As I get older, I find that my thoughts often turn to certain places and points in my past the further in time I become removed from them. I suspect it'll probably be the same for most of you. When you're a teenager, you don't miss your childhood quite so much (if at all) because it doesn't seem that long ago, and because you're busy enjoying the things that come with being a teenager. (Girls, Melvin. And smoking and drinking - not that I ever imbibed in the latter two - or enough of the former come to that.) When you're a young adult, your teenage years still seem fairly recent, so you don't miss them so much either. But that doesn't quite nail down what I'm trying to convey.
When I first moved into my present house in 1972, unusually for me, I didn't really miss my previous house in the same way that I had missed the ones which preceded it. That's because I still went to school (for another two and a half years) just across the road from my old house, and because I still hung around the area as that's where my friends lived. I'd moved to another house in another neighbourhood, but because my 'old' neighbourhood was still very much part of my day-to-day experience, there was no reason for me to miss it as I frequented the area a very large part of the time, both during and after school hours. I passed my old house often, or had it within view, without ever feeling disconnected from it.
(Note: Even after I started working, I hung around the local shopping 'precinct' across from my ol' home with my pals, and because of this, I actually associate HOWARD The DUCK #3 [which came out in 1976, four years after I'd moved] with my old neighbourhood [as much as anywhere], as I recall having it on me there one night. Interestingly, had I still lived across the road, the place would likely never have been part of my stomping grounds as it was too close to potential parental surveillance.)
(Note: Even after I started working, I hung around the local shopping 'precinct' across from my ol' home with my pals, and because of this, I actually associate HOWARD The DUCK #3 [which came out in 1976, four years after I'd moved] with my old neighbourhood [as much as anywhere], as I recall having it on me there one night. Interestingly, had I still lived across the road, the place would likely never have been part of my stomping grounds as it was too close to potential parental surveillance.)
In fact, it wasn't until I moved to yet another house eleven years later, that I began to miss the house I hadn't hitherto missed until that point. (Readers may well be thinking at this stage: "Wait a minute, didn't you just say you moved into your present home in 1972?" Yes, but after moving out in 1983, we moved back again in '87.) In fact, the 'interim' house, the one in which my family lived between '83 and '87, wasn't one I had ever wanted to move to, so when we vacated it after four years, I did so without a second thought. Strangely though, about 18 to 20 years afterwards, I started to have fond memories of my time there, and today miss that house as much as any of the others I've lived in.
I've been back inside every house I remember ever having lived in, years after the fact, and it's almost like time travel for me. As I said in another post once, whenever I've revisited a place, it's almost like I just popped out to the shops for ten minutes and then came straight back, the years spent elsewhere seeming almost like a dimly remembered dream. There's only one residence I've never been back inside of, and that's my first abode in Glasgow, where I lived for the first one and a half years of my life. I've stood on the landing outside the front door and had my photo taken (and also snapped photos of the outside of the tenement building), but as I have no conscious memory of ever having lived there, the 'time travel' effect wouldn't occur anyway. (The apartment has lain empty for a few years, hence my inability to gain access. One day soon hopefully.)
So what's the point of this meandering post you may be wondering. I'm interested to hear if there are times or events in your life that are long-gone, and which you never really thought about - or missed - until many years after the fact, and which now feel painful - unbearable even - to be 'parted' from? Search the recesses of your memory banks and share with your fellow Criv-ites some magical moments from your past that you wish were still present. Quick - before the memory fades forever.
I've been back inside every house I remember ever having lived in, years after the fact, and it's almost like time travel for me. As I said in another post once, whenever I've revisited a place, it's almost like I just popped out to the shops for ten minutes and then came straight back, the years spent elsewhere seeming almost like a dimly remembered dream. There's only one residence I've never been back inside of, and that's my first abode in Glasgow, where I lived for the first one and a half years of my life. I've stood on the landing outside the front door and had my photo taken (and also snapped photos of the outside of the tenement building), but as I have no conscious memory of ever having lived there, the 'time travel' effect wouldn't occur anyway. (The apartment has lain empty for a few years, hence my inability to gain access. One day soon hopefully.)
So what's the point of this meandering post you may be wondering. I'm interested to hear if there are times or events in your life that are long-gone, and which you never really thought about - or missed - until many years after the fact, and which now feel painful - unbearable even - to be 'parted' from? Search the recesses of your memory banks and share with your fellow Criv-ites some magical moments from your past that you wish were still present. Quick - before the memory fades forever.
8 comments:
I was born in Islington and for the first 15 months of my life I lived in an apartment block called Wessex Buildings (in my parents' flat obviously) which is probably long demolished. Around May 1967 we moved to northern Scotland, near Inverness. I really regret not asking my mother more about that time but apparently we lived in a cottage and my father worked for the local forestry. We only lived there for about 9 months then moved again to South Wales but that brief time living in a cottage in the Highlands seems so romantic to me. I might have grown up there and experienced a completely different life.
So what do you consider yourself, CJ - English, Scottish, or Welsh? And when you moved to Wales, did your dad do the same kind of job that he did in the Highlands? I've always wondered if I'd be a completely different person if I'd grown up elsewhere, 'cos surely our environment shapes our personality to a great degree, but maybe not? What do you think?
I suppose I consider myself Welsh and British, Kid.
No, my father didn't do the same job after moving to Wales.
You've previously revealed the horrifying fact that the Planet Of The Apes TV series wasn't broadcast in Scotland - it was the POTA TV show that led directly to me discovering the POTA weekly and Marvel comics. If I'd grown up in Scotland I might never have started reading Marvel comics!!
You never know though, you might've bought it anyway. I bought it 'cos I knew about the movie (and because it was a new weekly), even though I didn't know about the TV series 'til I read about it in the comic.
I only miss the people from my past not the actual houses. I recall not long after my dad passed away I jumped in my car and decided to head to a few of my old towns / streets where I used to live (primarily as a kid early to mid teens) and they all (bar one) seemed so "small" and almost alien to me, the picture I had in my mind of these places was so different to an extent I wish I hadn't visited. In one case the house (Maisonettes) I used to live in once so clean and fresh were rough and looked like they had been vandalised. I have since passed other places I used to stay as an older from my late teens to late 20s and they weren't s bad maybe the memory was fresher and less through rose tinted glasses.
I've revisited places from my past regularly over the years, PM, starting not long after having moved out. I think that's why they seemed pretty much the same to me. Whereas if, like you, I'd only revisited years after having moved out, perhaps I'd have had the same impression you had. There was a seeming exception when I visited the couple living in my present house to arrange moving back in. The living-room seemed really small, but I later worked out why. They had hardly any furniture in the room, and for some strange reason, the room seemed a lot smaller because of it. However, when we were back in and all our items of furniture had resumed their formerly accustomed places, the room was restored to its prior dimensions. This was because our wall units, 3-piece suite, etc., gave the room more of a sense of perspective, and consequently made it seem larger.
I never really dwell on where I once lived but occasionally past memories return. For example when watching the Kings Speech a scene where the King asks if he can glue a piece to Logues sons kitset plane brought back the memory of my Dad and I back in around 1964 building a kitset Bristol Bulldog. Onto ebay I went as soon as I got home and to my amazment there it was a Bristol Bulldog kitset. Same as what we made 50 years prior... Now the assembled kitset sits on the shelf next to my Dads trophies.
That's a great wee story, LH. I hope you kept the box, instructions, and sprues. I've still got a couple of replacement kits for ones I originally had as a kid, but I haven't built them yet. One day.
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