But probably most people are glad to have escaped their old patch, which they found stultifying and restricting and thwarting their full potential in life.
Personally I have no nostalgia for the sleepy suburb I was brought up in. I was only too happy to spread my wings and move somewhere more exciting.
I spent my first 13 years in a typically boring London suburb called Harrow. For nine years after that I lived in Pinner, just north of Harrow.
Nothing of any interest happened in either place, unless you count the annual Pinner Fair, which took over the main street for a day, or the odd drug-taking scandal at Harrow School.
When I was offered a journalistic job in London at 22, I seized it and moved to the big bad city, which proved a huge shock after my previously sheltered existence. Rough sleepers, squats, druggies, flamboyant homosexuals, militant feminists, sexual orgies, outrageous art, wild rock concerts. It was quite an eye-opener for this naive suburbanite.
I stayed in London for another 31 years, by which time I was thoroughly steeped in its general craziness and creativity, and going back to the suburbs would have meant being a dolphin trapped in a fish tank.
Then I moved to Belfast, even farther from my original home, and discovered the different blend of craziness and creativity that prevails in Northern Ireland. And after 18 years in this extraordinary city, I have even less desire to return to a soporific English suburb. I shall be very happy if I never see Pinner again, ever. Or its dull, sedate streets.
