"So, what's it like, Derby?"

There is a part in Alan Silitoe's Birthday, the sequel to Saturday Night, Sunday Morning in which an older Arthur Seaton returns to his home city of Nottingham, when he questions the old adage that distance makes the heart grow fonder. Though living in London, Arthur says he has always loved Nottingham and that he never needed to leave to realise it. In this moving book, Arthur retraces some of the steps taken in his childhood and goes back to some of his old haunts with his elder brother, Brian. On one day out they cross the border into Derbyshire, stopping for lunch in a pub in Arthur's favourite village of Cromford, a place I passed through on the school bus for two years between the ages of 16 and 18.

Derby is my home and, like Arthur, my fondness for it did not develop when I moved away. I have always been proud of my hometown and have enjoyed a month back home becoming reacquainted with some of the town's people and places. My students in Peru always ask me what it's like in England and I never really know what to say. I try to explain that my image of England, being from a humble town in the English Midlands, is probably very different to that of someone from London or one of the more affluent Home Counties. 

I talk about how organised British life is. I mention how there is less traffic and joke that I used to moan about the jams between Derby and Nottingham on the A52 before I encountered the Panamericana at any time or day of the week.  I talk about how lucky we are to have good social security, how attached we feel towards the NHS and how the British have a very clear sense of fairness, illustrated perfectly in our ability to queue. I say that the British are, in fact, very friendly people even if they might have read somewhere that we don't like foreigners very much.

Sometimes my more perceptive students ask me why British and Europeans seem to be always protesting, when we seem to have it so good. I explain to them that, even if the British are much richer than the Peruvians, we are actually in a worse mood. In Peru they face many more problems than any European country; violence, inequality, poverty, a lack of faith in their judicial system to name just four. Yet they have a greater hope in the future, basically because life before was much worse for their parents and for their grandparents before them. Though the British are some of the wealthiest, well-insured, safest and longest living people in the world, I explain that there is still a sense -as there is in many other European countries - that our standard of living is declining. 

One afternoon last week I went into the centre of Derby. Even though so many things do change, it feels like so little actually does. I look for the cabins which sell the Derby Telegraph but I can't find them in the usual places. I ask where the Telegraph sellers are and they tell me they are gone. I eventually find a copy in a newsagent and sit down to read the mundane stories that feature in it, a welcome change from the murders, thefts and cases of corruption that I read about in Peru. Today an article is about an eccentric man from nearby Ashbourne whose will was for his ashes to be put into a firework so it could be set off over his hometown. He wanted to go out with a bang, but apparently the council says that it isn't allowed. 

I have coffee in Carussos, a little part of Italy in the middle of Derby. Tony, the Neapolitan owner, is pleased to see me and asks about how things are going in Peru, as well as the well being of the vulnerable student I used to take there when working as a teaching assistant at a local school. He knows what I like and spend a quite hour watching the world go by and listening to old, Italian music. As I come out into St Peter's Street I see how different Derby is on a weekday in the middle of the day, when kids are at school and adults are work, the only people on the street being the retired, the unemployed or the sick. Sadly, there is a quite a bit anti-social behaviour, one young man using industrial  language to enquire about some money he feels he is owed. I recognise some familiar faces, some of whom frequented the night shelter when I used to work with the city's homeless. I read that Derby has some of the highest salaries outside of London, yet I wonder who these people are or where they go.

Tomorrow I am going back to Peru after my month's holiday. I am looking forward to seeing my girlfriend, who I have missed very much, though there is is always some sadness at leaving. Sometimes I wish I could have everyone in the same place, though I know that isn't possible. Anyway, teachers have good holidays and I know I will be back soon enough. I wonder whether the next time I step on British soil we will still be in the European Union and I worry about the possible effects of Brexit on my hometown. I must admit, too, that there is a sense of guilt at being on the other side of the world at such an important moment in my country's modern history, though I'm not sure there is that much I could do about it. Brexit or not, I take solace in knowing that in July Tony will still be there in Carussos and that I will likely come across Darren in town, discussing whether our beloved Derby County have finally returned to the Premier League. One day I hope some of my students can visit England and see whether they can recognise the place that their English teacher used to talk to them so much about. 

Derby, January 2019