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 spent summer holidays at my Grandma's house in rural Devon. Just playing in the garden, visiting the nearby farm (which sometimes had a litter of puppies!) and living in my imagination.

Out of fear, I made an education-related decision at 16 that I’ve regretted ever since. I’d go back and make the braver choice.

I’d go back to either summer 2000, 2001 or 2002 and make sure the only person I’ve genuinely loved, knew. He died in his 20s a couple of years later and if I’d told him how I felt I may have been able to stop the accident as the route that lead to it wouldn’t have happened. I’d do anything to go back to those summers and see his face again.

Sembawang Singapore 1970. We had our clothes made there instead of buying them off the peg. We were due fly home a just after Christmas after a 4 year posting. We had all our clothes and shoes made there at that time, and the dressmaker had come. Mum had some pictures of clothes for the UK climate and the dressmaker had brought fabric that she thought would be warm enough. My delight in being able to choose just what I wanted, and feeling soooooo cool, as my Mum had let me have a pair of flares with a floral insert in the leg made. I had lived up till then in shorts and cotton shirts or cotton dresses. Then the utter excitement of having a pair if long boots made! I was in heaven.

I'd also like to revisit some of the epic and unforgettable rows and shouting matches my Mum and Dad used to have when I was growing up. They didn't happen that often but, when they did, you wondered why they were still married. I'd just want to know what the problem was, or problems, even if I wasn't capable of understanding as a child.

I'd quite like to go back in time and enjoy my Dad's cooking again. I'd love one of his homemade curries.

Christmas day 2006 just me and my soulmate, mucking around, our first proper Christmas alone together. We cooked an amazing meal then snuggled and dozed in front of Christmas TV. He was dead by the end of February. I'd give everything to be back there for that one day. Total happiness.

I'd go back to secondary school and try more at education . I would also tell someone I was being bullied as that played a big part in how my early/ teenage life panned out.

I would go back to the day when we went to Stonehenge with my grandparents. They had always wanted to go so my mum and dad took all of us in a borrowed mini bus.

In those days you could go right up and touch the stones. It was a blazing hot, still day and it was just magical.

My grandad died of a heart attack later that year. He hadn’t been retired that long so they never got to travel and do all the things they had planned for his retirement.

I often think of that day when I hear Queen’s Days of our lives song.

December 1981. My first Christmas at a Rudolph Steiner school - real Christmas trees in every classroom, lit with real candles. The teachers singing Wassailing, in perfect 3 part harmony, every morning. Ice on the inside of the classroom windows so the teacher would light a fire in the fireplace (school in old Victorian building) but you'd still need to wear your coat during lessons, and your teacher would make everyone a mug of hot chocolate to drink during lessons (easy to do when there's only 12 of you in a class). The crisp smell of all the evergreen boughs used to decorate all the hallways.

Watching the teachers perform the Shepherd's play (if you're Steiner educated then you'll know). It was heavy snow outside, so we'd spend every break sledging down the huge hill opposite the school on huge, industrial plastic sheets, laughing do much that your cheeks ached, even though your fingers were numb with cold.

Every moment was magical x

The woods near my house when I was about 8 or so, in the summer, just wandering around on my own. Big enough to get into all the interesting places, small enough to squeeze under some of the random fences in the woods (it was by a former paper mill, now torn down. To child-me, it was just random fences in the woods that randomly started and stopped that looking back I think marked public from the mill's land). It was so peaceful and felt like my own world back then, never saw anyone else out there once beyond the park. I would wander for hours and then after I'd go to my grandparents house (who lived around the corner), and eat popcorn while listening to them and watching Waiting for God or something similar. I have a lovely picture of me I think recently back from the woods at that age, it's one of the few childhood photos I have that I share with others as I look genuinely happy in my tie dye hooded playsuit (it was the style) rather than posing for the camera grin.

My first thought on reading the title though was actually wrestling practice - it's been on my mind a bit lately, not so much as to miss it, but something I enjoyed - even when hard - that part of me would have liked to be able to have done more of before I left school, but on reading other posts, I think the woods would be better if I could only pick one.

Any weekend in the summer of 1977. I was 6 and visited one set of grandparents on a Friday night. We would walk into the village and get fish and chips and walk back talking about anything. I visited my other grandparents on a Saturday night, my grandad had a walled garden and Victorian glass house. The garden was a wildflower meadow and I loved it. I’ll never forget the small of the glasshouse either - it had its own well and was magical. He gave it to my parents and they sold it. It’s a housing estate now.

Love this thread. Thanks, op

Any late summer weekend sitting on the steps by my grandma's stables when the peach tree was laden with fruit. The heady smell of horse and peaches mingling takes me right back there. The jolly, untidy relaxed safety of a Kent farmhouse and the love of my grandparents. The only other place I've smellt that smell is at a riding stables in SW France where they also sell some local produce.

Any family Christmas in the late 80's or early 90's. Mismatched decorations that my family had for years and real Christmas trees.
My family were generally antisocial so having extended family and the odd friend visit was so exciting to me as a child.
The days and days with my sister wondering what we would get, never anything ridiculously expensive but as we rarely got anything new it was a huge deal for us.
The Christmas dinner around my grandma's dining table, same crockery and cutlery every year until she died about 6 years ago.
Innocent times before I realised how spiteful my mother could be and how weak my dad is for going along with her.
I suppose at least I have the happy memories, some people have childhoods they would rather forget.

I would go back to being 16 again. Snogging Gary Butler under the trees by the river on the hot summer nights after we left school. It was probably the most thrilling time of my life.

climbing the cherry trees in my grandparents' garden, picking cherries and eating them until we felt sick.

playing with our dog Jojo.

proper sparklers on our Christmas trees that smelled awesome

shovelling thick snow and cutting up wood for the fire place. not many 12 yo have that experience! I loved doing both.

Ice-skating on Lake Balaton. it was so quiet an peaceful and I loved being so happily alone & content.

performing: singing, dancing, acting. all so much fun

and of course doing extreme sports: rock climbing, cave climbing, abseiling, parachute jumping....some of my best days

sorry, I couldn't pick one time. it's like asking which one of my kids I love best!🤣

I love/d different things for different reasons.

bombing down a hill on my bike singing loudly to myself aged 8

@35andThriving

Love this thread. Thanks, op

Happy to oblige. One thing I would say is common to any childhood place and time is that the music was so much better. In that summer of 1974 which I originally mentioned, there were great records by The Stylistics, The Three Degrees, George McCrae, Charles Aznavour, Neil Sedaka and even The Bay City Rollers. There must have been something special about them for a child of three and a half years old to remember them so vividly.