Have you ever revisited something - a place, a film, a book - and been hugely disappointed ?

We went back to the German town where we started married life in the seventies. We found it hard to get our bearings. We walked the length of our street before remembering which house we lived in. The distance to the army camp was a long drive yet we walked there every day when we were young. All in all it was a good experience seeing it all again.

Skydancer

I was so excited to be visiting Bondi Beach. What a disappointment. We have better beaches in England.

Yes, we had a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Australia in 2015 and most of it met or exceeded our expectations. However, we were very disappointed with Bondi Beach. We preferred Manly.
One of our set texts for English literature ‘O’ level was Catcher in the Rye. I really enjoyed it at the time, especially as the angst-ridden protagonist, Holden Caulfield, was a similar age to us and we could identify with him. I think if l were to try and read it again, I would find it full of teenage navel-gazing tosh.

Leelaylo

Visited the town I grew up in only to find it tired and run down. Drove past my old family home , it seemed small and drab , not the vibrant full of fun home I remembered. Bumped into an ex who in my memory was tall ,suave and charming only to find him a bit of a sad letch.
Lesson learnt , don't look back keep moving forward

This happened to me too. I was brought up in a block of flats. Always beautifully kept, with a clean & tidy playground for us children at the back. I took my late partner back there and found it dirty, playground overgrown and the house itself covered in graffiti, the whole area looked really shabby, I was mortified. I have gone down memory lane many times looking at previous houses we have owned, we have moved 13 times in total. Never once have I felt any of them looked nicer, cleaner and tidier than when we lived there. So sad to see when you take pride in both the inside and outside looking clean and welcoming. As someone else said never look back, it is usually a huge disappointment.

I am the opposite, I’ve just watched a star is born with Barbara Streisand and kris kristofferson. It was my favourite film years ago and it didn’t disappoint on rewatching it. I love chat emusic and still cried my eyes out.

I do so agree, as a 14 year old (60 odd years ago) I visited and fell in love with Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door, visited many many times until the late 80s, went back last year and like so many places both here and abroad it’s now over run, commercialised and costs an arm and a leg to park, sadly I won’t go back even though it retains its beauty to this day.

Many years ago, I so enjoyed a book called South of Broad, written by Pat Conroy. It stayed with me, and about eighteen months ago, I bought a copy from WoB. It fell flat, and made me wonder why it made such an impression on me at the time. There have been others, but that one sticks in my mind.

Yes I get it. Thank you all for sharing, so nice of you to contribute.

Sometimes it’s US who’ve changed (books and films stay the same!) but places? Ah that’s more complex isn’t it? Changes there over the years for sure especially when many years have passed. Most of them a shock.

I went to Old Trafford a few weeks back. We drove down the road of huge (we rented) terraced houses where I lived with my little sister and our lovely parents. As we rounded the corner, OMG the park where I walked through to junior school on my own shocked me. My memory was of quite a walk. But honestly? From one park gate to the other on a parallel road to where I was standing was NOTHING like as far as I’d remembered! I laughed inwardly as I thought “well my legs would’ve been shorter then”. 😁

I saw La Cage aux Folles film around 1980 when I was around 20. I remember enjoying it so much as well as finding it very funny. The subject matter about a gay couple running a drag club would have been very novel to me at the time. I
watched it again about 5 years ago expecting to feel nostalgic and enjoying it just as much. What a let down, it was very dated, the subject matter as well as the humour was now very tired and I gave up watching before the end. Yes somethings are better kept as happy memories.

Years ago I read ‘The Moon’s a Balloon’ by David Niven and I thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever read. I bought a copy in a charity shop a couple of years ago and, apart from a few bits, I really didn’t find it funny at all.

I watched What's Up Doc? at Christmas and found it as funny as ever. I watched a couple of episodes of Butterflies recently and couldn't believe I had ever enjoyed it. She was so irritating! Married long enough to have two teenage sons and she still couldn't cook? All you've got to do is open a cookery book!

When I worked in a sub post office almost 50 years ago, an elderly lady came in and asked to speak to Mr ....

I left them to their conversation but after she left my boss told me they'd had a thing in their youth.
He was quite sad and wished she hadn't come in, so the only memory of her would have been as she was.

I lived in Brighton for close on 30 years and when I first moved, it still had a unique, run down, disreputable, seedy charm.

Over the years it has become more and more developed and gentrified so that when I go back I can hardly recognise it as it has become just like everywhere else.

The place I was born, Enfield in Middlesex, although no one seems to mention Middlesex now it has sadly all been engulfed and become part of Greater London, but not to people like me, there is still a Middlesex cricket team! We did go back to visit for husbands school reunion but it wasn’t the same, like a foreign country. Sometime ago I was talking to a female detective stationed in Barnet near to Enfield and she told me never go back it really isn’t the same and crime rate is high

I went to look at what I saw as a little river as a child where I used to think as. a child when upset and there was hardly a stream there I suppose that's how it always was

There are two well-known sayings which, imho, can't be bettered:
"You can never step into the same river twice."
"You can never go home."
Everything changes and that includes us, so we may be seeing the same images or reading the same words but we're not going to perceive them in the same ways we did years ago. Well, not unless we're particularly resistant to learning new stuff as we grow older, anyway!

After re-reading "Gone With The Wind", after an interval of several years, I found it long-winded and tedious. Give me the film anyday.

mae13

After re-reading "Gone With The Wind", after an interval of several years, I found it long-winded and tedious. Give me the film anyday.

Oh no, GWTW is my favourite book!

I have read it sooo many times, and always hope that somehow, Scarlett will realise it’s Rhett she really loves, not wimpy Ashley.

As for the film, Scarlett O’ Hara would never in a million years have fancied Leslie Howard over Clark Gable.

He (LH) looked old enough to be her dad.

Talk about mis-casting.

cookiemonster I can totally relate to your feelings. I had got a sizeable bonus at work and we used it to go to Orlando because it was something our son had often talked about. Horrible place. We did enjoy Sea World, however, but regret visiting the aquatic show as we now realise (and really should have realised then) how cruel it was. Universal was good though.

Orlando is not somewhere we would visit again. We too returned and immediately booked a week's holiday in Menorca because we were so exhausted.

Bazza I am fairly sure my new boyfriend (now husband) and I went on one of our first dates to see What's Up Doc and found it hilarious. Not so now.

In a similar vein, when we were newly married we watched a black and white film on the TV called The Woman in the Window, starring Ernest Borgnine. We thought it was great. We watched it again a year ago and thought it was extremely dated and just awful. Apart from Borgnine, the acting was dreadful and it was SO corny.

A few years ago, I re-visited the road where my grandparents lived in the 1950s/60s in Wembley.

It had been a well kept and peaceful crescent, with pretty front gardens. Now, every garden has been paved over and has one or two cars had taken up the whole of the front garden. Such a disappointment.

@Calendargirl, apparently Clark Gable had false teeth, which he rinsed under a tap in full view of everyone. Somewhat off-putting behaviour from a romantic hero don’t you think?

The Leaning Tower of Pisa. Many people must feel as disappointed as I did when I arrived in front of it.
(A market stall stood just along the road from it, selling fake bags).

Musicgirl

@Calendargirl, apparently Clark Gable had false teeth, which he rinsed under a tap in full view of everyone. Somewhat off-putting behaviour from a romantic hero don’t you think?

Oh no, my illusions shattered!!!

Did Leslie Howard have false teeth also?

Mind you, goody goody Ashley would never have been so crass!