Two Kinds of Homecoming
‘Where are you from?’ is a question I am often asked. The thing that makes people ask this does not stand out like a sore thumb, it’s more like it stands out like a sore ear. (I have often been asked ‘What planet are you from?’ but the reasons for that is entirely different.) I don’t sound like I come from here, and people, used only to the limited accents they hear on TV, have difficulty placing me. Lacking the nasal inflection of more long-term residence of this continent marks me out as different. Now, it’s as plain as the nose on my face that I have no real deficiency when it comes to the organ needed for ‘nasal inflection’, but I still can’t get it right. But as time pass I find it harder and harder to answer that simple, repetitive question. By the end of this year I will have lived longer in Australia than in the county that gave me my accent – Somerset. Does 19 years of dwelling, over 35 years ago, still define...