Author Topic: The sadness in going back !....  (Read 790 times)

granny moss

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5943
The sadness in going back !....
« on: Aug 25, 2020, 08:38:00 AM »
Curiosity took me back in ' Google street view', to the places I have lived. It is all so very much changed that I feel very sad. I would never want to go and live in any of those places....   Even 'Galleons' my Fairy tale home in the woods...is lost in the middle of what looks a business place ! All the wonderful old trees have gone and large sheds are everywhere...and the land sold for houses.... :'( :'( :'( gmx

klondike

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 23258
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #1 on: Aug 25, 2020, 09:14:23 AM »
I've had a more positive experience.

I've seen a stone wall I built back in the early 70s with no experience is still standing (admittedly it was only 3 feet high).

I've seen trees I planted still growing well.

I used it to track the growth of an olive tree in a neighbours garden and used that info to plant one myself to replace the bushes in tubs that were killed off by heat waves while we were away from home.
So long and thanks for all the fish

Scrumpy

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 24731
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #2 on: Aug 25, 2020, 09:17:53 AM »



I know that feeling well..


I too travelled back using Google..  Our beautiful house with veranda and sit out porch had gone and in it's place is a busy cross road .. Our Drive-in movie.. gone.. The old creek we swam in.. The dust track that was  Bananna Road  that took us to the beach... Surfers Paradise.. All  built up..
I am so ,so happy that I lived there in the past and can still remember ..
Everything will be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, its not the end.

Scrumpy

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 24731
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #3 on: Aug 25, 2020, 09:20:24 AM »



Klondike.. I planted an Olive tree last year.. She has small green fruit on it this year..
Everything will be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, its not the end.

klondike

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 23258
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #4 on: Aug 25, 2020, 09:34:41 AM »
Street View doesn't go to my favourite childhood places.

I know from lockdown walking that many have vanished but I can't shed a tear for the demolished army installations where we held our own wars among the ruins.

The muddy tracks we followed have been made into tarmaced cycleways.

In the main the woods are still there but there is a golf course covering many fields. The fields were both private and boring for us as young boys anyway.

The trench around an enormous ancient earthworks known locally as Danes Camp but which probably predated them by a couple of millenia can still be walked at least in part and the section we used as a figure of 8 cycle track which featured the danger of going over at the tops into the nettles below is still obviously in use.[
Things have changed and will continue to change. No use crying over that. Some will be worse but some will be better too.
So long and thanks for all the fish

klondike

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 23258
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #5 on: Aug 25, 2020, 09:41:28 AM »
Klondike.. I planted an Olive tree last year.. She has small green fruit on it this year..
We have one in the back garden which started out as a small ornamental one but which we are allowing to grow now. That flowered but has minimal olives.

The newer one in the front which we bought as a small tree and planted last October flowered and has loads of fruit now. I wonder if the neighbours tree helped with cross pollination.
So long and thanks for all the fish

granny moss

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5943
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #6 on: Aug 25, 2020, 09:42:00 AM »
Galleons sold on 29 August 2019 for £1.180.000  :o I wonder if I would still be alive if I stayed there ? ??? I know that been so far up the Hill, my life would not have been as interesting as I had in Norwich..... ??? No, I am glad we moved.  gmx

richmond62

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9193
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #7 on: Aug 25, 2020, 10:04:04 AM »
All the houses I lived in from 3 years old to 19 are gone: demolished, built over and so on . . .

The schools I attended are either flattened by bulldozers or changed out of all recognition . . .

Pees me off a bit that I cannot show my childhood places to my children . . . but that is only my ego getting the better of me.

Jacqueline

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5261
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #8 on: Aug 25, 2020, 10:15:10 AM »
Although my childhood home is still there,  most of the places I used to go have gone.  No pub still stands, my prep school has gone houses now stand on the site.  The Magistrates Court is a bloody great Mosque, the Cinema is Bollywood, the butchers are halal.  Its a totally foreign place.

biglouis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6545
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #9 on: Aug 25, 2020, 12:16:28 PM »
The house I was born in still looks very much the same - just tarted up a bit. Same for the secondary modern school I attended which is now a High School.


Some time back I googled the beautiful Edwardian building of which I was a librarian for some years. It is no longer a library and has been turned into a trendy drop in center with a "living moss wall" (whatever that is) run by volunteers. Makes me realise I was wise not to remain in the profession of Librarianship which is now a declining one.
Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools.

Alex22

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 19425
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #10 on: Aug 25, 2020, 12:46:46 PM »
The house I was brought up in has been flattened too, high rise blocks of flats in its place.  The main shopping street is unrecognisable and you'd be hard pushed to find a British business there now.
.

Michael Rolls

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 72686
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #11 on: Aug 25, 2020, 01:52:56 PM »
I looked at the houses in which I have lived since 1947 - all unchanged with just one exception. The pub over which we lived just after the war has, sadly, been transformed into a block of flats - not modified - knocked down and built over
Mike
Thank you for the days, the days you gave me.
The older I get, the better I was!

granny moss

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5943
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #12 on: Aug 25, 2020, 03:30:48 PM »
The minimarket  we had in Costessey, has been changed into 3 large flats and a 4 bedroom bungalow has been built at the top of the large plot. My smaller shop, has been changed into a hair dresser and beauty salon, and there is a small roundabout....and the pub is still there....! gmx

Raven

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27193
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #13 on: Aug 25, 2020, 04:06:37 PM »
I have never been back to our old home on Mull, no idea if it's still there. I have often seen the huge old house that was my grandparents in Perth. Some damn  builder got his paws on it and turned it into four separate flats. Also built several houses in the old garden. Totally wrecked it in my view, feel like crying any time I see it.

Traveller

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2626
Re: The sadness in going back !....
« Reply #14 on: Aug 25, 2020, 06:15:56 PM »
Nostalgia isn't what it use to be.  I made the mistake of looking at the house where I was born almost 70 years ago.  It looked so sad and inadequate - I felt depressed and had to log off.  My mother said that if they had moved to Glasgow, things would have been different.   I said, "yes, I'd have been a Weegie".

On the other hand, my house in Hampshire where I lived for 30 years,  looks  just the same now although the bay tree in the back garden has gone.
You'll have had your tea.