Nostalic for childhood home, have you been back to your old house? Maidenhead..

[lemonice]

is where I lived from age 3 to 9 and has lots of wonderful memories. Last time i went back in 1995 I knocked on the door of our old house and loooked around inside and bizarrely found lots of things hadn't changed. It had the same carpet and a kitchen that my parents bought at the ideal home show in 1963. I took lots of photos as was doing an art project at the time and looked at ny old school which I was really surprised still existed.

And welcome to Pixiemite it was her newbie thread which prompted my nostalgia.

I would really love to do this - I know I can anytime as we know the people who bought the house I grew up in. My parents had a great friend who was a pretty way out scandanavian trained architect, and they got together and built a really fantastic house - all exposed/painted brick, black wood and huge windows, wooden ceilings etc very cutting edge at the time (esp for Hampshire!) I would be very interested to see if it still has the same vibe.

We moved when I was 15, they built it when I was 6 months old (can you imagine!)

we moved around a lot when I was younger (my parents could never stay in the same place for long!) so I went on a whirlwind trip round my old houses in Ash Vale and Guildford. I couldn't believe how much Guildford had changed - that huge new leisure centre (Spectrum?) wasn't even there when I was around but its funny how even seeing old playgrounds brings back all sorts of memories. Some of the ones I used to play in over 20 years ago still look exactly the same. Very strange.

Do it CD it's fun. I'm just really sorry I didn't go upstairs as was nice young man who showed me round. The summerhouse that my dad made and called Laugharne (other favourite family place) was still there as well and I don't think it had been painted since we left It was very weird like travelling in time.

My parents still live in the house that they built when I was a baby, so I see it quite regularly. The area around them keeps changing though, 2 years ago I actually got lost within 10 mins drive of their house as the roads had all been moved around. I do say things that I thought only 'old people' said though, eg 'I remember when that housing estate was just fields'.

Yes I found the house hadn't changed but the place was totally different I wouldn't have known it was Maidenhead if I'd been plonked in the town centre. And they've built a Marina across the road from my old house and the South of England Curry House had sprung up a couple of doors away.

I took my kids back to the house where I lived from my birth until I was 4, a few weeks back. Didn't knock or anything, just sat outside in my car amazed at how much stuff I remembered from living there!

When I was 4, we moved and I stayed in that house until I moved out at 19. My parents split up when I was 11, dad moved out and my mum stayed with us. My brother now owns this house having bought it from my mum about 4 years ago.

I haven't been into the house I grew up in, but last time I looked at it I had a terrible shock. The houses there had huge back gardens (they built the estate off-centre, the houses the other side had tiny gardens) and massive fields behind which backed on to the Paddington line.

Now it seems that the 2 semis next to my row have been demolished, to make a road to new houses which have been built in what used to be the huge back gardens, and the railway line is right behind them now (I think this might be the Heathrow Express? It's in West Drayton, near Stockley Business Park).

Very very sad. Some goats once ate my hair over the back fence when I was about 2, cows used to break into the garden and trample my dad's cabbages, and we used to play in the fields all the time - we rode ponies there illicitly sometimes - there was a boggy bit with lots of wild flowers that were in the Brooke Bond card albums. Happy days...

My dad and brothers still live in the house i lived in from about 5 until 18. I then brought a house in the same road, but had to leave later.

I love my dads house, i always feel so comfy and at home there, even when my dad shouts "oi get out of that cupboard, you don't live her now"
He's only kidding, honest.

Issymum that is so strange - you've obviously come home.

Issymum, I have constant dreams about my childhood home, (4- 20) but they are always nasty ones... were yours nice ones or nightmares?

I have been "home" to look at the outside of 'our' house (my parents moved the year after I got married) but i'm not tempted to go in because it'll be different & I don't want to spoil my memories.

Lemonice - I lost my virginity in Maidenhead - how appropriate is that

My childhood home was pulled down two years ago -my mother sold the land to developers and got taken for a ride by them. There are now nasty new houses there, but they have kept some of the trees in the orchard and rather bizarrely, half of the house name - think it is called ***wood Close or Chase - something modern and inappropriate for the very rural setting. I'm never going back. I peered down the drive once - that was enough.

My Gran recently sold her house and moved in with my Mum. The house she sold she bought in 1946 when my Grandpa came home from the RAF after the war. My Mum grew up there, mu Uncle was born in the house, my grandparents moved because of their work and we moved in there, I spent the first 6 years of my life there, and then we lived there again when I was 11 for a few months when we were 'between' houses (moving back to Scotland from London). My Grandpa died in the house and there were SO many memories there. I know she couldn;t manage a 3 bed victorian semi any more on her own (she was 80 when she moved out) but it was very sad to see the house go. What is nice is that it has been in the family for so long, everyone has a memory of it, and even dd1 remembers 'GGs house' (GG = Great Gran!)
The weird thing was the house has always smelt the same! I'd love to go back in and see if the smell has changed. It must be something to do with the house as the smell hasn't travelled with my Gran and all her stuff to my Mums house!

I think because i moved when i was 9 and still believed in magic of the Lion Witch Wardrobe kind and Enid Blyton mystery and adventure, my memories of Maidenhead have a mythical feel to me which would seem very odd to people who live there now I think.

I don't think my parents ever appreciated how much I missed it after we left. It was like life changed for ever. I longed for them to take us back but they never did.

All my old ones are in NZ but yes I will go back, esp the family home which we had to sell when Dad died.. I have dreams of buying it back still now...