Ian McMillan: Home thoughts from the place I actually live in

Anyway, at the bottom of the essay or S.A. I wrote ‘by Ian McMillan, future Nobel Prize for Literature Winner’ and Mr Brown took me on one side at the end of the class and gently pointed out that Nobel Prize winners didn’t come from Barnsley.

“If you want to get ahead, lad, you’ve got to move away,” he said in his gravelly voice. “You’d love London and London would love you…”

Well, that’s as maybe; but through a combination of inertia, stubborn-ness and a need to be near people who talk like me I’ve stayed put. And, in the end, I think it’s a kind of duty.

Not everybody believes that I live in Barnsley, though; despite the fact I was described in this week’s Radio Times as an “all-purpose media Yorkshireman” a lot of people don’t think I actually make my home in The Celestial City.

A person from a telly company once rang me up to take part in a live TV debate about the place you live.

“We’d like you to talk about living in Barnsley,” she said and she mentioned the date and time of the show and I said I’d have to decline because I was doing an event quite close to home that evening and I wouldn’t have time to get to the studio.

“We’re not on till 11 o’clock at night,” she replied. “We can send a car to get you. What’s your address?” I told her. She almost, but not quite, said “Is that on the Northern or the Circle Line?”

“Whereabouts is that?” she said. “South Yorkshire,” I said. I almost added “tha knows” but I was too polite. “You live in Barnsley?” she squeaked. “I thought you wanted me to talk about living in Barnsley,” I said. “Yes, but I didn’t think you actually lived there,” she said, in what she would no doubt have described as reasonable tones.

And there’s the point. If you want to talk about this place, you have to live here. You can’t pontificate from afar; I can have an opinion about Christchurch in New Zealand but at best it would be second-hand and research-driven because I’m not from there and I’ve never been, although I’d like to.

I don’t know how they think; I don’t know if they have a special word for a sunset or a rain shower and I don’t know if they walk down a certain side of the street because of family stories their Grandma told. I’m not saying that everyone should stay put forever; travel broadens the mind and an appreciation of other cultures is a major part of what makes us human.

What I’m advocating is a little more complex; I don’t want to encourage people to go away, like Mr Brown tried to encourage me; I want people to stay, at least for a while. As jobs melt away and the South-east continues to prosper, at least in relative terms, then people, especially young people, are going to be tempted away. They’re going to take part in what used to be called a Brain Drain, moving to where the skilled work is and where the money isn’t quite as tight.

Well, here’s an idea: why don’t you stay, just for a while? A couple of years, say. Let’s revive a little of the grant system for those people going into higher education.

When I went to North Staffs Poly in the mid 1970s, I would get a little envelope from Barnsley Council at the start of each term and that gave me a loyalty to the town because they’d helped to pay for me.

I realise that this idea might cost money but there’s money around; Mr Pickles can announce an extra 250 million quid as a pre-conference sop to get weekly bin collections put back and it’ll cost quite a bit to change all the road signs to 80 from 70 so that people can drive even more ridiculously fast so there’s money there.

Imagine it: people going to university have part of their fees paid by the local authority and once they graduate, instead of paying back a loan in cash, they pay back the place they’re from in time. They stay for a year, or two. They help to regenerate the local economy. They give us the benefit of their big brains for a short period of time. Not much to ask, is it?

I know there are flaws in my argument; for a start there’s not much point staying if there aren’t any jobs. But maybe the new Enterprise Zones could be yoked to a scheme that offers employment or help to set up a business.

Let’s get the clever ones staying. We need ’em: there are enough daft ones round here. Me, for one.