When I was 18, I thought nostalgia was remembering cartoons I watched a decade ago and escaping from insecure adolescence back to the sheltered innocence of an indoors childhood. I wasn't wrong, but there hadn't been enough time yet for those roots to grow to any meaningful depth. My less exciting adventures in the real world would turn out to have the more lasting impact.
It took until my 30s to really appreciate the soothing breeze of a blast from the past. It wasn't the Blockbuster escapism of Stranger Things or utopian synthwave soundscapes that did it, but rather the lightweight John Cleese extracurricular farce Clockwise (1986), which inadvertently memorialised the rural 80s England of my earliest memories, as charmingly idealised by Postman Pat. I remember my mum saying she found Life on Mars similarly nostalgic for the long-departed everyday when that came out. Middle-aged men still obsessed with old Doctor Who makes more and more sense.
More recently, catching up on John Shuttleworth's tame rockumentary 500 Bus Stops (1997) brought a similar flood of down-to-earth nostalgia for the dull background details of childhood experience, from bold floral carpets and unhealthy packed lunches to garish anoraks and charity shops you can smell, all authentically captured in first-person home video. I wonder if my family still have those.
These feelings will no doubt keep getting stronger whenever I take a retro TV staycation within the parameters of childhood nostalgia. 1997 is probably my limit, for biological and academic reasons that count for more than external definitions of eras, but that's not to say the various eras since have lacked their own kinds of nostalgia. I only have to open a lullaby app on the phone to get taken back to a recent time more magical than even my own childhood memories, and that's still going on.
Returning to my roots after a long time away has been nice, but not having any profound feelings of connection comparable to seeing a random old car in the background of a film has confirmed that any homesickness I might have is rooted in time rather than space, and I probably don't have to unrealistically save up to buy my childhood home after all. That's a relief.
It's also made me more conscious that where we are and what we do every day is already forming the nostalgia of the next generation, which it's my responsibility to make a bit more inspiring (budget permitting), even if it's still unavoidably going to include lots of bus stops. Your past is whatever you make it, so make it a good one.
