I’m feeling nostalgic, and a little sad. I’m about to say a fond farewell to one of my favourite places, Richmond in Surrey.

I’ve worked in Richmond since 2008, but have known this elegant and historic riverside town for over half a century. In the late 1960s I was a small child living in nearby Whitton, during our family’s six year exile from Wales, which ended in 1971 and a return to my hometown, Cardiff.

Those childhood memories influenced my decision to buy a flat in Teddington in 1988, after I got my first job in PR, in London. I loved having Richmond on my doorstep, and enjoyed cycling for a leisurely coffee at Alianti cafe – happily still going strong. And when I began cycling commuting to Holborn in 1989, it was a joy to pass through Richmond Park, which gave me a very different journey to work compared with colleagues enduring the Northern Line.

By coincidence, that second Richmond era also ended after six years when my job relocated to Cheltenham. Yet my relationship with this lovely place was not over. In 2008 I was approached about an intriguing job managing PR for PayPal UK – based just yards from the riverside location of the shot of me and Mum taken almost 40 years earlier. It was a joy to start work in Richmond after three years in a very different riverside office, HSBC’s 42 storey HQ in Canary Wharf.

I had a ringside seat to observe the changing seasons by the river, from my desk. And the contrasts often unfolded over a single morning. During the winter, a riverside mist often cloaked the familiar Richmond landmarks. In March 2016, I took the photo on the left above from my desk at 8.32am, with the historic bridge completely invisible. By lunchtime, the mist had gone and the bridge reappeared, as seen in the afternoon photo on the right.

When the pandemic struck in 2020, I had little idea that it would be another two years before I returned to that lovely office by the river. And with working from home now part of our working lives, I never again spent a complete week working there.

Richmond riverside – a family story

In 2012, Karen and Owen visited me at work, and we decided to recreate the 1969 photo, one generation on. It was impossible to replicate the viewing angle, which I found odd. My mother looked even smaller in the photo than in real life, whereas Karen towered over the bridge in the background. I wonder whether Dad (who I presume took the original) was standing on the wall in front of the White Cross pub? Regardless of this niggle, it was precious to have Owen captured at a similar age for posterity on film – well, pixels – in this special place. PS: I blogged about that 2012 photo here.

Back to Twickenham, Whitton and Teddington

On a gorgeous day earlier this month, I set off on my bike from the office in Richmond to rediscover other local towns that played a key part in my life. I enjoyed, as always, cycling along the Thames path to Twickenham. There was one poignant moment. Back in 1971, we had a family walk over the elegant footbridge seen in the photo above, which leads towards the river from York House Gardens. My sister, aged 17, was off on a school trip to Paris the next day, and Mum and Dad thought it would be nice to go for a walk before her trip. (I remember she brought me back a blue plastic model of the Eiffel Tower!) We often went for a drink at the Balmy Arms on Twickenham’s riverside, which I passed on my 2024 ride. Today, I am the only one of the four of us who is still alive.

Whitton memories

The first home I truly remember – and my first in England – was 12 Ashley Drive, Whitton, near Twickenham. It was a classic between-the-wars semi, with a garage at the back on a lane, which Dad extended when he bought a larger car. I vividly remember my third birthday party here in 1966 with a cake in the shape of a steam locomotive, the year before the last steam hauled express train from London. Dad and I lined our cars up outside the house: his an Austin 1100 (cars were small back then) and my precious ‘wrecker’ pedal car, which Dad found in a jumble sale in Chiswick town hall. I was disconsolate when the drive mechanism broke and Dad decided it couldn’t be repaired. I suspect a more mechanically minded parent could have fixed it, but in fairness my mechanical skills are no better than Dad’s were!

I took the second photo when I took Mum, Dad and Owen to see our old house in 2011, just after Owen turned three.

I started school in September 1968 at Bishop Perrin, a Church of England state primary school a short walk from our front door. My headmaster, Mr Davies, was also Welsh, and was resisting pressure to adopt modern teaching methods. (This was the year after the famous Plowden report into English primary education, which has been mythologised ever since.) At Bishop Perrin, I was taught to read in much the same way as my parents had been in the 1930s, with old fashioned books. It worked – I quickly became an accomplished reader. Mr Davies insisted that he would only abandon his 1930s ways of teaching reading, writing and arithmetic when the authorities could prove the new methods would be more effective. He had a point: when we moved home to Wales in 1971 I was amazed to find that many of my new school friends still couldn’t read properly.

Teddington calling…

The last call on my trip down memory lane was to Teddington, where I bought my first home in England in 1988. Elizabeth Court was a postwar block of flats set back from Hampton Road opposite the National Physical Laboratory, where radar was invented and the famous wartime Dambusters bomb tested. Mine was a sunny flat with a full length picture window looking out towards Bushy Park. Teddington was a nice place to live, with the Thames nearby at Teddington Lock – home of Thames Television – and Hampton Court a pleasant walk through Bushy Park. The only downside was the slow train service into London Waterloo. Today, my much longer journey from Gerrards Cross, Bucks, into London takes as little as 19 minutes compared with the 40 minute commute from Teddington.

Blockbuster memories

The building in the background of the photo above near Teddington station contains more memories. Now an Indian restaurant, it was a shop in 1971. One day that February I came across a wonderful money box, with tubes to hold each pre-decimal British coin. I was desperate to buy it, and imagined dropping my sixpences, threepenny bits and pennies down the tubes, but my mother refused. “It would be a complete waste of your pocket money as we’re going decimal next week!” I can’t quarrel with her logic, reflecting the thrift that came naturally from her 1930s and wartime childhood. But I still regret it. Years later, I bought a set of pre-decimal coins from the year of my birth on eBay as a belated consolation, seen above.

(I blogged about going decimal on the 50th anniversary in 2021.)

By the time I moved to Teddington in 1988, that shop was a symbol of the age: a Blockbuster video store. On many a Saturday evening I’d wander along to rent a film. If I had my eye on the latest releases, I was often disappointed – every copy had already been nabbed., leading me to make a rapid second or third choice. (Not a problem we have in the streaming era!) Like Kodak, Blockbuster failed to adapt to the digital era and today apparently just one ‘Last Blockbuster’ franchise store remains, in Bend, Oregon, USA.

Return to Richmond

After Teddington, I took my bike over the Thames on the footbridge near the Lock. This was my cycle commute to London in 1989-90, past Ham Common and climbing into Richmond Park. On the final stage of this nostalgic ride I made my way back to Richmond town centre via Sawyer’s Hill and down the hill towards the office. So many memories in a 14 mile bike ride.

Here’s the video I made celebrating my Richmond bike ride and the memories it revived. PS: do subscribe to this blog, and to my YouTube channel!