Visitor from UK keeps coming back to Fairmont
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FAIRMONT-- Hailing from Bacup, Lancashire, England, James Butterworth has visited Fairmont several times in recent years and has no plans to stop returning.
"It's a valley, very hilly. There's one road that flows through and you've got multiple different towns throughout this road," he said of Bacup. "It's not a very populated place. It's just a quiet, small community."
He said farming and factory work are the main industries and that Bacup is well known for its cotton mills and former coal mines.
As far as what type of farming, Butterworth said that it's mainly livestock as the weather there is not ideal for crop farming.
"It's hard to ask for sunny days when it's raining 90 percent of the time," he explained.
Butterworth himself lives on a small farm that used to have horses, cows and sheep but now they strictly have horses.
"When I return home I'll have a horse greeting me at the door," he said with a laugh.
The 22-year-old has been to Fairmont a couple of times to visit his friend, Fairmont resident Eli Broomfield, as the two went to primary (elementary) school together over in England and have remained friends ever since.
Following his schooling, Butterworth opted to join the Royal Navy when he was 18. As it's a four year commitment, he recently completed his duty as a warfare specialist but had the opportunity to travel much throughout his four years of service.
"I spent my first deployment in the Middle East," he said. "I went to Moscow, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Kenya in that deployment."
Last month he returned from an Arctic circle deployment where he went to Norway and Iceland.
However, he had been to the two counties previously himself, as he has been to many other counties in Europe including France, Scotland and Italy.
"It's so easy over there to just hop on a plane or a train," he said.
Speaking to what he enjoys about Fairmont, Butterworth said, "After last year coming over and speaking to a lot in the community, I really like the community. It's a friendly and welcoming community."
He said he also likes seeing the different events and cited the Art Mart and Martin County Fair, and he enjoys the lakes.
"I'm a water boy," he said.
Despite sailing on large bodies of water like the Indian Ocean and North Sea, which is cold, he likes the recreational opportunities the lakes here provide.
"I love them. I've gone kayaking," he said.
While he agreed it's nice in the summer, the first time he came to Fairmont, it was over Christmas.
"That was a new experience," he said. "We don't get snow over Christmas. We get snow in March but when I came over, the snow was mental. There was a lot of snow. My favorite season is winter so I was loving every second of it," Butterworth said.
He has visited other places in the U.S. when he's come over including South Dakota, California and Las Vegas. However, it's Fairmont that he keeps returning to. In fact, he's already planning another trip next year.
"It's almost booked," he said with a laugh.
Eventually, he'd like to move to Fairmont and pursue work here and expressed interest in becoming an electrician.
"I think the end goal is to try to move over to Fairmont," Butterworth said.