Homesick For A Country That Never Changes
Music: Streets of London
Artist: Ralph McTell
Shared by: Isobel for her Grandmother
“... in the years of living in London, teaching and watching the city change around her, she still found joy in the smallest things in London that never really changed at all.”
My grandmother had a way with words that whenever she said your name, it would sound like music. It was something I really adored about her.
There was a time where my mother's uncle who was visiting from Denmark took me aside and said we had to practice a song for her. We were all brought up loving music. But she, a Sri Lankan teacher who had come over to teach children in the 1960's adored "Streets of London”.
While we practiced, I wondered why that was her favourite song and not a hymn or a Beatles song. After a few run-throughs, he had decided that we would do three verses and she would be happy with it. So, we asked her into her sitting room with its beige walls and sat her onto the dark pink sofa.
As he started to play his guitar while we sang and harmonised, I realised that the reason she loved it was because of the lyric "Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London, I'll show you to make you change your mind". Because in the years of living in London, teaching and watching the city change around her, she still found joy in the smallest things in London that never really changed at all.
That's something that I'll remember about her. That and the spark in her eyes whenever any of us visited her.