Going back home is a quiet kind of heartbreak.

I'm not sure if I could live here again

I couple of weeks ago I went back home to the place I grew up in. Going back home is a quiet kind of heartbreak. Everything is familiar, but I no longer belong in the way I once did. It feels a little like slipping into an old jacket. It still fits (mostly) but I can feel where I’ve grown.

I love it here. I’m grateful for everything. But I’m also very happy to leave again. That might sound like a contradiction but it’s the truth of how I feel.

A question I always ask myself when back in the UK is:

Can I see myself living here again?

It is a question I am asked a lot. Up until now my answer has always been a resounding yes. This time I’m not so sure.

I specifically wanted to revisit some of my old childhood haunts. Places I used to go on holiday as a child. As I grew up on the welsh border, childhood holidays usually included going somewhere along the welsh coast, with a few history pittstops thrown in. And so that is what I did - a tour of west Wales.

These are areas of outstanding natural beauty such as the Gower peninsular or Pembrokeshire. However along the way we passed through welsh towns which are another matter altogether.

Places like Merthyr Tydfil. An old coal mining town. A relic of the Industrial Revolution now left in a degraded past. Or Swansea, which as the barrister in Aberystwith so bluntly put it as he handed me my Cortado:

“Swansea is, as we like to say here in the UK, a shit hole”.

I also visited Llanelli - depressing. Camarthan- run down. Milford Haven - dead. Barmouth- sandy. Cardigan- Cute historic high street. And Shrewsbury, which is back in England.

When someone asks me about Wales my response is nearly always:

“Breathtaking countryside but depressing towns and cities.”

It’s a blanket statement but it’s proven accurate for me time and time again. So why is this?

In the 19th century, Wales was a titan of the industrial world. Coal mines, steelworks, and ports built entire communities almost overnight. Rows of terraced stone houses were thrown up in tight, damp valleys to house workers whose labour powered the British Empire.

For a time, these towns thrived. But nothing built on a single industry lasts forever. As global demand shifted and coal became obsolete, Wales was left exposed. By the late 20th century, entire towns lost their purpose seemingly overnight.

The collapse of mining and heavy industry wasn't met with strategic reinvestment or support from London. Instead, the people who had fuelled Britain's industrial might were abandoned to unemployment, poverty, and decay. And then, the young began to leave.

Between 2010 and 2020, migration patterns tell a stark story. While people did move into rural Welsh areas from England, a steady stream of young Welsh people moved out.

Every rural local authority in Wales experienced a net loss of people aged 16–24. A 2021 survey found that only 18% of rural Welsh youth expected to stay in their communities within five years; 42% planned to leave Wales entirely. Their reasons are not hard to understand: limited access to higher education, scarce employment opportunities, and unaffordable housing in even the smallest towns.

When a place loses its young, it loses its future. Shops close, schools struggle to stay open, and the soul of the town dims. The old remain, often living in the same stone houses built for miners a century ago, now weather-beaten and cold.

Despite Wales receiving £14,424 per person in public spending — 11% above the UK average — this figure masks deeper issues. Scotland and Northern Ireland receive even more, and Wales has a serious fiscal deficit. It generates only 76% of the UK’s average tax revenue per capita, while its spending stands at 108% of the average. Wales is trapped in a cycle of dependency without sufficient investment to rebuild local economies or create meaningful, future-oriented jobs.

Culturally, too, the cuts have been devastating. Wales ranks near the bottom in Europe for spending on culture and sport, two of the few lifelines that might otherwise help hold communities together.

Funding per person for cultural services stands at a meagre £69.68, and only £59.75 for recreation and sport. National institutions like the Welsh National Opera have been forced to slash performances. Even the National Museum Cardiff has faced partial closures due to maintenance crises.

I write this not as a criticism but as an interested observer. And to let you know that this is also nothing new. As many outrage alchemists would have you believe this is not some recent development driven by the elite. It’s entrenched. Towns such as Martha Tydfil, Llanelli and Swansea felt the same 30 years ago as they do now. Undernourished, underinvested and forgotten.

However, as always there are pockets of hope. I loved the small stone town of Dolgellau where the owner of a local cheese and wine shop talked about trying to get a food festival set up in the summer. The ocean promenade in Mumbles was a joy to walk along. I had my best coffee of the whole trip in Cardigan and the green fields, the dry stone walls, the rugged coastline is something I will never get tired of.

There is a reason why authors such as J. R.R Tolkien, Philipp Pullman and Roald Dahl took inspiration from the Welsh countryside. Dahl’s recollections of the Welsh coast are soaked in golden nostalgia. Tolkien was enchanted by Wales’ linguistic richness. There is a certain something about it, a kind of magic perhaps.

If you love rural countryside, a quiet pace of life and simple pleasures Wales has a lot to offer.

But at this current stage of my life I could not image moving back there. It’s difficult for me to describe coherently but this trip brought into stark perspective just how good my life is, how much I have to be grateful for and also the fact that I’m still not quite where I want to be.

All the best,

Benjamin