Our house... In the middle of the street... Well towards the end really!
Nostalgia... it's such a powerful force. And you'll find out just how powerful it is when you find yourself returning to the first house you ever called home. If you've lived to my grand old age (where we don't need to discuss actual numbers!) chances are you've called more than one place home in your lifetime. How many of you still think about your very first childhood home? Maybe at the time, you thought it would be your forever home. I know I did. Do you ever wonder what it looks like now? Who might be living in it? What changes might have occurred on the street you once lived on? Do any of the old neighbours you knew still live there?
Over the years, the first house I ever lived in sometimes crossed my mind. Although I spent most of my formative years growing up in a north-west London town, I was actually born in East London and raised there until just before starting secondary school. And I still have the accent to prove my East London roots even though my mum has done her best to beat it out of me (well not literally beat it out of me but you get me!)
I grew up in Manor Park - once Essex now London (since 1965) a place that was home for a period of time to Jimmy Greaves, Greer Garson, Clive Burr, and Steve Marriott. So I was in good company! A lot of my extended family lived just a stone's throw away in East Ham, and Forest Gate was where I got my first taste of school. This brief chapter of my life when I lived in Manor Park was a happy one, and I have lovely memories of my time there - many of which are linked to a close-knit family, great friends, school and good neighbours. I also remember get-togethers, dinner parties, and Saturday night suppers my parents used to throw and I reckon this is where I get my love of entertaining from. And those big family Christmases back in the eighties were nothing short of magical. Christmas has never been the same since. Not bad... Just different...
Then came the time when my parents decided it made more sense to make the move to north-west London so they could be closer to their business rather than make the long and tiring commute to work every day. So we sadly waved goodbye to our family, friends, neighbours, our school and the only place we had known as home in order to start the next episode. Even though we didn't live there anymore, my parents still owned our old house, renting it out for almost two decades before deciding enough was enough and putting the house on the market. It wasn't a decision my dad made lightly. As the first property he had ever owned, he wasn't keen to get rid of it. I guess I'm not the only one bitten by the nostalgia bug! It had been a happy house with happy memories so we were sad to say goodbye to it. I don't know who bought it but I hope that the house has been equally good to them too and is filled with happy memories of their own.
And it's because I have such good memories of my time there, that it was always my plan to someday give my husband a tour of my old neighbourhood, showing him my old house; the schools I used to go; the places we used to frequent, even the places where my mum used to shop for groceries! To be honest, I have no idea why it never occurred to me to go and take a look at the old place whenever I was nearby visiting family. I suppose it's because my mum's old family home was also another 'home' for me, and was filled with just as many happy memories for me as the home I actually grew up in so I didn't feel the overwhelming desire to go and seek out my old house.
But on a recent trip home, as I made the usual plans to go see the East London contingent of my family, nostalgia took over and I decided that I just had to see my old childhood home. The Fella was tempted away by a canoeing trip with our nephews but I realized that while I couldn't give my husband the tour of my past life, there was absolutely nothing to stop me from having a wonder around the old home town - probably for the first time in more than twenty years. So as I made my way out of the station, I headed in the direction of Manor Park.
Walking up the high street towards my old house, I saw the street as it is now... but in my mind's eye, I also how it was all those years ago. Where The Burnell Arms once stood - a pub that spent more time shut down and boarded up (in my lifetime anyway!) than heaving with punters - was now a place of worship (yes really!) The newsagents owned by the nice lady who lived near my school who would let me use her phone if ever anyone was late to pick me up (only ever had to use her phone once!) was unfortunately no longer there. The grocery store where my mum was a regular shopper was still there but with a different name and probably under new management. The Kentucky Fried Chicken (not KFC!) had crossed state lines and was now Tennessee Chicken - and my old nursery school used to be just around the corner from it. And the old Victor Value was now a 99p store.
There was no sign though of the steakhouse that was easily the poshest establishment in my neck of the woods back then - and no, we never got to go! And then there was the bridge that stretched across the road to connect the two buildings that made up Plashet School which would probably have been my secondary school had we still lived there. I've spent way more years living away from East London than I spent living there; I was still a young child when we moved away so how I remember it all so vividly, I don't know how or why... especially as these days, I can't even remember what I've opened the fridge door for!
As I reached the top of my old road, I saw that it was as familiar as it was different. There were many things that had changed but there were also just as many things that remained the same. The flats that were adjacent to my old street were still there. But the youth club - which had some of the rowdiest kids we ever did see - was gone and in its place stood a new apartment building. There was also a bus stop for the 300 route bus which I know wasn't there when my family lived on the street. And there is now a medical centre that takes up most of the area that was once for ball games, and may have been part of the youth club.
As I made my way over to my old house, my thoughts turned to the people who used to live on my road: our elderly next-door neighbours; the quiet man who lived on the other side of our house; the owner of the first Invacar I ever saw (I always remember that car in its familiar shade pf blue always parked at the top of our street) the family with the flaming red hair that would make Cilla Black jealous; the family of builders who lived in the end-house on our side of the street; the end-house on the other side of the street that always looked a bit squashed-in to me for some reason - as though the property developers decided there was just enough space to squeeze in another house... so they did! Then there were the goths who lived in the totally black house - interior and exterior! As a child I was always frightened of that house and its inhabitants. I always felt there was something eery and sinister about them. But then this was years before I dabbled in being a goth myself!
