Retirement and returning ‘home’, now there’s a thing. In the broadest sense of the word, and it is broad, the idea for me probably all started with a TV programme that’s on ‘normal’ TV at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. I would describe watching it as my guilty little secret except that I think I’ve confessed to it before. So not so secret. It’s called Escape to the Country. As you can guess, it’s about people selling their house in the city and moving to the country.
Although with the barn and vineyard we already have our escape to the country (more of this in a later blog because things have been happening in this area) this programme still holds a strange fascination for me. For some reason other people’s houses have always interested me.
One part of my fascination is taken up with those programmes (there are quite a few) that are concerned with people, often retired, who are returning to the area of the country that had once been their home. Their motive for moving then is to spend their last years where or whereabouts they were born.
I asked Mrs Summerhouse after one of these programmes whether she fancied the idea of moving back full-time to Derbyshire, the county of our birth. We were both born here. I say ‘here’ because that’s where I’m writing this ‘going home’ retirement blog. Sitting at our dining room table in my old house. The one, if I was not actually born in, then at least I was brought home to from the maternity hospital and lived the first 18 years of my life in until I left for college. Ironically I was glad to get away and now here I am thinking about coming back.
Of course the fact is we still have this house (on account of my late mother leaving it to me). This slightly obscures the motivation for wanting to come ‘home’ but if we did move back I’m guessing it wouldn’t be to this house, so that makes it a bit complicated.
As does the fact that Mrs Summerhouse had mild apoplexy at the thought, mainly about leaving family and friends in Yorkshire, she said. I was slightly surprised how against the idea she was given that she was born here as well. Although it being a council house she no longer owns the property. In fact we met at our local art college more than 50 years ago. Our golden wedding anniversary is coming up this year but that’s a topic for yet another retirement blog.
If it’s family we’re talking about then Mrs SH has hundreds (slight exaggeration) of relatives in this area – one sister, one brother, several nieces and their children. I, on the other hand, have precisely none, despite what I’m going to say in a moment about my aunt (deceased).
Anyway I digress, the point is, even though Mrs SH is against the idea, it does have a certain appeal. If I ask myself why it’s appealing, the answer seems to be something about squaring the circle, returning to square one or more simply going home to die. There I’ve said it.
I am reminded of those sad films of servicemen killed in action coming ‘home’ in their coffins. Don’t ask me why and I know it’s a bit gruesome but there we are. Maybe the military part of it has a resonance because, back a generation, my grandfather (and to a lesser extent my father) was a career soldier. Perhaps the concept it still in the genes if only slightly.
The equivalent for me is walking the dogs through our local park (Shipley) and reading the names of the deceased on the benches and wondering, did I know this person? Last time I did, it was my aunty Lesley, daughter of Uncle Archie who owned a garage down the road and who (Lesley) married a driving instructor, Tony, he who taught me to drive and said I had a ‘heavy right foot’.
Quite scary how the memories come, if not exactly flooding back, dribbling anyway. Like when we were sitting in the swearing pub (The Middle Inn) in Langley Mill and I could say to one of the locals, when I remembered, I used to deliver milk round here. Perfectly true but needs more explanation than I have time for here or there (that is in the pub).
Especially how I fell off the milk float and knocked myself unconscious. The milkman, who I was helping, scraped (reportedly) me up off the road, put me back on the float and deposited me, unconscious, to my mother and grandma. Apparently my white face and running blood looked quite striking. Ah those were the days, when men were men and 10 year old boys were made of sterner stuff. And I can still remember the milk round (which Mrs SH has just started using again in Leeds, something about not using plastic) before I fell off the float at least.
Retirement and returning ‘home’ summary
A strange little blog I think you will agree and in case there’s anybody reading this who might be worried about us packing up and moving to Derbyshire, let me reassure you, it won’t happen. Of all my wacky retirement schemes this would be among the most unlikely. At our time of life, as the saying goes, it’s simply too complicated (an oxymoron?) to attempt. I’m sure I can think up other schemes to keep me occupied without uprooting and moving to Derbyshire. Can’t I?