The Case for Rediscovering Your Hometown
We’re often taught that ambition looks like leaving. For those of us from small towns, the goal is usually to get out, to something bigger, faster, and shinier. For me, that story began in Ramsgate, the harbor town where I grew up on the Isle of Thanet—the eastern tip of Britain’s south coast, which also comprises the seaside resorts of Margate and Broadstairs.
When I was younger, I couldn’t wait to escape. Ramsgate could feel small: the same faces in the same places, and where a new café or gallery was often met with suspicion, or sometimes worse, criticized as unnecessary or pretentious. There was this apparent insistence that life was fine as it was. But for a teenager itching to see more of Britain—and eventually the world—that lack of curiosity was disheartening.
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So I left. I headed north for four years, trading beaches and promenades for castles and cobblestone streets—first in York for my bachelor’s degree, then in Durham for my master’s. After university, having played at newspapers, I made the move to London to do it for real. I freelanced at various dailies before spells on staff at both magazines and newspapers.
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In my twenties, I wasn’t so anchored by responsibilities. I was just in the city: sampling Mediterranean restaurants, going to gigs, grabbing last-minute theatre tickets, zipping around on the Tube, and staying out late with friends even when there was work the next day.
For a while, it was enough. Then it became too much. In and among the sharing plates, I found myself on a relentless treadmill of moving faster and needing to earn more—just to keep up. Rents in London were oppressive, apartments were tiny, yet the dream of owning one felt like a cruel joke. Life in the city was thrilling, but it was also exhausting.
As I got older, trips back to Thanet—for Christmas, birthdays, or other family occasions—opened my eyes to what I had left behind. Mainly, it was the sea. Wide yellow sands, endless skies, and the tang of salt in the air that had seemed ordinary in childhood suddenly felt magnetic.
But I also started to miss the pulse of small-town life: waving to people on the street, noticing whose hedge was overgrown, or whose garbage bins lingered too long at the curb. I realized that even the pubs I once dismissed, with ugly carpets and wheezing jukeboxes, had charm.
What’s more, where I’d once hurried to leave, others are now rushing to arrive. Artists, creatives, and technologists—the people I was convinced I had to leave to meet—have been priced out of London and are flocking to Thanet. They’re bringing new ideas, businesses, and momentum. Margate, in particular, has flourished, with redeveloped streets and cultural spaces giving it a vibrant, cosmopolitan feel. Now, when I head back home, I feel a mixture of pride and mild wonder: the place I once thought I’d outgrown has had a glow up I wasn’t expecting.
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Still, even with this influx, Thanet is not a liberal utopia. The older generations ensure it remains, in many ways, a test bed for Nigel Farage’s Reform Party. The right-wing populist, who could well be Britain’s next Prime Minister, previously ran twice to become South Thanet’s Member of Parliament. But, honestly, most of the time, people are just people—talking about their kids, their dogs, or whether their soccer team won at the weekend.
In London and other global mega-cities, there are quiet pressures: to have been somewhere, seen something, or constantly prove you’re climbing an invisible ladder. Back home, people might grumble about their boss or the traffic, but things are simpler and a lot less performative.
On my last visit home, I found myself back on one of Thanet’s boardwalks, with my legs dangling over the water, sharing a beer with my friend Ravi, just as we had when we weren’t old enough to. I can appreciate now that the place I once bemoaned gave me a grounding I mistook for constraint.
I can’t commit to a full-time move back right now. The nature of my work tethers me to London. But I’m glad that I’ve learned that the capital isn’t the whole world, even if our media and politicians sometimes pretend otherwise.
I’ll keep returning to Thanet, not reluctantly but willingly: to skip stones, to watch the horizon swallow the sun, and to waste money on the claw machine at Broadstairs Amusements—303rd time lucky, right? Each visit reminds me that places, like people, can grow without losing their essence. I’ve learned to love Thanet not just as the home I left, but as the place it continues to become.