Back to school

It's the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness once more. The shift from late summer to autumn, when you realise that the possibility of a perfect summer has fled. Autumn may be lovely, but the nights draw in, there's a chill in the air in the morning in spite of the promise of a sunny day. Birds are gathering, heather is flowering and the rowan berries brighten the trees. My journey to work through the Peak District is increasingly beautiful, dark green, orange and purple under a clear blue sky, criss crossed with vapour trails. Lines from songs run through my head, all around the blooming heather, the birds on the telegraph line this time. Too late for the summer, but not quite late September when I really should be back at school. Coincidentally my journey to work retraces some of my journey back to boarding school in Derbyshire. Leaving home in Sheffield one morning last week I was overwhelmed by the familiar feeling of dread and longing that accompanied the days leading up to my return to school after the summer holidays. It was something to do with the scent of vegetation after rain, the chill air and clear blue sky, the rowan trees in residential gardens.It may go deeper than that, as the days and nights move towards the equinox and like a bird, I feel it's time for me to leave, with all the emotions that accompany that feeling. Of course I don't have to go anywhere. September hasn't been a physical or geographical turning point for me since my teenage years. But somehow it's deep within me. The dark months of deepest winter don't affect me emotionally in the same way this time of year can. My summer holidays in those boarding school years weren't conventional. I travelled to the far east to join my parents and came back to England via my home town of Manchester, staying with friends and relatives for short periods of time. It was an intense experience. The far east wasn't my home, and I no longer had a home in this country. Yet homesickness was overwhelming and that mix of anxiety, longing and nostalgia can still overwhelm me when I least expect it. I have talked to other boarding school survivors over the years and I think for many of us, this is a difficult time of year. It's a time of separation and loss, of a sense of abandonment, the precious last few days of freedom. With my own children it was a time for buying shoes and stationery, school uniforms and dinner money. Back to the routine of school days,but with home to return to each evening. There's a Welsh word for it, hiraeth, with no direct English translation. It's defined as homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost and departed. I can't help feeling it's a word that would be useful for many people in the world today.