HOMECOMINGS

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
'This is my own, my native land!'
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand!

I have just returned from a misty-eyed trip from Athens to London to see my two sons there, combined with a filial excursion to my home town of Aberdeen in Scotland, where I have two brothers and some old friends. Both parts of the trip were delightful even in chilly January. Sir Walter’s famous lines echo down the years and I turn my thoughts to the nature of Homecomings, their pleasures and ambiguities.

I cannot rival the glamour of Odysseus whose return to Ithaca triumphantly liberated Penelope from her insistent suitors and back to the husbandly loins (though his dog Argos died!): nor was I transported in a sealed train as was Lenin from Switzerland to the Finland Station in Petrograd in 1917 “like a bacillus” in Churchill’s words. In fact, thanks to the generous discounts dished out by the taxpayer to the deserving Seniors, a first class 7-hour one-way train journey cost me a mere £33.60, with continuous free coffee, buns, sandwiches, booze and snacks, so you are certainly not treated like a bacillus.

The Brig o' Balgownie, Aberdeen

 An agreeable journey it is too. A glimpse of Ely in its sodden January fens, industrial Northern England, stately Durham Cathedral, the Tyne Bridge, Carlton Hill and the Scott Monument in Edinburgh, the Forth and Tay Bridges, Dundee with its lovely setting, the wide South Esk estuary at Montrose before journey’s end at granite-grey but highly prosperous, majestic Aberdeen. How many memories assail the returning Prodigal Son, how affectionate the welcome from kith and kin! Home, home at last!

Yet Home is an elusive concept. I have not lived in Aberdeen for 44 years and although the scenes are well-loved and familiar, they are not part of the life of my wife and family. My dear parents’ ashes are scattered there and we honour them; my ever-generous family entertain and pamper me; friends chatter and joke as of old. Aberdeen will always be at least one of my homes and for me it is a little slice of Paradise. But I have lived in London longer and still have a pied-à-terre there. I brought up my family in cosmopolitan North London; their attitudes are shaped by that experience. They love the excitement of the teeming streets, the dynamic business environment and the diversity of its life-style. Only a bigger and hopefully better city would entice them away. The chattering bistros, the convivial pubs, the many civilised places of resort draw me strongly to London too. I see myself as very much a London Scot, with a Home anchor in the England where I blossomed and prospered.

The Beer Garden, The Spaniards Inn, Hampstead

 My final Home is Greece. My lovely Greek wife inherited some property and we spend much time there. Greece is delightful and infuriating, corrupt yet physically safe, ill-governed but basically functioning. Three months of frigid and dismal winter gives way to nine months of gorgeous spring, summer and autumn when you bless being alive. I am an alien there without doubt and do not fully understand the Greek psyche though my clever wife and charmingly Hellenised middle son explain and instruct. We have fitful pleasures in historic, hectic Athens but I relax totally in our modest island home on Aegean Samos, sunning myself, feasting, exploring, swimming and writing. How much the warming sun raises your spirits, how infectious is Greek good humour!

A Swimming cove on Samos

                            

 Aberdeen and Scotland is thus my legacy Home, where my ancestral and youthful roots lie, where I easily wax sentimental. This sentimentality is sorely tested by Mr Salmond and his strident, damaging nationalism. In the coming independence referendum, I will be voteless; my objections to this are probably fairly enough countered: “If you love the place so much, why don’t you live there?” It is not to be, but Scotland naturally has a special place in my heart.

My family and professional Home is London (not forgetting 7 great years in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds) and England, that most civilised of nations. Recently I discovered a delectable London Stout, brewed in Greenwich and neatly called Meantime; it joins other fine ales like Theakston’s Old Peculier and Greene King’s The Old Speckled Hen to whet the parched whistle. Bliss!

My retirement Home is Athens and Samos in Greece. We sit out on our Samos balcony every summer evening, sipping ouzo and nibbling at feta, as the great ball of the sun dips under the horizon leaving a glorious sunset red-sky display. It seems somehow appropriate.

SMD

12.02.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013