"I'll Be Back Soon!"

I came over to London on New Years Night with my sister's boyfriend and his friends. My sister stayed for a few months, but didn't settle and went home again. I was a very young twenty three and came from a small coastal town in county Dublin. I found London cold and intimidating. I had heard that the pace was quick, but I wasn't prepared for the manic way people behaved. After a few months my friends from home began arriving over and this helped me settle in.

I worked on building sites at first. There was no attention paid to safety and many contractors were fast and loose about looking after their workforce. I changed jobs on a whim, moving from site to site in the West End. Then I took a job on the buses. I remember my first day on the job, preparing to go out on the number eighteen bus with the clippy who was training me. We had a few minutes to spare and I spent them dreading the day ahead. I was quite shy with strangers and the job helped cure me fairly quickly.

On a visit home, I met my future wife. She came over for a holiday and liked it, so we moved in together. We were good together and very happy, but grew apart and divorced after eleven years.

I moved around doing warehouse work, mini-cab driving, labouring before going to night school and gaining a trade. I had left school at sixteen and felt under-developed, so I took a couple of A-levels and read widely to catch up.

London has been positive for me. I have met and be-friended some wonderful people and grown-up here. I get restless now and again and begin planning a return to Ireland. My friends all returned in the nineties when the recession began to bite here and the economy picked up at home. I suppose they were economic migrants and I was after something else. I don't know what I'll do when I find it. Take it home with me, maybe, or settle for the city life I have adapted to over the years.