The Little Big Village of Cottingham

The village of Cottingham, arguably the largest village in modern day England, lies within the boundaries of the East Riding of Yorkshire. Its next door neighbour is the City of Kingston upon Hull who has been trying desperately hard over the past several years to change the rather unsavoury reputation it had gained over the years. While deprivation and joblessness may have been the story of Hull, its cute little neighbour can hardly be put in the same bag.

Cottingham, I would describe as a stately old lady, whose demeanor is so soft and inviting.Cottingham makes you feel at home, both its people and its streets. Its lovely treelined streets and flowery tributes in spring makes the heart sing.




It has a very busy and 'everything there' kind of village center. The lovely little library had everything one would need and was a hub of useful information. It stood quite next to the council offices on market green if I remember correctly. A very handy postoffice across the street and buses to take you anywhere to anywhere.

A walk along the back lanes of Cottingham invariably brings you across a horse and its rider. Needless to say horseriding is a very enjoyable pursuit to many of its residents. With ample wide open spaces and clean air, its a lovely place to live.

 Cottingham also proudly boasts of numerous churches.St. Marys was the oldest and grandest Anglican church. The most remarkable memory that I have of the Catholic church was suprisingly not about the church itself but the priest. Fr. Pat Day. He was so friendly and welcoming. There was a seperate section in church where parents with little kids could sit. We had our own musical instruments to play along with the hymns.I bet the parents enjoyed it more than the kids.

 Another thing that I fondly remember is the walk about--cant remember what it was actually called--walk of witness I guess , that took place on Good Friday every year. Parishioners from the different churches used to come together and walk the streets.Prayers were said and hymns sung. It was a wonderful mark of ecumenism.

Now an account of Cottingham  however small would never be complete without the mention of Castle Hill Hospital. Though it started off as the small sister to Hull Royal, over the years Castle Hill Hospital has grown by leaps and bounds. It now plays host to a worldclass center  for Cancer and Cardiology among many other things.CHH is said to be located on the grounds of the old Cottingham Castle. I can fondly remember walking on the grounds of the hospital with my baby daughter - it hardly had a hospital feel to it, felt more like home. We used to watch the rabbits hurry past and play hide and seek in the bushes. Squirrels scurrying up tree trunks.

My first experience of  that wonderful substance called snow was whilst living in Cottingham.

This picture  is one of the first I captured of it on my lenses and shows some buildings of Castle Hill Hospital in the background.

Come spring or winter, Cottingham is a lovely, magical place to live.

The Migrant Journey. Chapter 1- First Impressions of a beautiful land.

The beautiful rolling hills of England; her valleys and her plains, have been our home for the past several years. The greenery that surrounds you gives such a sense of lushness and plenty-ness that it quenches the thirst of the barest soul. I love Britain—quirks, crooked spires and all. But this love wasn’t a love at first sight—it was a love grown out of habituation, visualization and understanding. It was a love that sprung forth out of integration and assimilation, out of friendships formed and handshakes exchanged.

My first impressions of Britain were far from appealing. I despaired at the sameness of everything, the monochrome facade of the buildings – the sandstony walls  that hemmed in every narrow street giving it barely enough room to breathe. My despair owed a lot to preconceptions gained through reading Enid Blyton from my very early days and from watching films that portrayed a very idyllic  and romantic view of Britain.

Where was the beautiful sun creeping through the blinds, where were the colours in this beautiful land,where were the sky scrapers one would expect to see in a developed nation? Instead there was this persistent drizzle masquerading itself as rain and a grey sky imposing itself on all life beneath. No skyscrapers anywhere to be seen–the tallest building that I saw in my little town was all of three  stories high.(okay–here I’ve discounted the spire of the local church–forgive me.)

Just as monochrome as the architecture, were the attire of its people. I had never seen so many ‘black wearers’ in my life maybe except at  funerals! It seemed as though the grey skies hypnotized an entire nation that they felt compelled to match it in black. Black with a bit of white thrown in—all in just slightly differing shapes and proportions—this was how the working population dressed,give or take a few.

These are but a few things that struck me totally in a bad way. I despaired beyond belief – unable to fathom how I would live the rest of my life here. The only solace to my ‘dull monochrome’ weary eyes were the flowers. Oh! What wonderful and beautiful flowers adorned the paths of this land. They came in very size and shape and in bright and vibrant hues—one would be drawn to forgive every grey blemish in the joy that their riot of colours bestowed. Even the leaves of autumn seemed to cry out in colour, glorifying their creator!

And there, through despair, regrets, joy and flowers, my first days in this land I was to call home began.

The Migrant Journey

One thing common to most of us is that we are all at some point of our migrant journey. We are either thinking of making such a journey, or have already made that journey.

Some people are itinerant migrants—they will make that journey several times over in their lives. Our journey need not be across the oceans—it could be just across our village, town or city. Or it could be across our state borders plunging us into a vastly different culture and language milieu.

But we all know that the journey begins when that germ of a thought is born, the thought of ‘why not’ and ‘can I’? Or maybe it begins far earlier than that—even before the germ of self questioning is born. Maybe it was subliminally embedded in our consciousness through the tales and narratives of other migrants and their journeys. The riches they have made, the places they have seen, the gifts they bring home with them, so on and so forth.

If such a subliminal embedding is possible then very possibly in my case it would have been an intra-uterine one! My parents were already traversing continents when I was conceived. But this story is not simply about me—it’s about you and it’s about everyone.

I invite you to walk with me over the next few weeks and months as I make this journey from the past into the future; a journey that traverses continents and seas and oceans; a journey that may bring out the worst and best in our family.

I’ll take you through the circumstances, situations and socio-political landscape that formed the germseed of my journey.I don't promise that each and every bit of the past history is true to the nth degree but simply endeavour to portray my story in as much authenticity as possible. Maybe somewhere along the line you will recognize parts of your life in ours. It’s inevitable—because the migrant journey is one we will all identify with, for we have been there — at some point in time — either in thought or in being.