Have you ever felt sometimes you just don’t fit in?

IGOT an email from an old mate this week, completely out of the blue and it was lovely to hear from him. We probably last contacted each other around a decade ago and we certainly haven’t set eyes on each other since for around another 10 years on top of that.

He had seen me on a TV show which aired this week, searched me out, found me and penned a few lines checking I was okay.

He told me how his own company was struggling in the current economic climate brought about by this pandemic, like countless other firms which are doing their best to make ends meet.

And, as often happens at times when things like this happen, it put me in a nostalgic mood for the times when I would see him on a far more frequent basis that once every 20 years.

And it got me e thinking that sometimes s you just don’t fit in. Through no fault of your own it just doesn’t feel right.

It might be a company you worked for briefly or a circle of friends that were thrust t upon you by an n acquaintance for a weekend away or a night out. In my own experience I can simplify that down to three words: living in Kent.

N Now if anyone read reading this is from the Garden of England and automatica automatically feels a rush of anger brought on by regional pride, let me say from the outset that it isn’t the county that was the issue, it was more my situation at the time.

I had just finished university and moved there to find work, believing there might be golden opportunities for a young man in his 20s.

And as it turned out I landed a job as a salesman which had paid me much more money than I earn as a local newspaper reporter.

But the industry I worked in for more than a decade collapsed due to the onset of the internet and I retrained to do precisely what I do now.

In total, I spent seven years living in Kent and I loved the countryside and how local it was to friends with lived in London.

Days out spent with them watching football matches and drinking too much beer before catching the last train home from Victoria Station at midnight are some of my fondest memories.

But all the time I was there I just felt like an outsider and I struggle to explain why.

It wasn’t so much the accent or sense of humour but I think it was more that, having lived in cities all of my life beforehand, I had never experienced what some might term a small-town mentality before.

There were times when a group of pals there would be in hysterics about something that had happened or someone they all knew and I simply didn’t understand why they found it funny.

There were awkward nights out in the next town where confrontations erupted and I suddenly felt very threatened. But no-one else seemed to. They simply took it in their stride and moved on.

And, ultimately, those differences – and by then having met the future Mrs Naylor – were one of the driving forces that led me to leave the county and move on with my life.

The old pal who sent me that email this week harks back to my time living in Kent.

The county is beautiful in places – rolling countryside, historic sites and some genuinely lovely people.

But like a job you might have hated or a stag weekend away with a group of people you barely know and don’t really get on with, it simply wasn’t for me.

I think it was more that, having lived in cities all of my life beforehand, I had never experienced what some might term a small-town mentality