I recently returned to the town where I grew up, Bognor Regis, where my parents still live. It’s a small town in the house of England of around 25k people. (Hope I haven’t offended anyone by saying this about Bognor, but it’s true) Walking down the main shopping street on a Friday morning and most of the people look like they’re stuck in the 90’s. The average person was walking round in a tracksuit or scruffy clothes and something closely resembling a mullet. Given that the average age is about 65 there’s not a lot that goes on. Certainly, it would seem that people there have little ambition. It’s showing signs of improving, major enterprise has moved in; there’s now a Starbucks and a Subway, but lets not get carried away it’s still in the dark ages.
Having decided that the town was just as I remember it and there must be more hope in the area I checked out the nearby town where I went to school, Chichester. Surely this town, being more fashionable, walled Roman city would hold more hope. At first glance things were not much better. but there was hope. Many of the shops have been replaced by more modern things, like they finally got an HMV store! Some of the people look normal, mostly those sipping on their Latte’s in Starbucks (they get everywhere) But generally they were the same people, living in their own little world, in their little town with little expectations of life. It’s easy for me to sit here and say these things but I used to be one of them with only moving away to university rescuing me.

So what did I learn from all of this? Well, I’ve come a long way since leaving the town and broken free of its restrictive ways. This gives me the confidence that I’ll always be able to move on from any situation.