Two of the things that I hold most dear about my heritage feel like they're being stolen away from me this week.
I overheard my mum saying to Dad on Thursday that she's going to contact the estate agents to put Grans bungalow on the market now. That bungalow represents so much to me. It was obviously the venue for so many happy memories I can't begin to list them (and nor do I want to). It also give me a sense of belonging, some concrete (literally) routes in the country I feel is my home but I don't get to live in. As I type this I'm wrapped up in my Wales rugby jumper and I feel like my right to wear it is slipping away from me. I feel like I have no reason to cross the border any more, no right and no reason to think the other side of that bridge is home.
The other thing being that Xerox are selling their plant at Mitcheldean. My beloved grandad set up a factory there for Rank Xerox to make cinematic machinery after the Second World War. He got an OBE for bringing industry and promise to a depressed area. After my grandad passed away, Rank Xerox wrote to my dad, telling him they'd named a large part of the factory in Mitcheldean after Grandad in his memory. Now it's been (or being, not sure which) sold off. Who ever buys it will carry on bringing employment to the area, like Grandad did. But what he worked so hard for has gone. The entrance way with his name above the door will likely be torn down and that plaque tossed aside.
They're just buildings, I know that. And as a friend said to me on Thursday, times change. I feel like I'm being cut adrift from where I'm from and who I'm from. That every day a bigger gap is being forced between me and the people who played such a huge part in giving me a sense of history.
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