The City of Peace & Reconciliation

Home to one of the most celebrated women in Dark Ages Britain.

The single most concentrated attack on a British city in the Second World War.

And housing the largest publicly owned collection of British vehicles on the planet.

A city full of Statues, Cathedrals, Museums. Slabs of concrete that were once impressive enough for a group of humans to make monumental objects out of them. These same buildings are now disregarded and invisible.

Coventry is a city that changed the world and anyone looking in can see that. Yet the city’s residents are none the wiser.

A monolithic generation, grasping for impressiveness. Always chasing “new”. New ideas, new stories, new scenery. And boy do we drive a hard bargain when it comes to what we consider interesting enough to gain our attention.

Have you ever tried to be a tourist in your own city? How many can say they explored their own city’s history first... before they spent the big buck on their very first out-of-city adventure?

It’s how society has wired us to think. We believe that you find greatness by looking outwards. And we, sadly, apply that very same philosophy in our own lives. We have a desire to be impressive, to be someone others may think highly of. So we look outwards for things we can fill our lives with to make us impressive.

I’ve lived in Coventry close to two decades. There are sites in this city that act as monumental centre pieces in my memory, but not for the reasons the site intended. Two centre pieces in my life. Two sites in this city that act as the pillar of the person I’ve become today. Through imagery and a bit of a fact sharing; I’m going to talk you through a story. One of how I came to silence the noisiness of chasing “new”, to finally appreciate what has already been there.

1 Millennium Place Whittle Arch, Glass Bridge & Lady Herbert's Garden

Two unique steel structures. One is named after Sir Frank Whittle, the pioneer of the jet engine, his statue is also nearby.

The glass bridge is a spiral ramp that travels over the city wall and Lady Herbert's Garden.

As fate would have it, that bridge was built in 2003, a couple of years before my family migrated to the UK.

It’s almost as if the Architect could see into the future. Coventry town centre would be welcoming an excited mum who took a defiant joy in dragging her reluctant kids through the unfamiliar cold. The very spot that would be the backdrop to their first ever pictures in unknown territories. When you’re new to a city, the perception of things is so surreal.

The air was cool but the sun was out. I grabbed onto the steel parapet and leaned forward apprehensively into an awkward lunge to see what was beneath.

Set far back from the rusty black gate with peeling paint was a mossy concrete trail that forked out into different directions. One trail disappeared off into shrub. Into tall weeds that poorly concealed what looked like a murky glimmer of ripples in a pond no wider than I could leap. The other trail sloped uphill into a bed of daffodils and white lilies. I stared back around at the Whittle Arch, at the tan stucco buildings beyond it with tall windows and large font branding.

Perhaps my favourite thing about the city was the steady pace. And it still is. You could bask in the ambiance of a city feel and still be a stone’s throw away from a slower rhythm of nature and lighter air. I felt the accumulated sense of oddity and strangeness collapse over me as I stood on that bridge staring unheedingly into the camera. I began to wonder how my life would turn out in this new place I would come to know as “home”.

2 Lychgate Cottages & Bayley Lane

A small quarter of the city, reminiscent of the 16th century Tudor era.

Though they’re named “cottages” and were once inhabited, they have been converted into commercial properties, one of which is a pub.

Stepping into the quarter feels a lot like a sudden time warp. With the very timber used to build these cottages dating back to the year 1415. Bayley Lane has red brick, high rise adjacent walls that command you to stop and take notice of them. The tall standing buildings are significantly disproportionate to its narrow cobbled street. The street snakes through the quarter and back out of the time warp; into the city view we’re accustomed to.

I became a recluse growing up. The idea of “trying to fit in” didn’t like me very much. A young school girl, exhausted with the idealisation of wanting to be perceived as anything other than "the African", in my predominantly white apartheid history lesson. Irately morphing and camouflaging myself so that everyone would at the very least forget that my skin tone was different to theirs. I spent a lot of time hiding away in Bayley Lane. Not wanting to go home to the reality of who I was just yet. And not wanting to hang around like a sitting duck in the open city. Bayley Lane felt like coming up for air. It felt like a pause button.

As an adult, the medieval pub became my retreat. The pub is a homage to the city’s history, both externally and internally. The cladded interior walls take you on a journey through history. It graciously captures just how Coventry has progressed through the centuries. The pub is a place that celebrates change and progression, yet it remains timeless. I feel a warm sense of familiarity in something that was regarded as perfect in its untouched state. No one looked at it and determined it needed a “modern” and “new” look to it.

In the same way, I decided that there’s power in remaining constant in an ever changing world. I migrated to unfamiliar territories. I figured I couldn’t possibly change the world around me to comfortably resemble the world I left behind. So, I convinced myself that I needed to conform to fit into this new world.

Truth is I didn’t need to do either. I welcomed the changes that were necessary for my growth and progression. I celebrated the “new”. But the core of my being remains constant. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, your identity is what keeps you grounded. It's what makes anywhere in the world feel like home.