We’ve probably all watched one of those clichéd college movies where the protagonist, enlightened by the mastery of higher education, returns to their small hometown. To an extent, we all signed up to live that coming-of-age trope when we selected UCL on our UCAS forms.
While my family is based in deepest darkest South England, I am pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in London.
Returning home after a term in London is a strange experience.
A country reset with a slower pace of life sounds like bliss.
Also, a sense of excitement. You feel you have grown as a person.
University may be the first time you have lived away from home. You have lived a glimpse of adulthood in the “big city”. Intentional or not, it is likely you are not the same person you were when you started your degree.
Whilst you have changed, potentially enlightened by an arts degree and alcohol-fuelled discussions with like-minded students on a “price crash” Tuesday at The Institute, your hometown has not.
In some ways, the lack of change is comforting.
My next-door neighbour still opts to translate hieroglyphics with his morning coffee rather than do the daily Wordle.
Friends my age are entering their family businesses and starting to think about settling down.
It is a mundane but enjoyable life, since the cycle repeats every generation.
However, this sense of continuity that inevitably comes with the territory of a small town does come with a multitude of issues as well.
Most notably, the lack of diversity makes these small Shire villages more susceptible to more extremist beliefs by fostering a sense of self preservation.
On my drive home, I was disheartened by the plethora of St George’s flags hung outside houses alongside the kitschy garden centre Christmas decorations. When walking the dog in a twee park that pales in comparison to Regent’s Park, the duck pond was adorned with Union Jacks.
They’re not hard to spot, since sales of St George and Union Jack flags have risen significantly since August 2025.
I felt most out of place when my Indian mother and I chose to take a bus into a larger village to do some last-minute Christmas food shopping.
As we sat on the top deck, enamoured by the “green and pleasant land” that England prides itself on, the multitude of St George’s crosses adorned outside pubs and homes left us feeling rather unwelcome. Moreover, there was an unspoken anxiety felt that we were not in the eyeshot of the bus-driver.
In stark contrast to London’s 46% non-white population, my county’s population is confined to a mere 3% BAME populus. My village scores above average at an impressive 5.8%.
It’s an uncomfortable reality that I have forced myself to confront. My hometown does not want people like me to consider the town as home.
Neighbours I have known most of my life, who are fully aware that I am not 100% ethnically British, now publicly align themselves with political movements and right-wing figures who parade extremist views on racism and immigration.
Yes, my neighbours know me, and I think they like me; impressed by the fact that I play men’s cricket at the local club and that I am attending university.
But not every non-white inhabitant in England has the opportunity to “prove” themselves to uber nationalists.
Many people who move to Britain embrace the mentality of “the hustle”. The awareness of having to validate their existence in Britain. Feeling like an imposter, so overcompensating by working excessively hard.
But maybe it is becoming increasingly necessary to work harder if you are not ethnically British, whilst backward views on race and immigration become increasingly normalised.
Unfortunately, though many immigrants exhibit this incredibly strong work ethic to demonstrate their positive contributions to Britain, I doubt a right-wing nationalist will check their CV before they decide to hurl racist abuse.
Parties like Reform UK have capitalised on the debates regarding immigration, arguing that the government is investing too much of the taxpayers money towards non-Brits and refugees.
By popularising the topic of immigration, small Shire villages are more prone to embrace dangerous rhetorics thrown around by extremists who aim to alienate different ethnicities.
I know I should never find my skin colour burdensome, but I find it is a lot easier to fit in London’s “Global University”.
Returning to the Shires has made me realise how lucky I am to be studying in London.
Yes, London is far from perfect.
Night walks home with keys in your hand like a make-shift shiv are a norm. Constantly covering your drink to prevent the danger of spiking is second nature. The city is infamous for phone theft and knife crime.
You do have to be incredibly brave living here.
But London parades itself on this “Big Pond” complex and tries to facilitate all types of people (albeit, if you are able to pay £2k monthly rent for a 1.5 square-metre studio in Zone Three).
You can be whoever you want to be, change your persona every day, and literally no one would remember.
You are inundated by the options of international cuisines and specialist coffee shops, try to calculate the most efficient tube routes whilst also hearing twelve different languages being spoken in the background of your surroundings.
Though a depressing realisation that my village is becoming increasingly like South Park’s “little, white-bred, redneck mountain town”, I am comforted by the fact that London fosters a degree of internationalism that you can’t really get anywhere else.
Though I might not feel like I belong as much in my hometown, could that also just be part of growing up?
