Home

[Patf]

Newbiggin was only a few miles up the coast. I went there once with my first real love, to visit his grandparents. We might have met? Though I think I'm a bit older than you, Coops.

[Gardengirl]

Lovely pics, Patf. I'm also from the north-east, I left at 18 for college. I only have one brother left up there now, and he and S-I-L are planning to move south to Hull soon. We rarely go up there now, we head south to France instead!

I can't say I feel nostalgic about the area exactly, but any pics of the area give me great pleasure. I only have to hear someone from the area speak for the accent to almost come back! When visiting places I tend to speak like the natives, but I only need to hear a north-east accent, which is quite funny. On the phone yesterday I didn't want the woman to think I was taking the mickey, as these days I speak fairly south-east! I never did understand the 'tackems' and 'mackems' phrase; something to do with football?

GG

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Mackems is Sunderland. Never heard of Tackems.

[Patf]

Never heard of mackems or tackems - before my time [;-)]

Gardengirl - I know what you mean about the geordie accent. When I hear it I recognise it instantly and it brings back memories of the NE. I once got talking to a couple while out for a walk here and at once I thought  "Whitley Bay" and he said yes that's where he's from.

Anyway,the connection to "Home" is getting a bit lost. Pat. 

[redkite]

Easy.

Home is where the heart is. It's an old saying but true. Like nationality it's a combination of things - a shared history, a common culture and language, shared religion, similar expectations and, most important of all, friends and family. Feel free to add to the list.

France for us (or anywhere else for that matter) will never be home it will only be where we live even though we might call it 'home'. We've made friends here yes, and we even have some family. Also, we speak a bit of the lingo but home? Never.

[mint]

How sad for you.  I, personally, would never live where I don't feel quite at home.

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Agreed sweet 17. I'd find that unsettling, like being in limbo.

[Chancer]

After travelling the world, home for me is defined by one of two things.

When I am somewhere and dont know how long I am staying or when I will be leaving. 

Wherever I stay for more than a couple of days and start to organise/arrange/make things to make life a little more comfortable, this need be no more than getting clothes and possessions out of my backpack and putting them on a shelf.

Family = home? Friends = home, not for me, home is where I feel at home [:D]

One strange thing is, when I leave France for England my friends ask "when are you coming back"? Whereas when I arrive in England everybody, friends and family ask "when are you going back"?

Its kinda given me a complex, and my stock answer of "I dont know, and I wont know until I am ready" is never understood, "of course you must know"! they say. Probably a result of never ever having booked a one way ticket in their lives.

[redkite]

Seems we are getting mixed up with home and 'home'.

Home as in where you live I'm OK with and am quite happy and comfortable in France however 'home' is as said where the heart is and that for me has to my old stamping ground of south London... even though I have lived, loved, and brought up our family in Wales for 30 years 'sarf London' will always be that bit special.

If more of you were just a bit more honest....

[cooperlola]

[quote user="redkite"]. If more of you were just a bit more honest....[/quote]I beg your pardon?

Sorry but home is where my husband and my animals are.  That's where I feel welcome, safe and comfortable.  Right now that's right here in France.

Honest.

[redkite]

....ah yes, but when you left your family - perhaps to get married - I bet you went 'home' to Mum n Dad, and that's the point I'm trying to make. Do you really think that those of us that go to live overseas do not regard the UK as home?

We kid ourselves to deny otherwise. Home is more than bricks n timber, more than where we left our shoes, more than being somewhere warm and more than where hubby is. It's where we were raised, it's where we spoke the language of the hearth, it's where we have family and memories.

That's the home I'm talking about, not the new lifestyle that many have adopted be it France, Spain, or Canada for example. I love France, I live in France, I have a home in France..... but I'm not French, most of my family do not live in France and neither do most of my friends and to think otherwise is in my view dishonest.

[redkite]

.....and just to nail the argument.

'For in spite of all temptation

to belong to other nations,

He remains an Englishman!

He remains and Englishman!

Gilbert and Sullivan - HMS Pinafore

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Well, I was born in England, but I do not feel like an Englishman. I don't know when I lost that, but I feel more international than anything, a citizen of the world. And I am proud of that, proud to have broken the mould and restrictions that nationalism can bring.

