Didn't I just say that?

I just read an article from a link on facebook that had me thinking..

I don't come from any kind of well-to-do background.  The parents were both very much working class, but with definite aspirations, and since neither of them had really achieved the things they wanted for themselves, there was a kind of... determination that none of their children would be permitted to disadvantage themselves...  so, education was paramount:  it was drummed into us (quite literally at times) that we had to work hard at school:  that we were all expected to do well in our exams, and head out into the best possible careers:  for me, (after speaking at a parents evening with the amazing teacher in whose French and Spanish classes I was flourishing, due to her patience, humour, and willingness to work with me) the 'hope' thinly disguised as an instruction, was that I would continue into higher education. study more languages, and become an interpreter at the United Nations...   their bitter disappointment in me when I left school with very mediocre results, and flatly refused to follow the plan was palpable.. and regularly voiced.

But their social ambitions left me with a legacy that has been both a burden and a bonus over the years.  I grew up in the East Midlands, in the city where both of the parents had been  born. My maternal grandparents were both, I believe, from the same city.. my paternal grandparents both from Yorkshire, and had the accent that goes with it.. but were very well-spoken and pleasant-voiced: a trait shared by their children.

To the mother, this was, it seemed, the key to social success, and as soon as we began to speak, we were groomed to do so 'properly'.  Local slang terms were banned from our vocabularies:  the vagaries of local dialect a cardinal sin. Every word had to be carefully enunciated: and the coarseness of the regional accent smoothed out of our speech... even now, I am told that it is very difficult for people to get a fix on where I might be from:  and many have told me that they actually thought I was from the Home Counties.. or possibly the more salubrious parts of London.   And while as an adult this might be considered a good thing:  growing up on a council estate in one of the roughest parts of town, and attending an inner-city comprehensive school, it was pretty much akin to painting a target on our foreheads, tying our hands behind our backs, and shoving us through the door with 'kick me' signs hanging around our necks.  I lost count pretty early on, of the beatings I took for 'talking posh' or 'thinking yer better than us'.  at 4 and 5 years old, the hostility was met with absolute incomprehension...

What does any of this have to do with my journeys?

I have found that my accent, or rather my lack of a recognisable, strong regional accent is often commented on. When I travel, whether it is locally or to places further afield, I have regularly found that my speech, or my voice pique interest. I am asked where I am from: and find my reply met with surprise, and occasionally scepticism.   It has left me with some sense of.... isolation, to a degree.  A lack of anchor and roots: a feeling that while I may come from a certain place, I never belonged there: something that is surprisingly difficult for me to deal with.

I have no particular attachment to my birthplace:  it holds many more bad memories than good: and yet.. not to have that sense of belonging: of place, leaves me confused and shiftless: has me questioning myself and my identity: and wondering where, if not the place I was born, can I ever feel at home?