Dear LPG

Isn't it funny how, now that we can get out again the streets look different but the same somehow.  After being confined to our homes for the lockdown years, when the only times that I ventured out anywhere was by car with one of my children doing the driving, I found being able to walk around the local streets again quite refreshing.

I have always lived in Lewisham, and I have seen buildings demolished and replaced, and familiar shops go missing, but when you pass them weekly and see it all happening gradually you seem not to notice the changes quite so much, and though it is all just as visible through the windows of a fast-moving car perhaps it is more difficult to notice what you are seeing.    

Perhaps when you are on the way to visit a friend or go to the shops under your own steam, you have more time to process the changes whether you are alone and they are giving you something to think about, and if you are sharing your journey with a friend or neighbour those changes sort of make their way into your conversations.

As I get around there are many local places that can trigger personal memories from years ago and if you have lived in one locality for a few years nearly every street that you set foot on holds a memory of some little incident or other. 

There is the road where my music teacher lived and the house I was brought up in although it is now a set of three flats.  I have a different memory from my school days each time I pass those school gates.  The kerb where, as a child, I tripped and fell when running too fast for my own good, and the sites where shops that I have visited and bought things that I still hold dear were, even though the shop is not there anymore.

But sadly, now that I am just getting used to it all again, I am back to hurrying my way to where I need to be, and the memories seem to have returned to wherever they all were before the pandemic locked us down which is a bit of a shame really.

We all have so many little stories we can tell, and I think that more of those stories, whatever triggers them, should be shared… 

NH, Brockley