To add to this, I am also legally Australian having been naturalised

there too. But overall I have seen that people are basically the same

the world over, and this is just another bit of dirt I am on, but it's

my bit of dirt - my home.

I also feel that I am at liberty to be able to move to wherever I like and make that my new home.

But this was never meant to be an argument, at the end of the day we all feel different and there is no right or wrong answer. The point in this thread was to discover what people see as home.

[redkite]

Point taken and well made but being born in England (for example) does not in my view make that person 'English'. As said in a previous post it is a combination of things such as language and shared history etc that attaches a person to a particular country.

It has to be admitted that many Australians and New Zealanders - to use just a couple of examples, hark back to 'the old country' from where they share history, language and family. That's just how it is - a bit like the Boers of South Africa with their attachement to Holland or, to use a more approriate example for this forum, the French in Canada.

One cannot simply ditch and disregard heritage in the way that some would imply and whilst I applaud your claim to be a world citizen, roots and where we come from helps define who we are and give us a sense of identity. Nationalism can as you say bring restrictions as well as being ugly - but that's people not nations.

My own family have a shared heritage from Italy - but ask them what their nationality is and they will say Welsh. Dad's English, Mum's Italian.... but they define themselves as Welsh and why? Because they were born there, they have friends and family there, they speak Welsh, they went to school in Wales and, like so many Welsh language schools they engaged with Welsh culture.

My eldest has lived in France for fifteen years, he even speaks the local patois.... but by gosh he's fearlessly proud his Welsh/Italian heritage.

By the way, my term 'argument' refers not to a quarrel or alteration rather a discussion in which reasons are put forward.

[buelligan]

All interesting points Redkite.  But I wonder whether, because you interpret "home" in your way, you imagine it is impossible for others to feel differently about their own concept of "home".  You speak about the language of the hearth, the place where family and friends are in a very warm way but, I imagine, forming an attachment in this way would be predicated on one's experience in that first "home".  Not all people are welcome or happy amongst their blood rellies you know!  As far as the colonial view of "home" goes, read my earlier post.  In my experience most long term ex-pats have a concept of the "Mother Country", their "home" which is pure fantasy - it just doesn't exist.  I think the concept of "home" is one of the most personal and possibly, precious things to many.  It is absolutely up to each individual to decide what it means for them as a unique and honest emotional response.  After all, who would argue with Diogenes..?[:D]

[tegwini]

" That's just how it is - a bit like the Boers of South Africa with their attachement to Holland"    quote Red Kite.

Anyone who knows anything about SA would know that the Boers had only loyalty to SA - Holland was centuries away (1652), and many were proud of their French Huguenot or German blood,  but their love was for SA.  Smuts, Botha et al were generals and in the Brit. war cabinet in WW1 and  WW2 fighting against Germany.

Today of all days with the massacre at Fort Hood in the USA,  it's clear that birth is not always a precursor to loyalty for many.

Tegwini

[Celine]

I come very close to redkite's feelings on home being where I started out and grew up. I have returned to live there after a few decades, unintentionally and against my will in some respects, but I have never felt so comfortable and so happy. It's the smells and the sounds and an indefinable buzz. I do however think I had to go away from it for a length of time to really appreciate it though.

[cooperlola]

[quote user="redkite"]....ah yes, but when you left your family - perhaps to get married - I bet you went 'home' to Mum n Dad,[/quote]Not that they lived in the same place but, no, I didn't.  My father loved France as much as I do and brought me here for the first time when I was 5.  Sadly, he is now dead. I'm very glad that there's a nice bit of water and a few hundred kilometres of land between me and the remaining parent so I don't have to see her more than once a year now.  Buelligan has it right - it rather depends upon one's relationship with one's parents.  My only point was that you shouldn't imagine, redkite, that everybody has the same fond attachment to the "home" they had as a child as you do.  Great if you are able to feel that way but it doesn't mean it's the same for everybody. 

[redkite]

I just wonder if there is some sort of bias towards such claims as 'living in France and it being home'. Not surprising I suppose but some protest to much methinks.

