The Little Voice - Nostalgic Reminiscing
Funny what sets it off. A smell. A sound. A touch. A taste. Something little that you see. Maybe out of the corner of your eye. Perhaps Superman on the screen. Maybe a rocket shooting into the sky. It’s 1969 again, and JFK sent a man to the moon.The year I was born. I don’t remember it at all. It lives in me though, in the stories that were shared.
Stories my mum told me about the lead up to my life. Different stories at different times to the ones dad shared. Sometimes they’d come together and the stories grew into family recollections. A time passed with a smile shared. That connection. That glint in the eye.
My Grandfather
I caught that glint early on in childhood from my grandfather. And the nostalgia I feel in this moment is oh so strong. The depth of emotion kept locked in my heart. It is the immense deepness of love shared between a grandfather and grandchild. THE ME, I was back then when I was a child, locked it away knowing its importance.
It is also the first real pain of a young one’s innocence. The loss of a loved one. No more large, gnarly hand to hold.No more knee to sit on. No more candy given when mummy’s not looking and a cheeky grin that says we share a secret. Just an empty room and a knowledge that he is gone. No one says he’s gone but their lack of words is deafening to a little girl’s ears.
As I look back with real, immense deepness of love and pain, I know that the warmth I feel inside is because at some other level my granddad let me know everything was okay. It was just his time to go. His going would be one without regret. It is a lasting feeling, this one of nostalgia.
Kentish Town
Strong... Deep and powerful as the stories that connect me to my identity. Julia Parker christened in the C of E church in Kentish Town. My family’s parish.
The Parker children all went to Kentish Town, Church of England Primary School. Dad went there, my sister went there, my brother and then me. A little line of ancestry. My roots from one side of the family. My paternal roots. Another set of grandparents.
Nostalgia isn’t to be thought of as one emotion but instead a tapestry of them. A smorgasbord of tastes. A tangible tactility of textures. A cacophony of orchestras. A garden of bouquets. All our senses setting us off to a time and space located within. A memory that is filled with a real, immense deepness of love and pain. The pain is on a spectrum that sometimes shows up as a small ache for times gone by.
School Days
A bell rings in the background and suddenly a familiar tune transports you back to your childhood school days.
Yes, that is my primary school and those kids went there with me back in a time where life still felt carefree. A slight twinge of nostalgia set off for me. I watch the video hungrily, half seeing, half remembering another time in space. A slightly older version of me.
Another tune. Same time but different space and another version of the childhood me remembers...
Headstone Lane
Every Sunday in the summer we drove over to Headstone Lane, where my dad and brother played cricket. My mum sat in a deck chair nattering to all the other wags of the team. She would have a picnic hamper full of supplies for the day and I would pop back to her intermittently for refreshments and a breather.
Beyond that, I would be lost in this wonderful space of freedom playing every imaginable game with my small cohort of friends. My nostalgic reminiscing always remembers this time filled with sunshine, blackberries, grass stains and bluebell woods - a magical dwelling of believed in fairies. A time where my rose-tinted spectacles extinguish all pain and turn up the volume to the laughter and fun times we had.
The Railway Club
Same time, different space. Friday evenings and now my memories take me to the Railway club. Dad calling the bingo and mum sitting with friends, dressed up with a bit of red lippy. I snuck in occasionally, in the breaks, to get some money for a Coca Cola and a packet of crisps. Then I’d dash back to the games room where the other kids and me hung out.
Different kids to the ones in Headstone Lane and my primary school. Some were older. And meaner. This nostalgic interlude holds a bit more pain. It was my first taste of not being liked, of being picked on. It was never too intense. Mummy and daddy were never far away. But my memories here feel colder...darker. The sun has gone down and the winter months have taken over in this theatrical interlude of childhood memories.
By my early teens, and possibly a little before, I begged off going to the club on a Friday night, content to stay at home and read a book, listen to some music or watch some tv.
There are still fond memories here though, of playing run-outs, playing pool, playing Space Invaders and Pac-Man on the new fangled arcade machines that ate up my dad’s coins. Spending long days with my dad as he polished the floor of the dance hall; filling paper bags with oranges, apples and a Twix bar for the children’s Christmas parties, and generally being allowed in no go areas for other children because it was day time and we were there as workers.
Saturday night at the Railway club was different too. This was a time of music and dancing. Watching my mum and dad glide across the dance floor in my mind’s eye brings up a small lump to my throat and a glistening moisture to my eyes. A time of exquisite beauty and a sadness that it has gone, never to return, but always the warmth of gratitude that it was once upon a time mine. All mine.
This to me is what nostalgia is. Parts of oneself that are held within. Memories that were once so real that they became locked inside with an immense deepness of love and pain and thankfully I am fortunate to be grateful for all mine, even the darker ones.
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This week's word is:
Nostalgia
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Oh gosh MADNESS - they were so great!!!! A big part of my teenage years :)
Mine too! Proud of my 'Baggy Trousers' claim to fame. 😁
oh this was beautiful!
I so enjoyed traveling through time with you... felt like I was remembering a movie that I had seen! i feel a little bit exhausted.. hehehee need to cry or laugh or touch the pages of an album or hug someone :)
so lovely :)
I'll take some virtual hugs, if you happen to want to throw them my way. x
i sent one... but you have to find it ;)
Wrapped around me snuggly, thank you very much. It didn't hide at all. Came straight to target.
Can you feel yours?
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This made me smile. Thank you.
As always, FABULOUS!
That was a fun ride through your nostalgia, Julia :) I do remember the day of the moon landing - I remember every single moment of it even though I was 4 years old - whoa! My mother said, "This is history being made - remember every minute" and I did!
Beautiful memories you shared and I guess I now know a little more about you, too! :)
What a lovely surprise on a Monday morning.
Thank you. :D
I'm just going to live my nostalgia out through your childhood memories, Julia xo
Great post. It is so good when we have pictures and videos to relive the past.
I recently had my mother visiting for the holidays (she is 79) and she was telling me all these stories of when she was little and about allthe relatives I did not know and it was so sad that no pictures exist of those days/people. It was fun, though to try to picture everything based on her descriptions.
"You want to know what your grandfather looked like? think about your uncle, X, only younger, without beard and taller".
We tend to remember the past as a better time/life (except for the clothes and hairstyle, whihc most people find embarrassing some years later). :)
Do you see that past as better than your present? Will the youth in your family see this present with the same longing in, say, 40 years?
I'm not sure that I see it as better, just long gone. The longing is for the people more than the time.
I agree with the old hairstyles. I had some horrific ones. Lol! Can't imagine what I was thinking.
Hahaha. That's what everybody says. The thing is that every body was thinking they would look their best. It was stylish then :)
Sunday cricket, that really feels like days gone by in itself, now it is Sunday online tournaments or netflix and chill haha. Great walk down memory lane, I wonder are there nostalgic triggers one would avoid...
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