What do you miss about the town/city/country you grew up in ?

What we really miss is our youth!

I grew up in dirty, West Riding mill town where the birds 'fly backards to keep muck out o' eyes'. So I don't miss it at all but I did still enjoy growing up there with good friends. The mills have all gone now and masses of houses have been built, presumably everyone now commutes to Leeds or Bradford - as I did.

Quote ExaltedWombat Sat 21-Jun-25 13:58:36
What we really miss is our youth!

Not me, no matter the age it’s a longing for home, we accept
Hiraeth

THE SEA - MISS IT SO MUCH!

Absolutely nothing apart from memories of people and friends and wondering what happened to them all.

I was born and brought up in Mauritius, much changed these days. Revisited it in the noughties and found it completely gentrified.
I miss the deep, velvety, star studded. nights; the tropical fruit and the abundant seasonal flowering trees.
I love Britain too now

As Granmarderby10 says, most of the small shops and other services have gone from town centres now, so the large village where I grew up is completely decimated.
I live in outer London now and am lucky enough to have two middle sized supermarkets within walking distance, but no fishmonger or butcher anywhere around here.
I think that my life here is better than it would be where I grew up, most people are very friendly and there is a large park very close by.

I am still living near to where I grew up but I really miss the lack of traffic and all the little friendly shops we used to have. We are just about to have another couple of thousand homes built in the last green gap between us and the next village. They have had their gaps between them and the next town filled up too. All housing, no additional infrastructure.
The little village I was born into is completely unrecognisable.

I miss the family I had (3 brothers ) and the life my parents gave us as we grew up, on a farm in Yorkshire. Lots of animals, a pony, holidays in a camper van in France, very loving parents. I count myself extremely lucky to have had all of that and I knew I was lucky from an early age. Home is where the heart is and I am near my own beloved family now so I miss nothing really .

Nothing, a different time and place. I was perfectly happy growing up in the Watford/Bushey area. But I wouldn’t want to live there now.

Marymary62:
Such a lovely post, describing a happy childhood in such a visual way. It's a gift to know you are lucky.

I moved from North to South and occasionally miss the food, tomato sausages from the market and butter pies, I can order the pies online so that’s a treat but there’s nothing like the food from Lancashire in the South

I miss absolutely nothing. I miss more from some of the various places I lived in in the first 35 years of marriage.

Nothing, as it has changed so much since I lived there, Greenford borders.

Moonwatcher1904, having grown up there I miss being able to walk to the sea and along the prom.

Where I live now the sea is a bit too far to walk and there's no way to do it without walking on roads without pavements (lethal). If I drove to the sea it'd only take 10 minutes but everywhere charges for parking now. It wasn't like that when I moved here, it was free in winter and before 7am and after 6pm in summer. If I just popped for 20 mins of sea air a day the costs mounts and I'm not ashamed to say I have to be more careful with my pension than that.

Another thing I miss is the trams and the ability to get a taxi at short notice.

(I know some would say it is cheaper than buying a coffee but I never buy one or eat out so I can't switch the budget to favour the sea).

300 miles away from my home town and haven't lived there 25 years.
Still have family there and miss them but sadly the town / area is not as it was .
( As are most other places )

We moved 3 times in my childhood within the town and its environs. I think I romantasised our first house, I don't know why it didn't have any central heating. I was there till about aged 9. I just remember its very long garden and at the bottom beyond the fence was a stream that fed into a lovely duck pond, beyond that a cricket green and a pub called The Cricketers what else. I had a friend whose parents owned that pub and her mum would often give us a bag of crisps and an Orangina when we were in their garden, which was a massive treat back then. I met another friend when I was aged 4 or 5 her garden juxtaposed with ours she actually lived in a road around the corner but our gardens kind of converged at a point. Staring under the fence we locked eyes and there was born a friendship, her and her sister had a wonderful collection of Sindy/Barbie Dolls and a swing in their garden, could it get any better. Needless to say I was at hers when ever I was invited. Plus they'd lived in India for a couple of years so their bedroom was like a treasure trove of amazing things. I also had another very close friend nearby who had an Old English Sheepdog who I adored. So my memories of my first house were made up of such experiences. My town is just over 20 miles away from where I live now, I don't miss it I'd rather live where I am. One of my old school friends lives there still, she came back to it after living firstly in the US and then Australia, she thinks it's the centre of the universe, she is however deluded.

I forgot to say my hometown was in Surrey, now I'm just into Sussex.

I miss the friendliness and knowing most of the people who lived on the avenue, however I would not change to where I live now as we are about five minutes near the harbour, the mountains, the countryside.

I don't.
Years ago I was passing childhood town so made a small detour to old haunts. The rural backwater house I grew up in (Grandparents council house) which was just down the road from greatgranddparents farm; and a short walk to the graveyard where my grandmother and greatgrandmother were buried. The sleepy back of beyond, on the banks of a river where as a child I taught myself to swim. (alone, in 20 ft of water; it worked)

Bloody hell. GParents very plain council house now gentrified The cast iron water pump I had to fill buckets from (NO indoor plumbing) was now a fancy garden feature. GGP's farm similarly unrecognisable and renamed "Badgers Crossing". Up on the river bank, now fenced off, discovered the hard way it's an electric fence. My grand father walked 4 miles to work along that unfenced bank for 40 years. Set off for churchyard. Great Granny stone tomb still there. Grave of Granny (died 1956) now occupied by a total stranger ( and their headstone).

WTF? My long-dead mothers best friend at school lived next to grave yard so I knocked on the door and caught up with the gossip.
Yes, the graveyard is now so full they are re-using old plots Human bones and one time a skull, have sometimes been tossed over fence into their garden. Complaints about sloppy gravedigger excused as "work of foxes".

The fencing off of the river (by the millionaire owners of Badger Crossing) was under dispute.

Mother's friend asked why we had never put a headstone marking Granny's grave so I had to tell her. Grandad, very tight and a dramatic drunk, declared he would never visit her holy grave because the grief would kill him. He gave my mother £600 in cash to commission the very best headstone. ( a crazy fortune at that time) Meanwhile, my aunt (his daughter) was in dire straits. Her siblings decided to do what Granny would have done. They defied Grandfather, hoping he'd never find out, and gave the gravestone money to Granny's desperate daughter. No headstone. No wonder granny got dug up.

I haven't been back again.

I missed the last city from the country I moved to. Middle size city, very safe, very green, churches everywhere, buses everywhere, parks, museums, eateries, all kinds of night and day-life venues, with the feel of a country town

4allweknow

I miss absolutely nothing. I miss more from some of the various places I lived in in the first 35 years of marriage.

Same here.

I was born in London and lived there for first 30 years of my life. When we first moved I missed the huge library near my home and the museums. I visited family members often for many years. I watched it it all change as major developments changed the look of everything traffic got horrendous. I hate it now and find it extremely stressful. I love living in the countryside fields and trees and fresh air.

Yes definitely more attached to our married home town than my childhood home town.

I still live in the same village.
I can see the house where I was born and grew up in when I look out of one of my back bedroom windows.