Not so much Birmingham but Beyond

In 2008, I rebranded this website Alan W Collins. It had gone through a few name changes but finally, I thought, I had found one which would stick.

And it did. Alan W Collins survived for three years with the same name, same editorial style and, for the most part, same theme. Despite a mixed three years in my personal life, this website retained a constant, consistent, brand.

That was until the biggest change of my life occurred in August. I took the biggest gamble of my life, left my two secure jobs, my family and my home to move to Birmingham. The original plan was to study the Legal Practice Course and work part-time around it but when it became clear in July that I would be unable to secure funding, I deferred my course and sought full-time employment instead.

I moved to Balsall Heath on 21 August and rebranded this website Birmingham and Beyond. I invested in a new WordPress theme and moved it from my Medway-based hosting to my primary server to present me with more options and more control. It also saved money as I was working off two paid-for servers – and the web-based server was cheaper and offered unlimited everything.

It is now 7 December. It is over four months in to my official tenancy (having started when I signed the paperwork two weeks before we moved) and I am still painfully unemployed. At the last estimate, unemployment in my area stands at around 33%, whilst youth unemployment (which I fall into) stands at over 40% – the former being three times the national average.

Despite hundreds of applications, I have received only a handful of phone interviews, fewer face-to-face interviews and not one ultimate job offer. Competition is fierce – “not enough experience” and “over-qualified” are two phrases I have heard all too frequently. To top it all, I am not in receipt of any benefits from the government and am surviving purely by the generosity of family and friends – indeed, it is costing my parents more now than it did when I was living at home.

I think, by now, you may have guessed where this is going. Obviously, my situation here in Birmingham is not sustainable.

On Friday, I returned home to Medway to visit family and friends, before coming back to Birmingham yesterday. Whilst there, I put some hours in to help both my previous employers out and that, really, sealed the deal. Everyone complains about their job from time to time, but you only really appreciate it when it is too late.

The past three months, stuck inside the same four walls doing little more than making job application after job application and acquainting myself with daytime TV have begun to drive me a little bit mad. I have recently taken to driving Nessa to university and waiting parked in a lay-by all day just for a change of scenery. But one can only count so many sheep before they, too, send you baa-rking mad (sorry).

So the decision has been made, and only the practicalities and dates remain to be organised. I have, from February, a new house to move in to and can, until then, go back to my old abode.

In short, I’m coming home to Medway!

I have already been offered one of my old jobs back and I know that the other would probably appreciate the extra help I could offer until I could get something full-time. My family and friends are, naturally, happy that I will be returning and I am looking forward to being able to return to helping out the Conservative Party in an active role.

Quite what this means for Birmingham and Beyond, though, is presently unclear. Naturally, the name will need to change – although I am reluctant to revert to Alan W Collins, so suggestions on a postcard would be helpful – but the new WordPress theme will remain. I will update you on any new plans for the website as they are formulated.

Birmingham will always hold a special place in my heart – and a return move here will not be ruled out in the mid- to long-term should it become more viable. But I realise now that now is not – and, in all honesty, never was – the right time. It is only through taking risks in life that we live and learn, and, unfortunately, this risk has not paid off. I have no regrets about any decision that I have taken so far in life and do not instead to start now. I don’t know what course my life will take next, nor what my situation will be in 12 months’ time. For now, it is enough to repeat my earlier statement with both excitement and anticipation as I prepare for yet another new (old) chapter in my life:

I am coming home to Medway!