All Those Yesterdays

"Are you of a certain age? Have you reached a time in your life when just maybe you reflect on what you have attained and what the future holds? Some describe this as the male menopause that afflicts vaguely middle aged males when they hit the half century mark!


Lost youth brings back memories of the past - particularly those impressionable years around the early/middle teens. Where were you? What happened to all those young people who were your friends? What did they do with their lives? If like the writer you lived some place unusual or different then the colours of these past memories will be a little more vivid?


Picture an England of vivid green, a large Tudor mansion slumbering as it has done through the centuries - a place off the beaten track which is little known. A gem of a place that keeps its secrets to all but those who were priviledged to live there or in its grounds? Picture the youth who had the freedom to wander where he will. To hide in the grounds from friend and foe, to fish for the 'freshwater shark' on a English punt. To stand on the battlemented roof and gaze down where in past times Cromwell's troops visited.


Some say - "dont go back" - it will have changed? Well the man, once a youth did, and there was NO change! The change was in the man - the melancholy was almost overwhelming. A mental picture of himself as a youth could be conjured up with great ease. Reminders of parents long since gone - friends, neighbours - all gone either to another realm or another place.The Old House was long past its prime and the Family of Power who served Henry the VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold had long since died out - but still the brickwork, soaring windows and mighty chimneys tell a story of supposed romantic times.This unchanging panorama will always be there for me - unlike so many places there cannot be real change.
It's true the past cannot be changed and we cannot and should not dwell on it; however this trip down memory lane in company with old friends (who had accompanied me all those years ago) was an experience I will savour for many years to come.


R.J.Pratt, Harrogate, England.
 

 I wanted to add these thoughts from Richard Pratt. Richard is a friend who holds the same type of cherished memories of Old Hunstanton Hall as I, he having lived there as a youngster. And for those that knew the old hall, the tiny village, the moat, the park, and the seaside that lies beyond, there is a tie that binds, and indescribable spot in the heart where those memories continue to smoulder and burn forever in one's soul.

The familiar red and white chalk and sandstone cliffs of Hunstanton

Pensioner's Cottages, Church and Duck Pond, Old Hunstanton