We’re often taught that ambition looks like leaving. For those of us from small towns, the goal is usually to get out, to something bigger, faster, and shinier. For me, that story began in Ramsgate, the harbor town where I grew up on the Isle of Thanet—the eastern tip of Britain’s south coast, which also comprises the seaside resorts of Margate and Broadstairs.

When I was younger, I couldn’t wait to escape. Ramsgate could feel small: the same faces in the same places, and where a new café or gallery was often met with suspicion, or sometimes worse, criticized as unnecessary or pretentious. There was this apparent insistence that life was fine as it was. But for a teenager itching to see more of Britain—and eventually the world—that lack of curiosity was disheartening.

So I left. I headed

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