Memories

Yesterday I returned to the town of my birth. I haven't had a slow wander around for a very long time. This was the place my parents were married and I was baptised. Dad worked here[and Mum had] This was the place one set of Grandparents lived. The place I played as a toddler. Where we came shopping every week and I had my first library ticket. Where I learnt to swim and then came to swim and trampoline with school. Where I saw my first football match and where I went on one of my very first girly shopping days with a friend. I went back to study and for a club for a while too. We had our favourite places to go in school holidays for a lunch out or to visit too. Then when my kids were small they visited some of those too and much to the rest of my families disgust my girls spent what seemed like hours in Tammy Girl. The swimming pool and football stadium have gone, moved to new sites in the town. Landmarks like the ski slope and town hall disappeared entirely. The library is in the same building but has changed completely in style and layout. The population too has changed and there are a lot more ethnicities and languages than you would ever have encountered but that is true everywhere. While I didn't visit any of the other important places the Town centres [the original circa 1947 and the "new " one now 42 years old] held hidden gems like the step shown in the pics and a ledge table in a coffee bar that is still there though missing the jukebox terminals it used to have. It seems to be the theme for this week to explore the past. Looking back at the people, places, things and events that have made us who we are today is so important but so is recounting these stories or recording them so that your family or the local history society can know what it was like to live at that precise moment in time and time is so very precious.