Preface

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There is a real sense of nostalgia around at the moment. It’s as if the future does look so rosy - so it feels more comfortable to look back at the past. 

 

Somehow the way we remember the past gives us this reassurance that life was better back then. They were the “good old days”, when we were happier;  nicer to each other, and everyone had hope for a better future.

 

However, it could be that we just get to a time in our lives when we realise that our hopes and dreams are just that; dreams that won’t become reality. We look back at our younger years for the answer as to why we are so miserable now, why we have rubbish jobs we do, why we live where we don’t want to and ultimately why we feel trapped by our own failure? We want to know why it went wrong when it all looked so promising?

 

This kind of thinking initiated my journey down a path of ‘reverse exploration’. Whilst I have been a ‘stay at home mum’ I too have been looking at my past to try and remember who I was before. I suppose I want to see if this has a bearing on who I feel I am now. In my late teens I certainly remember being full of spirit, being instinctive, but more than anything feeling confident, confident in my own skin. The world was my oyster; that I was able to achieve anything that I set my mind to doing. At that stage I was assured that I could control my own destiny and ultimately my own success. 

 

Now, after this long period at home with a small child; my confidence is seriously eroded, to the point that I don’t know who I am anymore. This has especially been the case since my child has become more independent himself. I find myself staring at the four walls thinking what happened to that girl who I once was, and how did I let her slip away?

 

I look back at my life and think to myself, did I peak between 14 and 17? Were these the best years of my life. 

 

At the end of the 1980s our family moved to Naples, Italy just as I was turning 14. It was the making of me as a person.  It gave me a much broader outlook on life, it gave me experiences that were new and interesting, challenging in a way that living in a little village in the east of the UK would just have never exposed me to. It also set me on a new life path.

 

This book explores what happened during our three-year sojourn through the eyes of a naïve teenager who was coming of age.

 

 

PS When you read these stories remember that it was pre-mobile phones, pre-you tube, pre social media, pre-blogging and vlogging so most of this is a recollection of what happened, there is very little evidence that any of it happended;  some of it might even be completely made up.