By the way, my dictionary defines Boer as a decendant of any of the Dutch or Heguenot colonists who settled in SA. Now, I wonder where such names as The Orange Free State, Bloemfonten, Kiersdorp and Vereeniging Kopanong came from? Hmm.

And, I bet there are a lot of you that long for as I do, a bit of the old egg, bacon n sausage in the morning! Yum yum.

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

[quote user="redkite"]I just wonder if there is some sort of bias towards such claims as 'living in France and it being home'. Not surprising I suppose but some protest to much methinks.

By the way, my dictionary defines Boer as a decendant of any of the Dutch or Heguenot colonists who settled in SA. Now, I wonder where such names as The Orange Free State, Bloemfonten, Kiersdorp and Vereeniging Kopanong came from? Hmm.

And, I bet there are a lot of you that long for as I do, a bit of the old egg, bacon n sausage in the morning! Yum yum.[/quote]

Not in the morning, but at night yes. And you can buy egg bacon and sausage in France too, and it's just as tastey.

As for Australia, I'd agree that the older generation still look back at the "old country", but this new generation are certainly Australian.

[Chancer]

[quote user="redkite"] Do you really think that those of us that go to live overseas do not regard the UK as home? We kid ourselves to deny otherwise. Home is more than bricks n timber, more than where we left our shoes, more than being somewhere warm and more than where hubby is. It's where we were raised, it's where we spoke the language of the hearth, it's where we have family and memories. That's the home I'm talking about, not the new lifestyle that many have adopted be it France, Spain, or Canada for example. I love France, I live in France, I have a home in France..... but I'm not French, most of my family do not live in France and neither do most of my friends and to think otherwise is in my view dishonest.[/quote]

Well I think that we are all different, have had different experiences and uprbringings and have the right to decide what defines home for us.

I am not being dishonest when I say that I cannot identify at all with your definition of home but then I am still making new friends, gaining new experiences and dont hanker after a past that for me is not as attractive as I hope that my future may be.

Being honest I have yet to find my true home but for the moment France is where I feel more comfortable.

[Scooby]

[quote user="sweet 17"]How sad for you.  I, personally, would never live where I don't feel quite at home.[/quote]

I'm guessing that you don't feel at home in the Charente, Sweet - given your polling of everyone on where else to move to!

Having been on this forum for a number of years now (not just as Scooby) I think much of the above comments (and many threads a similar vein before them) come from this feeling that the ultimate accolade is to become as 'French' as possible.  The reality is that we will never be French.  Bad mouthing the UK, denying your roots is just part of that fallacy. 

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Well Scooby, I have no intention of ever wanting to become French.When I lived in Australia, even though I got citizenship, I would never ever be truely Australian, and that's with the same language, history and culture! So becoming French will never ever happen.

The country I am living in is really irrelevant. Pick any western civilised country, and they are really much of a muchness. Different pros and cons, but in essence the same. The people are largely the same, they just go about doing things slightly differently. I see very little difference in village life in the UK, to Australia, to here to be honest. It's just another bit of 'dirt' I have my home on.

For me, I am alone in this world. There is nothing for me back in the UK, I have no family there. Likewise Australia. I guess, that's what makes it different for me to most people, my roots have to be where I am now.

[buelligan]

Scooby wrote; [quote]Having been on this forum for a number of years now (not just as Scooby) I think much of the above comments (and many threads a similar vein before them) come from this feeling that the ultimate accolade is to become as 'French' as possible.  The reality is that we will never be French.  Bad mouthing the UK, denying your roots is just part of that fallacy.  [/quote]

Odd isn't it?  If one emigrates to France it is somehow "wrong" to identify with "frenchness" or to seek to be accepted as French.  If one emigrates to Britain (or England), it is an absolute prerequisite that one denies ones former culture and attempts in every way possible to become "English"..?[:D]

[MrCanary]

I currently have a house in Norwich and a house in France. We spend most of our time in Norwich, so that is 'home'.

But when we are in France and go out for the day, we talk about getting back 'home' in the evening and we are referring to our French house.

And my wife and I so want to make that French house our permanent home...