my childhood, London was alternatively a frightening maze of dark alleyways housing only the scariest and deadliest criminals, and an Illyrian paradise with unforgettable characters at every turn, where every second is full of enjoyment, culture, and intrigue. In short, my friends and I thought it the most exciting place in the world, despite all the murders and stuff. Whatever it was, it wasn't the boring, nondescript town I'd grown up in. As Samuel Johnson famously put it, “When a man is tired of London he is tired of life, for there is in London all that man can afford.” You can't blame a girl for having unrealistic expectations.
It appears as though I couldn't shake these Utopian images of unrelenting amusement from my mind, as I chose a London university over a Northern one, despite having to settle for a Single Honours. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, there was a place along a yellow brick road (or in my case, the M1) that potentially held the key to all life's problems. However this is where the simile ends, as whereas Dorothy wanted to return to her provincial country life, I wanted to escape it. I never understood the idea behind programmes such as Escape to the Country. I was eighteen. I was fairly pragmatic, but still secretly believed that I would bump into famous people all the time (so far only Piers Morgan and Kate Thornton – where are the good ones hiding?) It seemed that there was more opportunity in London than the rest of the country put together. If Madonna can go from small town girl to Material Girl just by uprooting to the city, then surely anyone can? (Albeit with less scary upper arms.)
Here's the thing though: when you enter the Emerald City you can no longer see the whole, luminous image. You are no longer looking in, but looking out, and it changes your perception completely. I am still completely in love with this city, three years after moving here to study. Yet I know that I cannot shop every day, cannot party or go to the theatre every night: images of an 'Illyrian paradise' are superimposed with my daily life; buying bread and milk, paying bills, studying. I see more of the school library than I do of anything else; it took me over two years until I finally got round to visiting the national gallery. (Next time I'm planning to go to the National Portrait Gallery, somewhere I've been meaning to visit since I was a starry-eyed first year.)
Don't get me wrong; I'm still a country girl in a bigger world. Having never witnessed first hand the true brutality of its streets, I still walk around London without a care in the world, unaware of what's around the corner. Having been brought up in a predominantly White area I'm still a little awkward and overly cautious when talking to people from a minority background. I also don't carry an A to Z, despite it being one of the most essential items a Londoner can carry. It's easy to fall into the naive mindset that as soon as you exit the Underground, your destination will be right in front of you. I can't help but wonder; can an outsider ever really understand this city? While my first hand experience of living here has changed my perceptions into something much more realistic, sometimes I feel like I am only skimming the surface. Is London a Utopia or a Dystopia, or can be it both? Is it different things at different times to different people? Will I too, at the age of fifty, tire of life and flee back to the countryside?
I think, despite the excitement and the thrills of this wonderful city, that deep down, my real happiness and contentment lies in the fact that at any time, I can click my red ruby heels (should that be Wellingtons?) and go back to the countryside anytime that I like. Perhaps me and Dorothy aren't so different after all.
