Tell us about the memories of your home town (then and now) for a chance to win great prizes courtesy of Penguin Random House.

I live in the town I grew up in. I moved away but came back so I was nearer my mam so she could help with childcare. My two eldest children even go to the primary school that me and my sister went to, although this year has seen that old building knocked down and a brand new shiney super school built on what used to be the play ground and sports field!
Not that much else has changed apart from a few flats and houses being knocked down for car parks or new houses. When I was younger there used to be a cinema that looked like it was out of the 1950s inside that we used to call the flea Pitt! This is now a funeral parlour, people here are the same just a new generation of them. When I was young we would be standing round drinking cider n hooch but the young these days are standing round with rock stars and other energy drinks which is probably a a sign of the times.

I spent my summer holidays and Christmas in Bexhill-on-Sea with my grandmother and my family. Happy days playing with my cousins on the beach and picnics in the local countryside. My husband and myself now have a holiday flat in Bexhill. So we frequent the old haunts as do our grandchildren and children. It is still a lovely place to stay and visit. Not a lot has changed. Bexhill is in a time warp and I love it!!

My home town hasn't changed that much though I haven't been back for a few years. Some new houses have gone up, a few of the shops have changed and some of the shops we regularly used as kids have gone altogether. One of the things I loved the most was the way all the kids were in and out of everyone's houses, playing in the alley together and only a short walk to school - along with the library, the woods and the park, school was one of my favourite places to go. I've spoken to people that still live in the area and they bemoan that neighbours don't even know each other let alone share babysitting, meals, street parties, bonfire night parties etc like we used to. I now live not that far away, in the same county, and when reading Shelia Hancock's book 'Miss Carter's War' recently enjoyed reading more about the area I live in now. Fingers crossed as I would love to win this prize. Very interesting reading other people's comments/memories.

I grew up in Doncaster and we lived over the road from my Grandparents house, which was great because I loved to be able to go and visit them whenever I wanted.

Our end of the street was the best bit because the top bit had a bus route on it, but it turned off before it reached our part.

This was the late 70's and early 80's, so not many people on the street even had a car so we were allowed to play out without anyone worrying we were about to be run over.

I can remember learning to ride my bike, learning to roller-skate, playing games like Tig and British Bulldogs, and nobody really bothered as long as we didn't make too much noise. There was always somebody outside to play with.

And at the top of the road was a park, which we loved. It was the biggest park in Doncaster and people used to come from all over to go to it. It had a boating lake, and a train you could ride on, and the playground was always full of people to play with. I can remember that our dog escaped once and made his way to the park. When my brother found him, the dog had been rolling on their compost heap and stank to high heaven. He loved the park as well.

In the summer they always had Tuby's fair and in the autumn they had fireworks for bonfire night. They had them on in island in the middle of the boating lake, which the ducks weren't really happy about. I used to love going to that, my grandparents would come with us so it was a real family thing, and it was exciting being out in the dark.

The boats and the train are gone now, but the park is still busy and very popular and now I take my own son to play there. They don't have fireworks anymore, but they have Proms in the Park and we go to that.

The street we lived on looks a bit different now, there are more driveways instead of front gardens, and not so many kids playing on the street.

I like to go back sometimes to have a look at the house we used to live in, and the one my grandparents lived in. They still look the same but also different, and it's a bit strange to have so many memories of a place I can't go inside anymore.

We also have a market in Doncaster that was famous in it's day. I can remember a toy stall at the indoor market that I loved as a child. It was a big treat to go there and choose a toy and I liked it more than I liked the 'proper' toy shop in what was the Arndale Centre at that time. It was in a fantastic old building, which we still haven't knocked down (quite an achievement in modern Doncaster because we've knocked almost everything else down) and you had to go down a staircase to find the stall. The stall hasn't been there for many years now sadly.

My Mum likes to tell the story of the Museum Bear, who was a live brown bear called Billy, who came to Doncaster when she was little. He was a very popular attraction apparently and when he died they had him stuffed and kept him in the museum so people could still visit him.

They still have a stuffed bear on display, but I don't think it's Billy. It makes a growling noise when you walk passed it and my son likes to run away from it.

And the only live bears in town live at the local wildlife park, polar bears called Victor and Pixel. We love to visit, I wish the zoo had been here when I was a child.

When I got married we moved away from Doncaster for a few years, but we moved back a few years ago and I'm glad. It's not the most beautiful town (except to me) because as I said, we like to knock things down, but it does have some beautiful parts, including the woodland right opposite my house. I used to walk there with my parents and grandparents and now I walk there with my son.

