Nah, you're not the only one, ol' buddy. Hey, if I'd have been living in the UK, you'd probably have run into me on one of those outings. Incidents that had an impact on us (whether good or bad) seem to stay with us maybe all our lives. I'll always remember many years ago - I was maybe 6 or 7 - when my Dad made me give up some little treasure I liked and that had taken me a bit of time to acquire (at least in my limited idea of time back then) to a mentally challenged boy my age we met at the beach. I wasn't mad at the boy at all but I was at Dad for making me give it up. I always remembered that as it was traumatic for me at that time.number 6 wrote:
Since I visited Gatewood bridge in 1980, I have returned to the NF to look for/visit F5 locations on numerous occasions. However, this hasn't been done religously every year! There's been gaps of years due to work commitments, etc, I first visited the Enid Blyton Society forums in 2008 & was amazed to find other people doing exactly the same as me! I thought I was the only nutter, sorry, person to be looking for the F5 locations!
And I also remember the great feelings I got from such things as immersing myself in wholesome adventures like the Famous Five. I would give anything to be able to travel and immerse myself in that world once again by seeing where the series was shot, or meeting some of the people involved, even fellow fans. I also like working out puzzles, especially visual ones, and what better kind than trying to figure out set locations from 40 years ago in the past? Finding this tree or that block in the same place it was set in film back then engages the spirit of discovery. I bet even Gary feels the same when he revisits those places and perhaps remembers things that he had forgotten.
One of the first books I can remember reading (and still my favorite) is Robinson Crusoe. Kinda still feel like him in many ways. If our "inner child" still remembers traumas of long ago, why not the good stuff too and wanting to recapture those feelings we had as kids? The bad stuff going on in the world today (which we have seem to have absolutely no control over) seems to sap all the fun out of everything, but that can't stamp out the memories that our "inner child" held. At least, I hope not!
So no worries about being a "nutter". There are lots of us, probably many times more than are even here on this forum. Thanks for your input and your great stories. I wish you'd have gotten to meet Michele too, so you could tell me about her. She is someone I'd always hoped to meet and one of the reasons I actually found this forum as I was researching what she was up to today.