Backbone

In Llandudno, I finished reading "I  Belong Here" by Anita Sethi. I must confess that from the outset it had become a love-hate reading experience. Anita Sethi has an Indian heritage though she herself was born in Manchester, England. The book was published in 2021.

I imagined that it would tell the story of an urban dweller walking in The Pennine Hills - the very backbone of northern England. She would marvel at nature and history and tell readers about the places she visited. The book took me back to several areas that I know. However, the writer kept coming and going. It wasn't one long consistent walk and there were buses, trains and cars involved.

Before the time period of the travelogue, Anita Sethi was racially abused by an ignorant male passenger on a train. She complained to the guard and the man was subsequently arrested. He was taken to court and found guilty of racial harassment. It must have been a horrible experience for the writer but the authorities dealt with her complaint pretty effectively.

There are sixteen chapters in the book and in each one Anita Sethi harks back to the incident on the train. I found this annoying as I just wanted her to crack on talking about her explorations on foot. She went to some pretty wild places on her own and I rather admire her for doing that.

The title "I Belong Here" is about claiming ownership and the right to belong even though the author is from a minority community. In some senses she was wrestling with herself, trying to secure a foothold, nurturing the confidence to say, "This is my England too".

Sometimes her thoughts are wise and well-expressed and at other times they seem like adolescent moans. She observes nature in the form of birds, geology, plants and weather and clearly this aspect of the book was  partly lifted by research.

She met some very nice people along the way. They weren't all like that ignorant racist on the train. Many of them were kind and helpful.

Of course I am not an immigrant in this country and I have never walked in Anita Sethi's shoes. Through several generations, I can trace my ancestry back in time to Yorkshire - the very county where I was born and still dwell. I am very confident that I belong here but for Anita Sethi the sense of belonging must be different and despite the various irritations contained in her book it was ultimately enriching to see things from her point of view.

Here's a sample of her reflective writing:-

I keep walking along the course of the river as it flows throughout the limestone landscape that flashes diamond bright in  the sunshine. How strong and bright the river is as it swells and flows, and yet how soft it is too. I think of how much of the earth's surface is made up of water, almost two thirds, and how much of our body is made of water - up to 60  per cent of the human adult body being water, the brain and heart composed of 75 per cent, the lungs around 83 per cent and even the bones being 30  per cent water.

Anita Sethi