Henrike’s Story | I celebrate every year the day I moved to the UK

Henrike is a German citizen who has lived in London for seven years. She's passionate about speaking out about for EU citizens in the UK.

The 22nd of August has been a pretty insignificant date for most of my life. It wasn’t the birthday of anyone I was close to or a special occasion in my family life, it was simply a normal day of the summer holidays. Yet in 2015 something noteworthy happened, and – just for me – celebrating this day has now become a little tradition.

Usually it consists of making myself a cup of Yorkshire tea and sending the same text to all my friends: “It’s been xx years since I moved to the UK!”. I then call my family back home to say “Wer hätte das gedacht …?” and we have the same discussion every year about how we can’t believe it has been this long since I moved away from Germany. It really hit me this year when I realised that I have spent more than a quarter of my entire life and all my adult life in this country when I had originally planned to just spend one year here. It feels only appropriate to celebrate this day as a birthday of some sort to mark the biggest change in my life thus far and the first moment of real independence. 

I also use that day to reflect on all the opportunities I have had over the past years: meeting lots of amazing people, experiencing living in the countryside, small towns, bigger towns and now life in the capital, completing two degrees in a subject that I really enjoy as well as the start of my career. And the list could go on… 

However, this day also serves as a reminder that it wasn’t always smooth sailing: starting with experiencing the Brexit referendum, dealing with the ensuing and ongoing Brexit chaos, followed by navigating the application process for (pre-)settled status, a global pandemic, lockdowns and now a cost-of-living crisis, just to name a few. 

All my positive experiences cannot mask the fact that I and all other EU citizens living in this country continue to face uncertainty and unnecessary hurdles in our daily lives. This has made me be more actively involved in supporting EU citizens and raising awareness for our struggles. 

I strongly believe that it is vital for our voices and stories to be heard so that our rights are protected and we can keep calling the UK our home.