My Dad died recently. And as I walked around Barnsley on the day of his funeral, I said to myself: “I suppose this could be the last time I ever come here...” My father-in-law said: “you must come back, you’re a Yorkshireman, a Barnsley boy…it’s in your blood.” It got me thinking. Is there such a thing as being connected to the land? Does that connection run within our veins? Is there an inherent sense of dwelling - spiritual or emotional - within our blood? Are we born of a place, rather than just in it? Wasn't Adam formed from the dust? It’s not something I have ever thought about before. But it’s been on my mind for a few weeks. When I went away to University it was a case of running away from Home. I wanted to escape. I wanted to change. I wanted to grow. Ever since, if truth be told, I have kept my distance from the land of my birth. Perhaps unhappy memories don’t seem that unhappy when you put space and time between them. Difficult relationships are easier to deal with via text message rather than face to face. Frustration can be hidden, contempt can be swallowed, pain can be submerged – in physical detachment and emotional remoteness. So why do I keep thinking about Home? Maybe I just want to belong. Maybe I want Yorkshire to be in my veins, so I can say I’m a Yorkshireman. Maybe I want to have Barnsley in my blood, so I can be a Barnsley boy. Or maybe I just want to remember my Dad – a true Yorkshireman if ever there was one – and feel connected to him in death in a way that perhaps I wasn’t in life. I don’t know the answer. I just know that it won’t be long before I go back. “Sure, cried the Tenant men, but it’s our land. We measured it and broke it up. We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it’s no good. It’s still ours. That’s what makes it ours – being born on it, working it, dying on it.” John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath.
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