Becoming Brits with the Deputy Mayor of Richmond, Matthew Wherry
12 years ago I arrived in London properly for the first time. Appropriately, it was a cold rainy November day at Heathrow.
As a proper American tourist, I met a friend and took the Piccadilly line to Kensington. By the time we checked into our hotel, and reinforced over the next weeks, I knew: This is the place.
Over the next three weeks of what had been scheduled as a one-week trip, I fell in love with London. I walked hundreds of thousands of steps, getting lost and finding my way back to my accommodation on purpose. I rode the Tube for hours, visited the places I had only ever read about, and only barely scratched the surface of this amazing place.
I knew I loved London, but it was not my priority back then. Having just left the Portland Pirates, i would work two more jobs - including my first job in baseball - before the idea crystalised in 2018. But after a visit with my then-girlfriend, who fell in love with the place just as fast, London became the primary target for my career.
I moved mountains to make London happen. I stalked BaseballSoftballUK, MLB Europe, and half a dozen ice hockey teams for almost two years, applying for every possible job that I could. Over 1,200 applications led to just three interviews. One of those three interview led to a follow up, and another. And then an offer - £10 an hour, 20 hours a month, no guarantee of a visa.
I took it. I paid my own way to the London Series, stayed in a student hostel, and grinded for an entire year, starting many morning at 5 AM. I made myself invaluable to my company. And they, in turn, extended me visa sponsorship in March. Of 2020. We all know what happened next.
We pulled off the move. Seven flight itineraries, 15 vet appointments, and a dash across three states in a rental car, all to land in pandemic London. It was an inauspicious start to say the least. The subsequent 6 years have been a hell of a challenge. It has cost a fortune. It has all been worth it.
A Premium Economy pup on a plane!
On 28 October, Brenna and I took the oath to King and Country and became British citizens, in a world that no longer resembles that rainy November in 2014.
There are so many people who have made this possible for me - from professional to personal to those who have no idea how much impact they’ve had. One of the greatest honours of my life has been to work for the baseball and softball National Teams. I am so grateful that those Great Britain teams now represent me.
It is a dream fulfilled to hold a British passport - a dream held by and enabled by my grandfather, and my mother. My grandfather Ken routed every international trip he could through London to visit the places he loved (most importantly his tobacconist) and my mom, Ellen - who celebrated our newly minted citizenship with us - spent her junior year in Bath. Today, their deep love of this place is the same love I feel for my new country.
And yet, it is not that simple.
I love America. I was voted class conservative in high school. My summer camp knew me as the MOST American guy. I was a parliamentarian in college. I played with all of the jokes and memes that have now become cringe, if not downright offensive. And I though that the transatlantic alliance that has endured more than half a century, built on the courage and conviction of people like my one of my other grandfathers, Zarch, who fought so long ago for those freedoms, would survive the half-decade this journey has taken.
It is a complicated feeling. I love my birth country. I love the country I now call my home. I love them for the same, shared reasons - freedom, democracy, individual rights, the idea that a community is stronger than the sum of its parts.
I both love and hate that both can be better. While Britain certainly has it’s problems - defence and planning permission to name a couple - it pales in comparison to what the US is experiencing now. My heart breaks as my home nation reveals the ugliest and most evil parts of our society - the rot that has existed and grown since the 1860s now thrust into the spotlight. The fact that I am able to criticize both countries and governments, however, shows just how strong the common bonds are - to freedom of speech, to freedom of expression, and to democratic, free citizens exercising their rights.
I don’t know what comes next. My mind, pessimistic as it is, never thought the day would come where I would achieve this goal, and yet here we are. I won’t pretend it makes a bit of difference in the world today. But I will say this - being aa dual citizen reminds me that there is more that united us than divides us, whether that is domestically, or between our two great nations. I hope, on this most-crucial election day in the US, that that spirit wins out.
God Save the King. God bless the USA.