Where Do I belong?

Often, I have wondered where I actually belong, as in a place that I can ground to that can be defined as home.

They say that home is where your heart is or, home is a place that you discover, and it's not really a place where you were born or raised; it's a place that resonates within you.

I guess in some ways they are right, especially in the modern context where the world has become more about self-driven interests and being part of the big society.

The world I grew up in was already failing, though, ultimately elements of the great society I was born into were still there during the earliest years of my lifetime.

I am from a small town that used to have a population of around 15,000 people. Most of the population by that time would have been Asian, Indian; I would estimate around 55% as they were part of the textiles industries that formed across Kettering, Leicester, Northampton and parts of Wellingborough.

There isn't really a need to put a label on black v white, as the people in the remaining percentage were a mix of races when I was born, that happened sometime in the 1960s because of the London expansion and subsequent dumping of unwanted peoples into my area from the former slums that used to be in Greater London.

During the 1980s almost everybody knew my family; I am from a large family and have 5 other siblings; we were not always behaved as children, but not all kids were and our communities all understood that, as we were from a time when people looked out for one another and actually gave a dam about other people.

I remember going into the town centre as a child, many people would say hello to me or my mother; my father worked long hours and was not always present, so my mother mostly carried the burden of raising six children.

Things were simpler then, as parents could leave their children at the shopping centre from an early age if they had been too naughty and the parents had to just go home with the children that did behave to sort things out at home. There was always security at the shopping centre, and people mostly knew each other, so seeing kids wandering around they always knew who they belonged to, and they would either return them home or ask the police to escort them home.

None of this could happen in the modern context, some sick pervert would abduct wandering children in broad daylight and most people would be so concerned with their own lives that they would not even notice or even care. If that child was killed some would be shocked, but the next big thing would come, and they would focus on that; the tragedy would soon be forgotten and lever learned as a lesson for their own kids.

Back then, I could leave my bike in the street anywhere, and it would always be there a few days later. Even the lazy milkman let the money just stay under the doorstep for the milk and bread that had been put outside in a coin bag for him; he would collect it at the end of the week when he was ready to collect the monies. People did not steal from the local shops either and many often left their front doors open.

But, then, after the 1970s when the worst of London had come to Wellingborough to start new lives, ultimately they knew they were outsiders and, as such, they were likely treated differently because of their different ways of life, especially if they had criminal pasts.

Eventually, they developed a hatred for the towns they had been settled in and that hatred was passed on to their children; children who grew up violent, criminal and hostile.

I first started to see the emergence of these types in the late 1980s, when they started to come to the inner parts of the old town to steal bikes. As the early '90s rolled in they hijacked the youth clubs and forced their drugs and violence onto the local communities; by the mid-'90s most of the original cultures and mindsets for my town were gone. They were replaced by violent youths and shattered communities where people no longer gave a dam about their neighbours and were only concerned with their own lives; we had to lock our doors and protect ourselves from the human trash that was now living within our communities.

My countries' government has tried to erase what they did by building council estates to segregate people, and also the truth about those they forced out of London and dumped into towns like mine as they continued to expand that cesspit of a city that is London.

My father sold his house in 2003, against the wishes of the family, and it subsequently led to my mother living in a place that contributed to her death in 2013.

Since my early 20s, I wanted to get away from that town, and I tried many times and always ended up going back there. I at one point, wanted to buy back my family home, hoping that I would someday have money to do that. But, I realised that it no longer mattered.

It didn't matter as I only had the memory, and part of that was linked to the memory of what the house used to look like.

In reality, even if I did have the money to buy that home, my home would no longer exist, as it would just be a shell. My home was lost to the past, it was a place where there was community and where people knew each other and cared about one another, especially safeguarding other people's naughty kids.

When I went to China, I managed to settle here more than I have any place I have been since I was in my early 20s.

Of course, there are problems and the wider city is not always welcoming or friendly; I am used to that, as much as I am being a minority race in my own country; being a minority in China was more or less the same thing anyway.

But, they have residencies in China, and in some ways, it feels like I am back in the past in a place where most people know about me, where there is security and people who will notice when your kids are wandering around when they have been naughty; people will safeguard other peoples kids if they felt it was necessary to do so. Mostly though, they know the security at every entrance/exit gateway will be on high alert and will make sure younger wandering kids are not going to go outside the residencies unaccompanied. If they see a child that has no parent they will report it to the management and security office; they are very good at tracking lost children within the residency as well.

It's not my home, that part of my world has been lost forever, but, it's a place to start and subsequently the perfect place to raise my children as they too will have a positive reference point to begin building their lives from.

We are currently living with my wife's mother, in her home. I have been working hard to gain an income, so we can work towards finding our own place here. Either way, I have hope that, unlike my messed-up town, they won't force relocate trash here that will destroy the area; I have hope for a better foundation for my daughter here.