Regrets

[Khaki]

About 25 years ago I returned to a small location where I had lived for years with many extended family members always nearby. Big mistake, not one person left, deteriorating old homes and memories spoilt. I wondered how many 'old soldiers' that we used to see on TV returning to the scenes of their youth, had wished that they had not. Naturally that would not be the sentiment that you would hear voiced before the cameras, but I wonder?

khaki

[Steven Broomfield]

I've had a few, but on the whole, too few to mention.

Read this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-Air-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141185694

Going back is never wise.

[nigelcave]

Yes - and no. I went back to Budapest in maybe 1994; I lived there as a child when my father was the Defence Attache and by then I was almost twenty five years older. In the earlier days a horse and cart was almost as common as a car (well, you get the drift) and in 1998 it made the Place Charles de Gaulle (or Etoiles) look positively benign. But .... The lady that used to look after us was still there, my Hungarian came back (and my German, for that matter), the house seemed a LOT smaller; but not too many illusions were smashed and I am glad that I did it. When I think of matters WF - when in 1968 you could still find caltraps in Ypres, when I collected a complete set of German webbing webbing at Bourlon Wood (actually 1970, but ...). Yet it is all swings and roundabouts. in 1968 my father and I had the Beaumont Hamel Nfd site entirely to ourselves throughout a glorious sunny day in August. Now we have hordes of people coming through - and, I am sure, that a goodly percentage will take away memories and thoughts with which we can all associate. And yet ... those lovely summers in the late sixties when I went out there and it was ALL MINE!!! Yet at the same time I felt so angry that it seemed that all that happened was being neglected by everyone except the CWGC.

But I understand what Prof (at the very least) Bromfield is saying.

[nimrod-49]

I returned to devon after 35 years yes there were changes but most were to be expected and the majoraty were positive.

On the other hand when I returned to civie street after 10 odd years the changes seem vast but I now know the changes were to me and having unrealistic expectations (medical discharge after g.s.w sustaind in northen Ireland)

[gem22]

On a day out in Kent I took my wife to see the farm my grandmother owned when I was a boy. No farm left - all gone. Now it was a riding stables. Even the lovely Georgian farmhouse had gone. I was distraught; so many memories were wiped out a stroke.

Try not to go back; always look forward but never forget the past.

Garth

[John_Hartley]

I wondered how many 'old soldiers' that we used to see on TV returning to the scenes of their youth, had wished that they had not.

In attempt to keep this thread on the subject of the Great War, let me offer a opinion.

And that is - probably not many.

There's an easy answer - social mobility was not what it was then, nor was the physical mobllity of moving home and family for, say, work. Men who were employed as miners or cotton spinners would have stayed in their original areas where there were mines and cotton mills. If you look up, on Ancestry, the deaths registers for men you know to be Great War soldiers, you will see that many died in the original home areas. There was no return to the scene of their youth - they had never left.

[centurion]

On the other hand I've revisited places in the North West of Ireland that I haven't been back to for over 50 years to find them remarkably unchanged - they were still in the late 19th century then and they were still in the late 19th century when I went back!

[Guest exuser1]

In the 1990s a B.B.C 2 series involved taking people back to their chilfhood homes one i recall was a old chap lived in Islington just after the Great War ,his former home was now high end yuppy ,he was taken room to room and described what it had been like in the 1920s, so he described the bed rooms and so forth and growing up in the basement flat, then it came to the kitchen dining area ,he could not walk through the door.No he said its to much i cant go in , why they asked ,well its where mum would sit at the table crying as we had to little food, no money and it would get to much for her and she would break down crying ,i cant go in .

I aiways wonderd what the faimly who now lived there thought of there lovely designer kitchen now?

On a personel note i lived in East London from 1957 untill 1977 i have given up going back .

[David B]

Occasionally go back to the scene of my youth and finish up totally disillusioned. In place of the fields all the way up to our boundary fence there are wall to wall houses and roads, the creek which I used to play in has been covered

and is now a large underground drain - doesn't seem like the place that I grew up in. Even our old house has been altered a lot and it seems only the facade remains.

[johnboy]

"On a personel note i lived in East London from 1957 untill 1977 i have given up going back"

Is there any left?

Stratford , A bomb site, settled down, a bomb site and now an Olympic village.

Isle of Dogs. Is that name still used?

[Derek Black]

In my workplace I often meet people returning to town for a visit who haven't been in decades, they're always surprised at the changes.

I get the impression they expected the place of their youth to stay still and unchanging awaiting their return....

[Ron Clifton]

My biggest Great War related regret is that, when I was growing up in the late 1950s, I never knew that Driver J H C Drain VC (of Le Cateau fame) was still living in the same town. I only found this out in the 1990s.