I love my hometown. It's home. I have lifelong friends here, and family, and memories of some great times and places growing up here. It's where my children were born and where we've had some of the best (and sadly worst) moments, and I can't see us moving away again in a hurry.

I was brought up in a beautiful rural village in Nithsdale, Dumfries and Galloway. My childhood memories are so nostalgic of entire days walking in the vast woodlands with our dog in tow winter and summer alike, and spending the summer holidays trying to catch minnows in jam jars and getting sun burned. My family still live there and I enjoy visiting weekly with my children in tow. Where once it was a fairly quiet through road that echoed our neighbours chatting at the door step and one particular gentleman who would sit outside with his accordion playing old ceilidh songs, its now a very busy main road that separates the village in two. A lot of the old cottages have been sold to people from all areas of the world as holiday homes and even studios. While i believe its lovely to meet new neighbours there is no sense of community anymore. Nobody checks on the person next door to see if they are ok. I was brought up to look and see if everyone's chimneys were smoking in the mornings and if they were not we went to see if they were well enough. I still teach my children about flora and fauna, why we should look after our countryside. I have took them out on country walks since they could toddle and I truly hope it is something they would pass on to their children when the time comes.

How the world has changed, since the dawn of the space age, back in the 1950s. I don't live in my Town of birth, but visit it frequently, I have family & friends there. As a child,my memories go back to 51/52. The town back then was much the same layout as it was when my Father was a boy in 1912, Working farms employed lots of local people, there were several very large Engineering works, two or three Founderies ,Joinery works,Cabinet Makers, Clothing Mills, There were five separate Hospitals,before they were all amalgamated ,we had the Somerset & Dorset Railway Terminus,that employed many,myself included in the 1960s, until Dr Beeching shut down our Railways. Every Wednesday was Market day, produce & every type of livestock was available for food, it was great to be taken there to see the Cattle, Goats, sheep,Rabits, Chickens etc, butchers shops were full of Game. The town had lots of Roman history, boys at school would swap Roman Coins, that were found everywhere back then, we often put them in the old Gas & Electricity meters, when cash was short. Places we would play,changed from beautiful meadows filled with wild flowers & wildlife, where every butterfly & moth could be spotted in such areas, to Concreted over ugly factories,car parks. The population in the early 50s was around 50,000, it's now over 200,000. The 60s saw a new thing called Tourism come to town. Cheap imitation stone was used to build large housing sites in every space that could be built on. In my lifetime, the town has been completely re modelled twice. The once treasured homes that had been bombed in the war were bulldozed away, roads re routed or done away with, & horrible new terraced houses stacked on top of each other,prices soared so high , local people found it hard to afford to live in their home town, & moved to surrounding Rural Towns in their droves. The factories all closed down, the lifeblood was gone, new homes for the rich & famouse now take their place. If you get outside of the City, Old childhood memories & places can still be enjoyed, away from the places tourists go to, I know of ancient woodlands & meadows that have never had fertiliser spread over them, & Cowslips, Primroses, & Orchids grow to this day.

Lesley Pearce is my favourite author .

Posted too soon! Lot's has changed since I was a child. There are a lot more houses, but less shops, schools and facilities, especially for children and teenagers. Also the local nightclub has just been sold to the church which came as a surprise!!!

I still live in my hometown. Feeling especially proud of our local community today as it was also Stephen Sutton's hometown so there are lots of events on to celebrate his life and commemorate the first anniversary of his passing, including 'Turn Burntwood Yellow for Stephen,' there are yellow bows on front doors, trees, fences, yellow flowers, yellow shop window displays, yellow non-uniform days at the local schools.

I grew in a very famous University town. That instiution has always dominated the place, making it to my mind the best little city in the world.
Due to its size and relative importance it was not unusual to meet famous people walking in the street or imbibing the atmosphere at one of the many pubs.
I had a very enjoyable childhood playing in the street with my friends and jumping garden gates and walls to 'scrump' apples from neighbouring gardens.
I still have ffriends and relatives there and so go back fairly often.
The city has changed and is changing. We have lived in other places since leaving, but feel that the changes are for the best.

