It was never meant to be home. It was never supposed to be the place I would yearn for many years after.  

‘We are the luckiest people in Surrey,’ my father said, as he announced that we would be leaving London and moving to Grand Cayman in the Caribbean. Lucky is being allowed to stay up to watch television with the babysitter or winning a sweetie jar at the school tombola. Lucky is not moving halfway across the world to a country I had never heard of, leaving my school and everything I knew and passing on Wiggly Woo – my rabbit – to someone else.

But, as it turned out, lucky is just what it was.

Dad had been there for three months before we arrived. The world was not yet digital and we knew very little about our new home. There was no Google Earth to view it, no FaceTime to watch it. I just had to wait until I could see it for myself  – and that, I dreaded.

I vividly remember driving into Cook Quay, near the island's famous Seven Mile Beach, eventually reaching a cluster of townhouses, one of which was ours. It didn’t take much for me to decide I liked it there. At first, it was the double bed, dressing table and walk-in wardrobe in my bedroom – all frightfully grown-up for a ten-year-old. Quickly though, it transcended beyond the material things. Our new home became a place of adventure, of new experiences and self-discovery. If I close my eyes now, I can still picture my flip flops outside the front door, covered in sand from a Sunday afternoon at the beach.

Under that roof, we celebrated Christmases and birthdays with neighbours, dad’s colleagues and school friends, and kept up the traditions from our own home countries (Pancake Day and Thanksgiving being two of my favourites). It was within those four walls that together we sheltered from the aftermaths of hurricanes, doused ourselves in vinegar after getting bitten by mosquitoes and escaped the midday heat and cooled ourselves with something from the freezer. We British children delighted in drinking imported Ribena while our parents read and shared the three-day-old UK newspapers bought from the local supermarket at a heavy price.

Life on an island – without the familiarity of friends and relatives – can feel isolating and lonely. But as an expat, you have a unity and bond with others that is really quite unique. The other expats became our family. And when a visitor came to stay, we delighted in welcoming them into our tight-knit community. It was the most content time of my life; a happy environment with an open-door policy between friends and neighbours.

So, when it all came to an end, the place I never wanted to move to became the one I wanted to stay in forever.

It was 10 years before my mum, brother and I returned to Grand Cayman. For years I had dreamed of going back to Cook Quay and had even mentally mapped out the route from the airport. Would we be disappointed? But a wave from a window and the sight of a familiar basketball net confirmed what I had hoped: nothing had changed. ‘Welcome home’, I thought.

CBL, Sevenoaks

Further information

What makes a house a home and why does it matter so much? Our new series, 'Moving Stories', inspired by Savills new advertising campaign, explores the complex relationship between home and home-owner with funny, sad and bittersweet reflections on moving out, moving in and moving on.

We invite you to submit your own Moving Stories and we will donate £50 to Dreams Come True for every one we publish on Savills UK Blog. We'll also make a donation for every story submitted for consideration.