ABSTRACT
Introduction My reasons for becoming a geographer were not particularly well considered or original, indeed they were pretty lame in some ways. Yet they still ring true to me today. I enjoyed Geography as a subject, and decided to do it for a degree at university, because through Geography I got to hear about, see pictures of, and maybe even go to a lot of different places. Geographers travel – both literally through an emphasis on fieldwork and various sorts of exploration, and more virtually in the form of slide shows and reportage. Why did I think that was a good thing? I valued the pleasures of getting to know particular, distinctive places, both familiar and unfamiliar. I enjoyed spending time in a place, getting a feel for it, finding out about it. A lot of my most powerful memories and attachments were with places of various sorts, from the house I grew up in, to the fields and moors I explored as a young runner, to the ‘milk bar’ where my grandmother took me for ice cream treats. But I also thought it was important to learn about areas of the world and people of which I would otherwise be largely ignorant. I was both moved and discomfited by how much of the world only came onto my TV screen when disasters struck, people died, and emergency problems needed responses. I knew my own life
was parochial in the extreme, and while I enjoyed its confines, I also wanted to get beyond them.
