Clifton Jim

Thanks - and I think you're probably right. It will either kill or cure.

Lychee

To me it sounds like you’re nostalgic for a different era, when things were simpler and innocent. You happen to associate that era of your life with a place, but I think it’s normal to feel that way at Christmas and in winter, regardless of where you live, how far you have moved, or how happy your life currently is. It is the very definition of nostalgia.

BristolUK

I was thinking just the other day about how the money will have changed since I left. Imagine if you last saw it in the 60s pre-decimalisation

Clifton Jim

A bit of both really. The time, sure. It was a simpler time and as a child I was shielded from a lot of the tough stuff, in fact even living in a very lower middle class flat, it didn't bother me at all - there was always sense that things would turn out alright.

But the place, Clifton: the Suspension Bridge, the Birdcage, the Downs, my old street and my old school - even the light seems different. Those are the things I really miss.

caretaker

My experience of going back to the small town we left in 1964 when I was 9 was that everything looked different and smaller, because even though I'd been back briefly or passed through a few times, I was still remembering it through the eyes of a child, and my perspectives have changed.

scilly

I know that my remembrances of the 2 areas where I lived in Oldham, one until age 11, and the other from 11 to when we left have changed beyond belief.

I was last back in the area where I was born in 2001 and the street we lived on, the terrace house we lived in, and my grandparents' house across the street were all still the same ........... but walk the rest of the block to the top of the street, and WOW! I wouldn't even know how to get to the Junior School I went to. The park where I spent lots of hours on my own or with other kids my age was a no-go zone for many years, although it has allegedly been renovated and brought back to life. The rest of that area is very racially divided.

The second house I lived in was demolished in the 70s in a major area renovation, so the whole area has changed and been rebuilt, apart for the main road to Yorkshire. They even moved the War Memorial! The grammar school I attended was demolished about 10 years ago, for no better reason than the council voted to do it. It still looks like what we used to call a bomb site with much of the rubble still left, even though it is surrounded by hundreds of houses where once there were fields, and the school would have been a perfect for renovation to a community centre.

This is all in addition to the changes I mentioned in the town centre only 3 years after I'd left.

OH has better luck ........... his home town was Chester, and it is still much the same inside the walls, but neighbourhoods have changed.


Strangely what I really notice when walking around the various towns that we have visited when we go back, is how dirty and messy the streets are.

The one place where I felt things hadn't changed much, where I felt that I could still find my place to childhood haunts (and find they were still there), and felt somewhat at home was Scarborough, on the Yorkshire coast, which was the family's place for holidays right from the 1920s when my grandparents and parents went up until my brother died in 1990.

However, the last time we were there was in 1995 ......... and I'm afraid there might well have been changes since then

scilly

I find that was my experience of most of England ............. things seemed smaller and distances much shorter than they used to be.

It's almost a case of thinking "did we really spend half the day getting there?".

Of course, much of that time difference could be accounted for by the faster traffic and somewhat improved roads. We used to take the A roads when we visited on my brother's advice that they were now faster than the motorways, and he seemed to be generally correct. But the A roads were the busy roads 50 and more years ago!

scrubbedexpat091

Sometimes as much as things change, they also in many ways stay the same. The street I grew up as well as the schools I went to basically identical as they were 20-35 years ago, the trees are bigger, and some stores are different but for the most part no major changes.

Go downtown and there has been massive change, but most people didn't/don't live downtown, even looking at videos from before my time in the 70's, I am sometimes amazed how much is the same today.

MillieF

Could I just apologize for having written an emboldened response. I have a new tablet and it didn’t play nicely.

caretaker

We may still call you Bold Millie for a while.

MillieF

In the summertime, most certainly...but a bit of a shadow of my former self, when it’s chilly!

Ruby123

Hi Jim,

I’ve been in Canada almost 13 years. Moved with my husband, one and four year old children. I’ve been homesick every single day. Hoping to go back when my youngest finishes high school in four years. Canada has been good to us and we are living a decent life, but it’s not home to me. It’s been an adventure but it’s time for a new one. I wish you all the best.

Ruby.

MillieF

What a lovely post Ruby...now that you have found us, do say that you will stay! We really are a friendly bunch and encompass everything pro, anti, in between....and just ‘questioning’ Canada!

The best is, hopefully, to come

jandro

There was a large outdoor pool that was filled in with concrete (before 1995 though). That would have changed the summertime atmosphere. Lucky there are still a couple in Vancouver I guess.

no good name

Hi,
Are you all moving back together?
I too have been 'homesick' almost every day I have been here... need to feel there is hope to it ending one day...