Ron

[Khaki]

I suppose the veterans returning to the battlefields for the first time in the 1970/80's may have felt torn, almost nothing the same, even probably unrecognizable. despite the fact that we understand change, there seems to always be a part of us that resents it, even though past events are sometimes unpleasant, memories define who we are.

khaki

[Steven Broomfield]

My biggest Great War related regret is that, when I was growing up in the late 1950s, I never knew that Driver J H C Drain VC (of Le Cateau fame) was still living in the same town. I only found this out in the 1990s.

Ron

With apologies to Dr Spooner, was he the Town Drain?

[Guest exuser1]

"On a personel note i lived in East London from 1957 untill 1977 i have given up going back"

Is there any left?

Stratford , A bomb site, settled down, a bomb site and now an Olympic village.

Isle of Dogs. Is that name still used?

In many ways most of the destruction was post war planing ,the Olympic site was on the site of disused railway yards ,around the center where the shops are this was Angel Lane area pulled down and remodeled in the 1960s site of a early Beatles film and the marsh and railway area early medevil monastic sites destroyed during the reformation,i spent many years in the area as went to West Ham college.

As for the Isle of Dogs ,lived there from 1969 to 1977 ,locals called it The Island ,Isle of Dogs does not seem common now, Canary Wharf covers a bit name wise but is not strictly on the Island ,incedently i spent 3 years there on the orginal construction, but now Docklands seems a one stop name to cover most of the area,even rare to see the name Millwall ,i loved living there it was an area with superb history and in the 1970s still a fair bit of the old areas, pubs and such to see. As a 19 year old in the Pier Tavern one memorable Remberance Sunday around 10 Great War veterans came in from the local old folks home,wearing their medals and spent the afternoon singing all their songs from the trenches, superb day.

[johnboy]

I am not sure if it is still there. but The Gun was a pub with a bit of history.

[Khaki]

"The Gun" a pub with history ?? tell us more !

khaki

[johnboy]

The Gun is an old docklands pub in Millwall. Since the development of Canary Wharf it has, unfortunately gone 'up market'

http://www.thegundocklands.com/index.php/history/

Click on History right side menu bar

[Khaki]

Thanks Johnboy

khaki

[Ron Clifton]

With apologies to Dr Spooner, was he the Town Drain?

Doat. Coor.

Ron

[Guest exuser1]

The Gun was my local from 1973 till we left for the sunny fields of Essex in 1977, there was the usual Nelson,Lady Hamilton legend ,a fair crowd were the River Police whos station was a few doors along ,the guvnor at the time had a firey wife who when boozed would collect all the glasses and launch them in to the river! The pub is not strictly on the Island and has connections with the gun foundrys ,the estate we lived on was the Samuda estate and on the site of the Samuda Brothers ship builders, a few of the famous pubs were Robert Burns , Vulcan ,Samuda Arms, Queens ,and Daniel Farsons pub ,a few others were Magnet and Dew Drop, Lord Nelson ,most now gone ,even in the 1970s some of the pubs still had the old dock side flavour as to what trade or occupation had used that particular pub ,ie engineers, captains ,dockers ,or particular factorys one pub adopted in WW2 by a particular ship was The Harry Tavern ,the ship HMS KELLY .

A few tales and storys are not for faimly entertainment!

[grantowi]

Not having the foresight to try and collect all of the memorial plaques before they pulled down the local GWR railway works, or at least get photos of them.

Some were saved from the skips, but many more were lost

I now walk around the housing estate that got built in it's place and stand on some of the spots where once stood workshops, now a cul-de-sac with houses packed in so tight there is no room left for gardens :-(

[healdav]

I discovered at the age of 11 or 12, that you can never go back. You can go to visit, but don't think of going back to live.

And the longer you have been away, the worse it is. It's one of the main reasons why, when I retired, my wife and I did not even discuss moving back to Britain. After 35 years here (then) it would have been a nightmare.

We have very close friends - Danish husband and US wife. He insisted on going back to Copenhagen (home) after over 30 years. She didn't want to and was very depressed about it. He, on the other hand was like a small child on Christmas Eve about it.

What happened? He is severely depressed (and they've only been gone less than six months) as nothing is the same and the people don't understand what he talks about (and vice versa), etc. etc. She is very happy as she has their grandchildren to play with!

DO NOT GO BACK TO LIVE.

[mills-bomb]

Not having the foresight to try and collect all of the memorial plaques before they pulled down the local GWR railway works, or at least get photos of them.

Some were saved from the skips, but many more were lost

I get so much leg pulling for taking photos of anything + everything military installation wise. Yet photos taken as recently as 2 years ago are now proving invaluable due to area's being 'improved'.

[Guest exuser1]

If it comes to regrets then its not buying British 1940 pattern BD at £2 a pop in 1990s ,but back to thread, its the pace of change in the last 20 years or so ,when Kevin Brownlow envisged 'It Happend Here ' in 1964 he stated the reason was England / London had changed very little from the 1940s if hardly at all .