Going back to where you were raised

I no longer live in Liverpool (city of my birth) but one visit to my sister I suggested we go back and look at our old house. She reluctantly agreed.

The houses were flat fronted terraces with a railyway line running along the back. Classic working class from the 1930s. There is not a lot you can do to improve them except to change the windows, which the new owners had done. We were standing on the pavement when a woman came out and asked if we needed help. She probably wondered what two elderly women were doing standing in front of her house.

I explained that we were both born in the house and it was just a sentimental visit. Surprisingly she asked if we would like to come in and look around. My sister quickly said "no thank you we have to be going" and walked back to the car. I could tell she was upset. So I thanked the women for her offer and assured her we would not be taking up her time.

As we drove away my sister said she could not bear to look around the house because it would remind her of the fact that both our parents had died within 2 years of one another. They had not died in that particular house but I think it brought back painful memories of our childhood. My sister was always the golden princess so I guess the "painful" memories should have been mine.

I was two years old when my parents bought their first house so all my memories are of that home. My mum never moved so I saw a lot of the house and neighbourhood when I visited.

I moved away when I got married but ten years ago I decided to move back to childhood area and ended up living in my old bedroom for six months until I found the right house for me.

Mum died a couple of months ago but we still own the house as there are tenants in it ( used rent to pay towards mums care home bills) and we can’t sell until end of the lease next year.

It will be emotional selling the house after 64 years of it being our family home.

I do go back, and until my mother died, I enjoyed the trip back. But now I hate going. It's too painful, even though my brother still lives there.

I went back about 10 years ago and was amazed to find the area is now considered trendy and is expensive to buy in. My dad bought our house for £2000 in 1952 they now go for near to £1,000,000 in that road. I wouldn't want to live in London now been gone for too long.

This is the house I was brought up in, a small North Devon village. The chapel beside it is now flats as is the house I grew up in. My dad sold that house in 1969 for £6000, God knows what it’s worth now. I would say 80% of the houses in that village are now holiday lets, very very sad… when we had it it was a guest house and after my brother and I had done the chores we used to jump over the wall and run down the fields to the beach, happy happy days…

Chestnut

Just to show what I mean, a picture from 1958 and another from 2001 (21 years ago!) There are cars both sides in the old picture and yet the street still looks wider. What is going on? The street is shrinking!

Cars are bigger now ?

I have been back to my childhood home an Edwardian double bay semi which was next to a lovely chapel where I got married. At the side of our garden was the large chapel garden where the caretaker and his son grew lots of veg.

Now the chapel's been pulled down and there sits a long terrace of boring, characterless small houses. The garden has completely gone.

Grandmother tended green hedges at the front and all up the side of the house, wallflowers at the front, beautiful rambling roses along the side of the back garden...all gone.

Just a tarmac drive all up the side to serve the houses. And railings, starting to rust at the front and side of the house. Dreadful.

But when my family lived there we had the best of the place. I was so happy there, the garden was lovely, full of flowers and fruit trees. Thank God my Grandmother and Mother can't see it now. I have lovely memories despite how it looks now.

I went back to visit the family home where I felt happiest and most settled. Happy at school, friends, nice town, half an acre of garden leading to a stream where we used to play with local children. After that period things went a bit pear-shaped for the family — we moved for my father's work and I never felt so settled anywhere again.

I was in the area of that happy house about 15 years ago and took a detour to go and visit. The house and those on each side of it had been demolished and a block of luxury flats had been built. All evidence of my happy childhood gone.

I've always said never go back, move forward. I wish I'd stuck to my own guideline.

Lucca

Chestnut

Just to show what I mean, a picture from 1958 and another from 2001 (21 years ago!) There are cars both sides in the old picture and yet the street still looks wider. What is going on? The street is shrinking!

Cars are bigger now ?

Naaa! I much prefer the idea that all the houses we lived in as children are actually shrinking, which explains why everyone thinks they look smaller now. We are all living in a science fiction movie.

I went back and wished I hadn’t. If it’s a lovely village like Shinamae yes, but so sad the locals can’t live there and people have second homes, then it becomes a beautiful ghost village. I wish they would ban them and made it affordable for locals to bring them back to life. So no don’t go back.

