Visit to Outlane and Meltham, village and township west and south-west of Huddersfield, to see family. Total contrast to the flat-ish Vale of York. Here we have steep hills, deep wooded valleys, stone-built houses in long terraces, chapels and mills to match. This is where I lived and loved through the 1970s and 1980s, developing a passion for its millstone grit landscape. I walked every path, stood on every hill, splashed through every stream, roamed every wood and moor. Today’s grey skies and wind-driven rain do nothing to dampen this remembered love. But the least change to the place rocks me back. For instance, someone has narrowed and fenced a path we used to use to go into a wood. Signs put up, Private Fishing. No Swimming. I am angry, hurt, alienated. While my back is turned they have laid claim to my beloved land.
I left of my own accord. It is not home any more. No one can take those vivid personal memories from me.
But today, sensitised by our mission to Palestine, I begin to know how intensely a forcibly uprooted people feel their loss.
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