And there were tons of kids who lived on our street and the surrounding streets who went to the same schools as my sister and me. So we literally saw them everywhere! It's a good job that we all got on and used to play together. I think there were only two kids on my road who went to a different school. They weren't always the most pleasant of kids but then I suppose they couldn't handle not being down with the cool kids!
And then there it was - the first home I'd ever known. As I stood outside my old house, a ton of memories came flooding back: Birthdays... Christmases... My First Communion.... My little sister's christening... Of course I didn't know what it looked like now on the inside but on the outside very little had changed. The new owners had put in new windows and a porch door but otherwise it was like looking at the exact same house all those years ago. All that was missing were my dad's beloved Ford Capris parked outside the house!
I wondered if the garden had changed much. If the greengage tree was still there... or the gooseberry bush... the strawberry plants... and the rose bushes that formed a border in various colours and were my dad's pride and joy. Hopefully the grape vine was still there. Yep we may not have been in the South of France but we had a thriving grapevine. It produced the tiniest, sourest grapes, you'd ever tasted but my little sis and I weren't complaining!
I then caught sight of a couple of houses that each belonged to a family we once knew. I've always thought about these families whenever my thoughts turned to my old neighbourhood. It was impossible not to think of them as many of the memories that I have of my time there are closely connected with them. One was a very friendly family with five (or was it six?) adult boys; one of whom was a very good friend to my dad, and my sister and I got to be flower girls at his wedding. The other family had children who were of a similar age to me and my siblings and we were always in and out of each other's houses. Both families were regular visitors to ours, and were always welcome guests whenever we were celebrating an important event. They weren't just neighbours - they were friends.
One of the families had moved away years ago. In fact they had moved a couple of years before we did, and we all ended up losing contact. This was right before the nineties began and in those days, people didn't keep in contact the way we do today. We didn't have Facebook or WhatsApp - we didn't even have email! So if you wanted to keep in touch it would be letters, phone calls, plus the odd visit. But sometimes real-life gets in the way and people end up drifting away - which is sadly what happened with all of us. But I wondered if it was at all possible that the other family were still there??? What after all this time? Nah - they couldn't be!
I don't know why though, but I suddenly found myself pushing open the gate to their home and ringing the bell. Not something I would normally do, and as I saw an unfamiliar young lady walking to the door with a young child, it was too late to run away. After all I'm a bit too old to be playing Knock Down Ginger!
"I'm sorry to bother you," I began suddenly feeling quite foolish but I was looking for the people who used to live here..."
The young lady told me that the family I was looking for still lived at that very house!
"Oh my gosh!" I exclaimed, bubbling over with excitement, "I know they won't remember me but when I was a little girl, I lived in that house across the road..."
It eventually dawned on the lady who I might be. "Oh! I remember your parents!" It turned out the 'unfamiliar young lady' was my playmate from way back when! It wasn't long before her mum joined us at the door... And honestly, it really was like time had stood still. She hadn't changed a bit and she was just as I had remembered her. We chattered away for a while exchanging news of our lives now; swapping stories, and reliving the good old days. I had to decline their lovely offer to come in and grab a cuppa as my aunt was expecting me, but I did leave with a promise to keep in touch and to pop by the next time I was in London... and this time bring Mum along too. I was very touched when both mum and daughter said that they had all thought about my family over the years and wondered how we were all doing. And it was lovely to meet my neighbours' grandchild... the new generation!
'We'll leave you to continue your stroll down memory lane," said my childhood friend. Haha - this is the first time we've met in adulthood and it looks as though she already knows me too well!
It was a very surreal experience as I walked away. I felt as though my present day-self had taken a trip back into time. I felt a whole plethora of emotions: delight at seeing my childhood home; joy at being reunited with friendly faces; contentment as the happy memories came flooding back... but there was also a pang of regret. What would my life have been like if we'd never moved away? True, there were a lot of things I'd missed out on. But there were also experiences I'd have missed out on and people I would never have met if we hadn't had left. As we amble along on the journey that is life, it is always the good people that we meet; the ones who bring some magic into our lives; the ones we go on to form lasting friendships with, and the ones who go on to leave lasting memories long after they leave our lives that make every twist and turn worthwhile.
And the nostalgia-fest didn't end there...
When I got home I excitedly shared my news with the rest of the family. They were amazed that I went to go and have a look at the old place; stunned but delighted when I told them that I'd caught up with our old friends; sorry to hear that some of the neighbours had since passed or were in bad health, and viewed pics of the street and our old house that I took with great curiosity. My family are often bogged down with the stresses and demands of a very busy lifestyle. But hearing about my visit to our old street, their eyes lit up; they had ear-to-ear grins and they were brimming with the same level excitement that I had been earlier on that day... and I knew that they were on their only little nostalgic stroll...
Modern day life can be very hectic. We're very busy; constantly striving for success, moving on to the next big thing. Many of us no longer live in the town we were born in, meaning that we don't get to see our families as often as we'd like to, and friendships can sometimes fade away. We unintentionally drift away from many of the people we once knew but still continue to hold dear. But as I walked down the street of the first place I'd ever called home, it represented everything that was important in life: family, close friends, happy memories and good neighbours.
It was good to be back...
Check out the second part of our post, A Trip Down Memory Lane... Literally!
Photos: Angel Noire, YouTube and Wix
Blog graphics: Angel Noire
