h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just read in the "Where are the homes going to be built?" thread that you're from Kent. I never realised this before so just popped by to say - me too. I'm from Deal originally.

I can never remember whether I'm a Kentish Woman or Woman of Kent though.

Deb

I could've sworn I typed Kent into the subject line of my original post. Sorry to lumber you with a "No Subject" topic on your ps!

Deb

I was born in Aylesford about right by the Medway.I'm a Kentish Maid being born on the west bank, and just at the foot of the north Downs...just near the Neolithic monument of Kit's Coty

We lived there until I was 3. Then moved to Barming, also right by the river until 7.

I so loved both Aylesford and Barming.

Then we moved to some weird place by a main road on the outskirts of Maidsstone which I hated.

I think we visited Deal a few times..we regularly went to all the seaside places on the Kent coast. I loved all of them.

You'll be a Maid of Kent then.

Yep it truly is the garden of England..well for a little bit longer I hope...before its completely covered over with roads and houses.

We left when I was 10 - and moved all the way to Kirkwall, Orkney. Bit of a trek. My dad was given the option of a couple of places to relocate to for work, and my mum decided "Well, if we're going to move, we're going to really move"!

Thanks for clearing up what I am - Maid of Kent. However, I'll have forgotten it again tomorrow. I just don't seem to be able to retain the info (those moments are getting more frequent).

Deb

Well age happens to all of us unless we die..at least you are unlikely to stumble upon nasty vicious conversations here, to do with that; people know it happens to *everyone*.

That was a heck of a move. But we nearly moved to Canada...unfortunately we only moved about 3 miles away to something horrible. A big house, next to other big houses on a main road in an area that had zero sense of community..it wasn't really anywhere.

How was your life in Orkney? Did you fit in to the community as a Kent family?

(My grandad moved from Newton Stewart on the west coast of Scotland as a child, so we have connections to Scotland..but much further south than yours).

I was a novelty at school for a while because of my "posh" accent, but that went in my favour as it seemed to make people want to befriend me.

I always felt we fit in well with the community. I heard of english people being looked on at interlopers and as such not welcome, but that never came across with our dealings with the local community. I lived there for ten years and really missed it when I left at 20 to work in England.

Deb

I'm pleased you felt you fitted into the community. That was certainly my undoing from our move ..well there wasn't a community anymore.

That is so important for children. It's child abuse IMO to rip that away from children.

A former partner of mine had a bad time though when she moved to the Highlands of Scotland as an English person. She was bullied by both staff and children in the small isolated village. But that was to do with reasons of history to do with the 'Clearances'

Where I live now in Peckham, London has a very strong community sense. I love that.

I used to live in Tufnell Park, north London. I never felt a sense of community there, I found London quite isolating. All that avoiding eye contact on the tube .

I was glad to leave. But then I'm not a city girl.

Deb

Well Christ you're talking *north* of the river...what do you expect? Money always trumps community there aside from the East end...though parts of that nearest the *City* have gone more money.

I reckon you'd like my part of Peckham....and they never got round to building the tube here..it's all busses...or train

You do know London is called a collection of villages...

And William Blake had his vision on Peckham Rye just up the road..

I only ended up in Tufnell Park because when I first moved to London I moved in with my boyfriend & he had a room in a flat in Highgate. When we looked for a place together we looked in the areas he already knew. It was pretty convenient for the west end, I worked a couple of streets away from Oxford Street, which is probably why I was so glad to leave. I don't really like crowds so it was always a nightmare getting too and from work.

Deb