I grew up in a tiny fishing village along the Firth of Forth, about 15 miles east of Edinburgh. Absolutely nothing changes there and going back is depressing. Most of the people I went to school with married and have children with people that were at our school and have now bought houses in the village. The community centre is managed by my old neighbour, the neighbour on the other side owns the pharmacy, the window cleaner lives at the end of my mum's street and his wife runs the newsagent, the Co-op is managed by my friend's mum (my friend still works there, has since she was 16), another friend's parents own the chippy and the baker lives three doors up from my parents. It's suffocating. I never fitted in there and going back each Christmas, seeing the same faces working in the Co-op and pulling pints in the local makes me desperate to turn and run.

I am a Cestrian which means I was born in Chester. I have lived here all my life and love it. It's just the right size ! When I go away on holiday it's a pleasure and a thrill to come back. I love the tudor buildings, the River Dee, the Cathedral , the park and all things ancient and modern. I feel proud when I show visitors around but at the same time angry when I think of all the beautiful buildings, like the old market that were pulled down in the 60's. I could go on extolling it's virtues but will close with an invitation for visitors to walk the ' Great Wall of Chester'

They grew up in an ordinary little house, on an undistinguished road, leading into a rather mundane northern town. The house was one of three, built on the site of what had once been a farmhouse, with the last traces still visible in the back garden: a sandpit formed from recycled stone lintels. On one side of the houses was a cluster of semi communal areas: the church, the church hall, a playing field (memorably surrounded by barbed wire...blood goes such a long way...) used for fairs and fetes, scouting activities and general mayhem, and a set of old battered tennis courts, which only saw activity during the brief flurry of interest after Wimbledon season. The field and the tennis courts have been long built open, as the density of housing sprawled ever outwards, creeping steady across the countryside which once lay within an easy Sunday stroll.

It wasn't the best end of town. The larger houses, the posher schools, the people with money, they all lived on the other side of the railway tracks, or out in the surrounding villages. Nor yet was it the area of greatest poverty, situated on the outskirts it avoided the violence and riots of that unfortunate summer so long ago. More than anything, it was ordinary. A place to learn to cycle on half built new roads, to build campfires on the field, to feel so independent walking to school alone. All the essentials of life were to hand, with a school, a supermarket, a handy bus stop, and most vitally a public library. Heading further into the town centre, remnants of a historic past were hidden away in back squares and alleys, largely hidden by the concrete monstrosities that had materialised over the previous few decades.

The people were friendly in general, inclined to stop and chat. There was some traditional rivalry between schools, but no true divisions. Indeed, at major town celebrations, the various churches and groups would happily march side by side, and even celebrate the most major feasts together. It was not so much tolerance as obliviousness, simply not seeing the point in clashing. And remember, this was during the Irish troubles. Indeed, it was a point of some pride, amid the disgust, that both sides in the Irish troubles had allegedly threatened violence to a major celebration, which was thus scaled back, as Catholics and Protestants were happily walking in the same parade.

There were 2 children in that ordinary house, attending their mundane schools. They were raised to one major belief, that education was the key that could open doors. The boy learned it well. He headed south for university, and never truly returned north, living the life of a commuter belt professional. And the girl? She learned it too, but a few times she returned. For a year, to work in the hospital she remembered so well from childhood, spending the first day in a room named for the consultant without whom she might never have lived long enough to become a doctor. For a major celebration, when the fireworks turned night to brilliant day, and the town became a city. And one last time of late, without even stepping into the city, as one of the tiny cogs in the great wheel that will help what was once a grim polytechnic, and is now a reputable university, gain the advantages and prestige of opening a medical school.

It is good to have a chance to repay a debt.

My parents still live in the town I was born in, and that my dad was born in. I go back a few times a year, though I know no one of my generation still living there.
Some things are very different - the upper school I went to is now luxury flats for instance, but some things are still just the same. I think if you are a teen there now it will be just as boring as it was when I was a teen!

I feel a lot of affection for the place, but once my parents die I doubt I'll ever go there again, which feels a bit odd. So much history for me and my family (they've been there for hundreds of years), and it will end right there

I grew up in a Welsh Valleys mining town. At that time, everywhere was black from the coal dust and there were several slag heaps. The shops were niche-the greengrocers, the butchers, the cobblers. I even remember the moving models in the windows (I loved them as a child). There was a huge community spirit and people would always be chatting outside houses, shops etc.

From then to now was just 30+ years. I still live in the same town. I have never lived anywhere else. The mines are long gone, and so (thankfully) the ugly slagheaps. Though some remain. There are many many country parks here now, replacing the huge mining areas. I am thankful they have been turned into this. I walk my dog and take my dc there. You can never forget though, the occasional winding wheel reminds us.

The town shops are gradually being replaced by chainstores and supermarkets. Convenient but fatal for the smaller businesses that I mourn.

