Location location location

[Jux]

they're doing East Molesey. DH and I grew up a couple of miles away. In those days, East Molesey was the arse end of the universe; where the poor people lived, the roughest of the Council tenants were dumped. Dangerous and nasty.

We are greatly enjoying the fact that this particular couple may not actually be able to afford to live there, when they are clearly very well to do. In our day if you couldn't afford to live there, then you were seriously on your uppers.

The contrast between then and now is extraordinary, and making us laugh like drains.

Jux, I grew up in East Molesey, in the 60s and 70s, and had family living there until very recently. I really don't recognise your description of the area at all!

I'm sorry, Squirrelface.

I suppose there were different bits of E Molesey, and if you lived there you knew it far better. I also think that our perceptions were shaped greatly by other people's perceptions - parents, parents' friends, teachers etc. We may have been fairly unlucky with our teen contact with people who lived there too; we both had from friends who were severely beaten up by gangs who came from there, which was certainly my only knowledge of the place and it's people, but I had grown up with a kind of 'understanding' that you didn't really go there.

Now of course I realise that that perception was completely mistaken and prejudiced. However it amused me how far others' perceptions and E Molesey's reputation had changed.

I hope I haven't offended you too greatly, I really didn't mean to and I do apologise; I do see that I was rude and thoughtless in my op.

Don't worry Jux, I'm not offended, just a bit mystified as to how leafy suburban East Molesey could be seen as a rough neighbourhood. I must have missed that side of it! (I never thought I'd be defending the reputation of East Molesey on Mumsnet )

astonishing some of the things one gets up to in one's dotage um, middle years () ever-so-slightly-later youth which would be mortifying to one's younger self (I am not speaking personally, oh no, I have drunk from the Fountain of Youth as well as the Font of Knowledge and am certainly not, not in a million years, fighting off wrinkles).

This thread made me giggle. Not sure where OP's friends lived but the heart of the area is pretty stunning. Big old masions/houses. The two houses of HB character from 'I came by' were from East Molesey. Would love to know where the rough area was.

@Minemine this thread is 10yrs old