I Don’t Live in a City

What is your favorite place to go in your city?

I’m a Londoner who never wanted to leave London. I was born 10 minutes south of Greenwich. I love history. It was the perfect English city for me.

No disrespect to the others, I love the buzz of Liverpool and Manchester, York is gorgeous, Lincoln is amazing, easier to say that I love the old cities. But London is my home.

I realised this on what should have been one of the saddest days of my life, my mother’s funeral. It was held at the same crematorium that was her father’s resting place. She too wanted to go home, and that day she brought me home with her. Her final gift – a sense of belonging. Knowing why I never settle. I can be very happy in different places, but not home.

Where do you feel energised?

Friends tell me that I sashay when I walk in London. I feel energised there, there’s a buzz below the streets that I feel through my body. Once we moved to Beckham in Kent, 30 minutes from the city, I was always a fish out of water. I never belonged there, or Bromley.

My favourite place to go is around the central part of London, the historic areas, Buckingham Palace, rather than the massive urban sprawl that is Greater London. I particularly love Greenwich. The Cutty Sark, the park, the Observatory, the markets, the old shops.

I once stood on the hill in Greenwich Park and saw the Space Shuttle flying below me on the back of a Jumbo Jet, following the River Thames. That sums up London to me. Fascinating and amazing. And home.

Deb xx