Back to my Roots - Trip down memory lane

Mike Willcox

My wife was off work today and she was interested to see where I used to live as a child, which was in Tottenham, North London. So for the first time since I moved away at the age of 14 we visited my old house and the parks where I used to play football, and the Spurs Football stadium at White Hart Lane etc.

You know it was brilliant.The roads and the houses were no different but everything else such as the shops and the ethnic mix were all very different. No Marks and Spencer or Woolworths in Tottenham High Road, no more cinemas but now snooker halls. It all seems so tatty and broken down.

We travelled by bus from London Bridge on the way there via Shoreditch and Stamford Hill, and on the way back via Turnpike Lane and Manor House through to Moorgate, a route I used to cycle when working in Victoria and visiting my In-Laws in Palmers Green.

Standing outside the house where I grew up was amazing and visiting the local park where I used to play football with lads some of whom went on to play in the Football League and one who played for Spurs Jimmy Pearce. Great Day.

Anyone else done this?

iainf72

Not quite as dramatic as that, but I visited all the places I'd lived in London in one day a few years ago. Started at High St Ken, up to West Hampstead and walked down to Abbey Road. Hopped on a bus outside my old flat, down to Baker St, then tube to London Bridge and train to Blackheath.

It was quite strange seeing some of the places for the first time since I'd moved but at the same time I remembered the good times.

hammerite

Never had the chance, my parents still live in the house I grew up in so unless I fell out with them I'd always be going home often.

Although I did live 100 miles away for around 10 years, then strangely moved back to the village I grew up in (my gf's doing even though she's not local). It's not the same as it was, most of my mates have moved out and I'm pretty much anonymous in the village now which is quite nice!!

TheBoyBilly

I can't believe how much Plumstead in SE London has changed. It used to be a great place tp live but now I don't think I'd venture outside the front door. The first pub I legally drank in is now the Red Lion Noodle House......eh? Nah, you can keep London, it's a sh*thole.

meagain

Where I spent my first 6 years is all gone. Trafford Park, at that time one of the largest industrial estates in Europe, with housing mixed in. Wake up every a.m. to MetroVic's factory hooter. Pervading smell of Cornflakes!

Good ol' days? Gotta be joking.

SteveR_100Milers

Happens to me at around midnight every other Friday after I stagger out of my local....

Interesting post Mike, my parents moved recently away from north shrops where I grew up (though was born in cardiff and have been living here for the last 20 years now). My grandparent are all now deceased, and suddenly I realised that there is now no reason to go back where I grew up and non e of my family live there anymore. I find that slightly disturbing in a very deep submliminal way, which I cannnot really reconcile with reality, or make any reasonable sense of either objectively or from an emotional sense. The magnestism of where you spent your childhood sure is a powerful force.

TheBoyBilly

My Sunday school is now a mosque, our local park where I learnt to ride a bike, play football and kiss girls is now full of smackheads. Nah, I don't think I'll be going back any time soon.