If you could go back to one time and place in your childhood, when and where would you go ? For ANY reason.

[WildRosie]

For me, it would be the Overcliff Hotel in Southbourne, Bournemouth in the summer of 1974. I hadn't started school by this time but it was still my fourth consecutive summer holiday staying there. My older siblings and parents had been holidaying there since at least the mid-1960s. It was to be our last holiday there. I'm not sure what the weather was like but I can clearly remember the green loo under the stairs (it scared me!), the dining room and the bar with the fruit machines and Fox's Glacier Mints. Very fruity but oddly-tasty orange juice that I now swear was laced with Phenergan - never had it since. Student waitresses, one of whom was called Shirley - I decided all of them must be 'Shirleys'. And getting lost in the corridors!

There was also the Fisherman's Walk gardens with its big fish pond and bandstand and the beach of the same name with a zigzag path leading down to it. And the lovely coloured globe lights all along the promenade.

The Overcliff has long since gone. I last saw it standing in 2001; there is now a fancy apartment block called 'Seascape' where it once stood.

I'd go back in the blink of an eye, even if just for an hour or so.

I’d love to go back to one childhood Christmas, best memories I have.

I'd just be in the back garden of my childhood home, on a late Summer afternoon, playing with my toy horses in the grass and listening to the church bells in the distance and the general garden/teatime/children playing noises I have always loved.
I wish often I could go back and live it all again, and do things "better".

Home to Ireland in about 1980. Long summers with my cousins, middle of nowhere and cows and packing our lunches to take down the fields. Ate them before we reached the gate! No time constraints, no place to be, no screens to watch constantly. Time stretched out endlessly in front of us.

I made a huge mistake at the age of 14. I’d do anything to go back and change that choice.

Difficult one, there's many I could choose for different reasons. But probably I'd go back to our caravan which we would go to for the whole summer, and other weekends and holidays as well. No telly, just a radio, we ran around the fields and took packed lunches to beaches and up into the hills. Gas canisters that needed changing every few days. We looked at the rain bucketing down outside and felt glad we weren't camping. We certainly didn't do any of the touristy things that cost money. I remember looking at all the leaflets for places, which were in the laundry, they seemed all exotic to me. Innocent times. I shed a few tears the day we went for the last time to sell the caravan, I was at uni by that point. We never had sunny holidays abroad so I didn't know what I was missing, and wouldn't have changed it.

Sitting at the lunch table with my Grandpa and brother having soup and then ambrosia rice pudding whilst he looked after us when my mum worked on a Saturday. I loved that man and life went to shit when he died.

I'd happily go back to any childhood Christmas but in all honesty I'd go back to even the most boring, non eventful, nondescript day if my mum was still alive

Rockpooling in Cornwall or West Wales with my Dad who died in his forties.

I would go back to my father's house in the early evening of a summer day. Sitting on the newly cut lawn, hearing the sprinkler's hiss, feeling completely at peace.

1997ish, playing in backfields with children of all ages from my street. No worries, just pure happiness

Holidays in North Wales in the 80s. Or maybe a Christmas day

Really though I'd like to go back to any time before my dad got ill and spend some time with the old him.

Only if could go back to one moment but not live the rest again. I'd go back to a moment I had sitting in me gp's garden when the sun was shining warmly, I was surrounded by flowers and one little shrub in particular was very fragrant with lovely perfume and the bees were devoting lots of attention to it. The drowsy buzzing, with the lovely fragrant air, all my senses were in bliss and no-one spoke to me the entire time. I was getting goose bumps from the contentment and sensory happiness of it all.

Summer of '76. I was 6 - long, hot days filled with friends and freedom. Also the last summer of having a dad as he developed early-onset alzheimer's and was lost to us.

@Rockbird

Home to Ireland in about 1980. Long summers with my cousins, middle of nowhere and cows and packing our lunches to take down the fields. Ate them before we reached the gate! No time constraints, no place to be, no screens to watch constantly. Time stretched out endlessly in front of us.

@Rockbird

I spent so much time early 90s doing exactly the same with my cousins, was such a lovely time. Your post just too me right back and made me smile

Summer of 86 .... 6 friends having a great time. Just playing and enjoying the school holidays. With not a care in the world.
It was the best summer ever !

@Thoughtcontagion such good memories aren't they? I don't think I've ever felt more free than I didthen.

*did then FFS

When I was a kid there was this boy who lived next to my aunty. For well over a decade he came to hang out with me every time I visited. There was electricity in the air but we were both shy. When I was 15 my aunty died unexpectedly so obviously we never visited again, and I never saw him again. I vividly remember the last time I saw him, we were lounging on my aunty’s bed playing computer games on the portable tv. I didn’t know I’d never see him again. I should have kissed him.

@katinawa
❤️

I’d go back to one of my dancing presentation evenings.

We had no money growing up but this one night once a year was a night for my mum to let her hair down a little bit and I’d see her enjoy herself with my best friend’s mum. They’d laugh and share chips in a little plastic basket.

I was always so happy being allowed to drink coke and run around in a sparkly outfit watching professional dancers before (hopefully) being presented with an awarded

My mum knitted us matching batwing sparkly jumpers to go with our swishy skirts and we’d just have the best time.

One year we came out to see a huge pink moon over the car park. It was magical.

A family Christmas, complete with overboiled sprouts, too many Quality Street, the decades old decorations and tatty angel on top of the tree, all my parents’ weird little Christmas traditions and habits. It was all a bit tedious but now they’re both gone I’d give anything to do it one more time.

I’d go back to one summer holiday day (doesn’t matter which one) in 1988, waking up to the morning mist, knowing it would be a lovely day and I’d go round to my friends house, we’d go out for a walk or a bike ride, get some sweets, sit in her tree for a bit, then home for a bbq, maybe she’d stay the night in the tent in the garden.
Never know how much I should have appreciated the no responsibilities, fun life of an 11 year old, living in the Sussex countryside. Idyllic!

My grandparents caravan in Norfolk. I still holiday there now but I'd love to go back as an excited child when my grandmother was still alive, those holidays were so special.

I stored my grandfather. That set of grandparents lived in a house with a big garden, about an hour away from us. I used to stay there a lot. I’d go back to a summer evening when I was about 9 or 10, when my grandfather woke me up at about 10 or 11pm and took my outside to show me the stars, tell me the names of the constellations.

One more summer day at my Grandma's house. If I won Euromillions and was told I could have the money or that day I would pick the day.