One of the things about my home town (as I'm sure it is with yours) is that certain aspects have changed so much over the last twenty-five years or thereabouts, that some areas are almost unrecognizable to what they once were. To anyone who moved away in the early '80s and has never been back since, the town remains preserved as it was in the amber of their memories. If ever they were to return on a visit, I'm sure they'd be in equal parts amazed and horrified at some of the changes which have taken place.
Truth to tell, I'm almost envious of them. To gad about on the other side of the world somewhere, thinking, in a blissful state of ignorance, that one's home town remains as it once was seems a reassuring notion to me. In that way, the playing fields of your childhood remain forever inviolate. Same goes for people; if you don't know someone has expired since you last saw them, they're still alive to you and will be for as long as you are. What does it profit you to learn that their life's race ended halfway through your own?
I remember being in a camera shop a number of years ago and running into a school-pal who once sat beside me in technical drawing class (and probably other classes also). ALAN PARKER was (and is) his name, a fact which won't make this tale one whit more interesting, but which I feel compelled to mention for no other reason than that it happens to be the case. The conversation ran something like this. Me: "Hi, Alan - what're you up to these days?" Him: I'm on holiday at the moment." Me: "Not going anywhere?" Him: "Yes - here!" Me: "Eh?" Him: "I emigrated to Australia a couple of years back, and I'm over visiting my folks."
To be honest, I can't actually recall whether it was Australia, New Zealand or Canada he had gone to, but Australia will suffice for the purpose of our tale. I was actually quite surprised by the news, mainly because it didn't seem like anywhere near two years since I'd last seen him - five or six months at the most, I would've thought. The realization that he'd been living in another country and pursuing a new and different life for that period, while I subconsciously imagined him to be still tripping merrily around the streets of my town, ready to run into at any moment, was a sobering reminder that things aren't always as we perceive them to be. In my life, nothing much had changed; in Alan's, a whole new horizon lay before him - and he was already several steps on in the journey which had taken him beyond the narrow (if comforting) confines of my own world.
A few weeks back, myself and a friend I've known since I was seven years old, took a wander around the new housing scheme which now sits upon the sizeable area of land where once resided my old secondary school. It was a strange experience because, inside its boundaries, there were no visible 'landmarks' to indicate our location. We could've been in any new-built housing scheme in Britain; it was as if we'd walked through a dimensional portal and found ourselves somewhere else entirely. Beyond and out of sight, lay the familiar environs we'd known since childhood, but within these strange new streets we were in an unknown place in an unknown land. It was with a sense of relief that we returned to our own world some minutes later, back through whence we had come.
In my more fanciful moments, I sometimes wonder if the 'dear departed' (assuming they survive death in some form) are aware of what goes on in the place they left behind; or do they imagine (like the distant wanderer) that everything remains the same as when they left it? If granted a day's visit to their home town from whatever celestial realm or dark netherworld they may inhabit, would they be surprised and dismayed to learn of the changes which have taken place in their absence? "What? My old house has been demolished? The old cinema has been gone for twenty years? My favourite toyshop is now a newsagents? The Cairneys don't live at number thirty-three any more?" Or would such trivial concerns be beyond them in their joy at feeling the wind blow through their hair once more, and again experience a sun-kissed walk through green fields for however brief a period?
Try and let me know if you go before I do, will you?
15 comments:
I'd probably be unfazed by the changes. Even now, I frequently muse at how transitory everything is--that someday, for instance, another family will live in my house, and all the touches that make it "me" will be replaced with their own. And another person or family will move in after they've gone, and so on. In fact, there are times when I'll drive by other places I've lived, and my time there feels like it happened to another person. I feel the same about the city I grew up in.
As the saying goes, "life happens." :)
I, on the other hand, still regard the previous houses I've lived in as still 'mine' in some way, and can never quite fully adapt to the fact that other people now reside in them. It just seems strange to me.
You do seam to have a problem letting go of the past Kid whether it be homes toys or comics it has to be said but if your happy being you then good for you and long may you stay that way.
I feel the same way about my dad's house, where I grew up. As if one day, I'll move back in.
Of course, one day I hope to move back in to my Glasgow flat. The thought of yet another numpty tenant trashing it doesn't bear thinking about.
Actually, the reverse is true - it's the past which won't let go of me.
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Dougie, if you make it your ambition to move back into your childhood home, then it's entirely possible it'll happen one day.
I can't walk past the house where I spent the bulk of my childhood without stopping for a minute or two and just looking at it. From where I stand on the road I can even see into my old bedroom!
For the most it's completely changed, but it still exists. Without realizing it, I've made my flat into an ALMOST replica of the old house.
THB, I'm the same - I often go for walks around my old neighbourhoods and just breathe them in. I've also 're-created' (as much as is possible) previous rooms from some of my old houses when I've moved to others. It's good to be surrounded by the familiar.
Over the years, I've found it much easier adjusting to and accepting change. With regard to the past, it's clearly impossible to live in a place that no longer exists. Equally, without recognising our past, there can be no meaningful present.
Like many things in life, it's a question of balance. No harm in glancing backwards, but I try not to stare.
Wise words I'm sure. Unfortunately, I tend to stare - with a magnifying glass.
Ballerup hall in E.K is hosting an exhibition on the 30th November showing the many changes that the town has undergone over the past 50or so years.I believe they are looking for members of the public to go along and share their memories of growing up in the town during this period.You might want to check that out Kid,as it would be right up your street.Hopefully i`ll have some time to do the same.If i find out more i`ll let you know.
If you're free that day, Moonmando, give me a shout and we'll go take a look. Is it on at night?
As I've mentioned before I've no doubt that we survive, but if we do stay on hereabouts rather than choosing to progress onwards I hope that our chosen haunts appear to us the way we remember them rather than as they're furnished in the present (or God forbid, demolished altogether and replaced by something else).
I read a book by a medium (and you can automatically dismiss it now if you want), but in one chapter he visited an airfield and described how this crew that had died in WW2 had, rather than move on, mentally created their own airfield scenario as a sort of halfway house, and spent all their time going out on missions and coming back...whether it's cobblers or not, I think it's a fascinating concept.
Fascinating concept sure enough, HS, but definitely a load of old cobblers as all mediums are charlatans. Some of them might not realise that they're also fooling themselves though. Derren Brown did a programme about mediums, and if you ever get to see it, you'll be convinced about what a load of old cobblers mediums are. The show is called Messiah, and should be available on YouTube - check it out.
Yeah, I've seen James Randi replicate this stuff exactly, and I asbolutely love the Shirley Ghostman show (check out ep.1 of that on Youtube if you've never seen it - his possession by Princess Di is one of the funniest things I've ever seen!). I'm not a blind convert by any means, but what I saw this bloke do impressed me enough to borrow his book (I'm not paying). I'll email you the details of the bloke I'm on about - if he was a fantasist, I don't think he was consciously a liar. The cases he investigated were high-level, establishment, so well known institutions had a lot to lose in credibility by association with him. Please don't think I take 'Ghost Adventures' as gospel. I've seen and heard enough in real life to be convinced that the phenomena is real - but I do believe that 95% of the stuff available is wishful thinking or exploiting the bereaved.
Check out the Derren Brown Messiah programme anyway, HS. It's not just about mediums, but UFOs, etc. Top quality stuff.
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