My first childhood home, which was also my grandparents house is still standing, but could ever bare to go and even look at it it now, memories are too painful. Besides having a very happy early childhood in there, it was also the house where my grandmother and great grandmother died in.
The other two houses I lived in as child have both been demolished. I went back to see where the house I lived in age 5 to 13 years once stood and burst into tears as all the memories came flooding back. The site of the house I lived in from 13 to when I got married is only a few steps away from where my sister is living now.When I visit her I can see it in my mind and get tearful again.My sister was only a few months old when we moved there.

I always yearned to revisit Gran's house where I spend all childhood holidays but streetview spoiled that really. I lived 6 mths in Brussels in 1970's and revisited in 30 yrs later and sadly found city a bit run down, the brand new offices etc of way back then looking tired. And house I lived is now an office block with all one side of street redeveloped and opposite side conserved.

I was born in Cheshire and lived there until I was seven, when we moved to Cornwall. I have lived here in Dorset for 38 years now and regularly visit my Cornish hometown to see my sister and her children. I haven’t visited my ‘real’ hometown since I was about twelve. I would love to go back to Cheshire to revisit my real roots (my parents and wider family, mostly dead or moved away now, are all Northerners) as I feel it is a part of my childhood I have never fully explored. I dare say it has changed beyond recognition since I last saw it but would hope to find some reminders of my early years that were so happy there.

Everything of my childhood is gone - the lovely Edwardian house where I grew up was demolished to build private flats, the road no longer exists, and the whole area of London where I lived until I married is like another country, and sadly not for the better.

I am from Brighton but live in Baildon West Yorks! Pre CoVID I did an annual pilgrimage to the city and my haunts! Not the place I grew up in !!

I only moved six or so miles from my childhood home and do sometimes pop back and remember all the other children who lived nearby - I think I can remember them all.

My grandparents lived in Glasgow and I remembered their enormous bungalow with large, gravelled long front drive and garden. Mr C and I visited some years ago and found a really average size bungalow with a smallish front garden....

Mr C's first childhood home has been pulled down and its replacement has now also bitten the dust. The house he lived in afterwards now holds four flats. Four!

Have just remembered, our daughter saw a small group of people standing outside and looking up at her house. She observed them for some minutes before going out and asking if she could be of help.

The people were elderly Australians and had been brought up in the house long long ago. My daughter invited them to look round the house and they had much interesting information regarding it, mainly that it had been a diary!

The front of the house (her sitting room) had windows which opened out to the street and produce was sold over a counter in front of the window.

My daughter's kitchen stabled the delivery horse!

I went back last year for my dads funeral, stayed in his house where I grew up from age 10, my brothers and sister all live quite near in Surrey but I live on the Moray Coast in Scotland 615 miles away, I moved when I got married 25 years ago, it has changed a lot, so busy and built up I would not move back now

What lovely childhood memories some of you have.

I did look it up on Google maps. Not a lot has changed...

I moved back to the city of my childhood. It is still so awful.
I met with some childhood friends, mainly men, who has all moved back and now living in their parents home. I am still my mother's carer and it is awful. The city has no vision and no plans. I would love to move again and live and by the sea.
My childhood home is the same. It is now in an area taken over by the university. I has a good childhood and a good education.

Our family into a new estate in the 1966 and when my mum died 10 years ago I moved into it after my divorce. I couldn't wait to get out of it. The place had gone to pot with a lot of antisocial behaviour, etc going on.
We had lovely times there when we were kids, everyone cared about their properties and each other. It's sad to see the way it's turned out.

I think you need to go back periodically to where you were brought up but maybe its not the same if you do not have happy memories of the place

I grew up in a relatively rural area on the edge of an old mill town. I went back a few years ago and little had changed in my old area but the town's mills have all gone, lots of new houses and its now, basically, a suburb of Leeds. Didn't like it back then and wouldn't like to live there now.

I went back a few years ago and the large Victorian house I used to live in had been converted into flats. The whole street was originally all terraced houses leading straight out on to the street where we used to play as children. Only backyards at the rear, like Coronation Street. The houses on the street below where I lived have all been demolished and new houses built with gardens and trees! So in that respect it has improved. However, the city has declined. I now live in the rural south west and would never return to the midlands.