Island The England I left is lost to me now, but no-one ever relives their childhood, not here, nor on that distant island. Returning, I found only a shared language and even that evolved beyond the old tongue I exported to my new land. The green hills and dales still stand, interrupted now by council houses and malls. Things are small, doors and minds blatant racism, a harshness with children as the working class push on. Closed cotton mills and decrepit ports, by 1970 it’s imperialist power diminishing by the hour, my grandma’s United Kingdom was long gone and my cousins already moved to Lisbon. “Great” Britain was a myth, a faded glory, one country among many, one small island with big memories.