The rows and rows of terraced houses on the hillside are steadfast, I live in one of them. The community spirit is still there, but it is faltering and economically depressed. What is our future? I don't know. I don't know if to be optimistic of commercial changes or mourn a community depleting. My whole family remembers the explosions of the mine right underneath us. It is just a memory fading though.

Still live in my home town, and it is so different to 40 years ago. There is a panoply of different ethnicities and cultures here and people are always surprised when I say that I was actually born here...seems like I am in the minority! What is different is the nightlife, I remember the 4 night buses through the night, now there is one every few minutes. I remember when pubs shut during the day and drinking up time was universal. I remember cinemas that are shut and pubs that are now 'luxury' flats. I remember quiet Sundays when only markets were places for shopping. I remember parts of this city that were the absolute pits and are now called 'Silicon Roundabout' and represent future industries. I remember libraries as proud buildings of learning and refuge. I rememebr council run swimming pools, not privatised ones. I remember council estates, in the centre of this city too. Now it is nondoms and the superich who buy up most of the stuff. It has changed a lot. Some things are great but a lot is hard to live with.

I am going to my hometown once a year, because it's abroad. My parents and my brother still lives there. I am enjoying meeting my relatives and friends and I am getting so emotional passing my school, which I really loved.

If you would like to be sent, on a tour of Burton On Trent,
you could simply follow your nose,
or if you prefer, read my prose.
The smell of hops pervades the air.
Colsons, & Marstons are brewing without a care.
The Museum Of Brewing is a day out,
or visit the Washlands where kids play & shout.
Marmite's here, & Branston Pickle too.
Pirelli Tyres - I get through a few!
Constantine actor & director we can boast,
Repton School, the old boys toast.
Lots of shops in the central precinct,
gift shops, multiples, all quite distinct.
Best of all I'm happy to report,
friendly Burtonians are a jolly good sort!

I live just outside of the town I grew up in. Some good changes and some bad. I used to live one street away from where Lesley Pearce used to live!

I grew up in a town that became a tourist spot because of a tv series.It went from being a shabby, run down place to actually being very nice.
The people are different - you never hear the local accent anymore and it is extremely expensive for locals to buy. Bargainous for some, though who sold up down South and have retired there.
I wouldn't want to live there now, even though I visit.
It's just not the same, not as friendly and over-gentrified. There is very little social housing, for instance - they have almost all been bought and few rentals. Mainly holiday lets.

I grew up in a village just outside of Slough - made famous due to the TV series 'the office' or famous quote "come all ye bombs fall on Slough!" When I was a girl the village I grew up in was lovely, friendly village atmosphere where we felt safe, summer fairs in the park. I go back now to visit family and it is so busy and dirty and unfriendly, I would not be able to live there now! I moved my young family away from there 20 years ago to Hampshire and have never looked back, such a shame as it has tainted my childhood memories of the place.

I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Nearest house was a mile away. Occasionally go back or to the market town where I went to school. Very rural. Not a lot has changed. Was an idyllic place to grow up and not really changed, but very quiet and absolutely nothing to do.

I grew up in a small market town in Essex. During the time I was growing up there it got more and more crowded, bypasses built on the paths we used to pick blackberries on, new housing estates built on the meadows.
I couldn't afford to live there now but judging by my old schoolfriends' postings on Facebook, I'm not sure I'd want to - they seem to spend an awful lot of time stuck in traffic just getting to and from work.

My husband was a child on the Lizard in Cornwall, our most southerly point, it is the most beautiful place in the world. His family moved but often returned for months/years but eventually settled in Surrey due to work and school commitments. He always considered Lizard to be home and dreamed of returning. Sadly when my husband left the RAF he couldn't find suitable employment there so we settled in Cambridgeshire. We return as often as possible and all love our time there. Recently our eldest daughter moved her father by announcing she feels Lizard is her real home and considers herself to be Cornish by heritage.
I guess home really is where your heart is and as the children finish school we are looking again, the dream never dies.

My home town a small village on fresh of dartmoor I left home when I was seventeen and haven't lived there since but visit frequently.It has changed very little and I am still rememberd. I had a Iovely chidhood growing up there and look forward to returning.

I grew up in a coastal city in wales. I still visit to see family and catch up with friends. It's a lovely place but I wouldn't want to live there now I've moved away.

It has really changed over the years but in some ways is still exactly the same, with lots of people I went to school with still going to the same pubs, moving in the same circles etc.