At the Moment of Brexit

Last night I sat in front of the TV for the countdown to Brexit. I felt gloomy and very, very sad. As the images of those celebrating and those mourning alternated on the screen, I went into my own review of what the UK’s membership of the EU had meant to me personally.

I have lived with English language and literature since my undergraduate years at the University of Athens in the late 80s, even before Greece joined the then EEC. The writers, the landscape and the history captured my young imagination. I bought The Handy London Map & Guide from an English-language bookshop in the centre of Athens, and flipped through the pages, with the names of streets and squares silently rolling off my tongue like a spell that worked.

I came to London as a European student in 1987; I started work and settled as a European citizen; my husband joined me on this basis; I became a qualified English teacher as I was qualified in Europe; my children were born in London as British and European.

As the last few seconds slipped away and the recorded Big Ben bongs sounded the UK’s departure from the EU, I felt diminished and damaged (to paraphrase Ian Mc Ewan from today’s Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/01/brexit-pointless-masochistic-ambition-history-done).

With the cable cut, adrift.