The M55 forcefield

Have just returned from a family 'do' in Lytham St Annes, home of the parentals, who live these days in splendid style in a big house by the sea. It is a bloody long way, and Ms P (who was attending a similar -- in the 'comparable but not remotely the same' sense of the word -- 'do') and I did not enjoy the journey there or back one little bit. But you do these things because you want to be there, and because you can, and because when you get there the sea air and the big sky and of course the people make the journey worthwhile.

But it's a funny place. The last time I was up there I went out to the pub in my new red fleecy top, which I was convinced was a fine item of clothing for me, and which had been much admired Down South. But in the Queens I felt people were giving me funny looks, and having checked in the mirror for obvious faux pas, I eventually said something. Turned out this person assumed it was a Man U item of clothing, and he is resolutely Man City. Freaky.

I love the M55 because it is not a through road. You are only on it if you are going to the Fylde coast. We cheer as we pass the Lancashire sign on the M6, and we cheer again as we finally hit the M55. I remember one long Christmas haul up the country as a student, with Jus and Kath in Jus's blue 2cv. We sang "take me home M55, to the place I belong" and we felt it.

But we were returning, from Cambridge, Leicester and Brighton. We now live in Oxford, London and Germany. We were all back in June for Kath's wedding, and it was wonderful, and any of us might go back there for good one day. But if and when that happens, we will have been other places and done other things. Many people don't. It's like The Prisoner: there's some kind of forcefield round the place that bounces people back to shore if they ever try and leave, and it's like Rupert Thomson's Dreams Of Leaving: there's a whole mindset that stops them even thinking about it.

Lytham is certainly still home in a very important sense. But there is a whole world out there, much of it more accessible than it's ever been, and it's by getting out into it that you can put your own existence into some kind of context. We do not exist in a vacuum and we shouldn't live in one, not in Britain anyway. We should understand the consequences of our actions as individuals and as societies.

So come on Lythamites. Get global. Aim for escape velocity. At least get on the M6 once in a while.

joella