(Part One) My little town, the place I grew up in, the place I've lived in all my life - just feeling nostalgic about a good and missed childhood

The town I live in has always been a fond memory for me. I have lots of fond memories of my town. It's a little place called Beverley, which is a small town but very rich in history. Because it's where I grew up, I absorbed little and large amounts of that history, and I can tell you for a fact that it's one of the most haunted towns in the UK or maybe the world. In fact, there are books written about it called Haunting in Beverley and The East Riding of Yorkshire, the author(s) being Peter Robinson and Paul Hesp.

Peter was the one who got me interested in the history of my town, especially the paranormal side. It's exciting to say that I knew him. He actually lived on the same street as my grandma, from where she lives right at the end of the green, he lived maybe five or six houses to her left. He's no longer with us, having died quite some time ago, but he gave me and my brother a copy of his books to read. That started it for me.

A lot of things have come and gone in this town. I am not too happy about some of the stupid changes people deemed necessary, but there was a playhouse here in town, next to one of the local pubs, then called The Push. It's now called The Grapes and the renovations are an insult to its history and heritage. The playhouse was sadly closed for so long, having been first built in around 1897, opening in 1903, I think it was. It saw no use until recently when it was bought and turned into a clothes shop. (Like we haven't got enough of those damn shops already. Would it kill someone to open a HMV around here? The whole of town is clothes shops, have some damn variety!)

...Sorry. Now, where was I? Ah!

When I was a kid, maybe about five or six, I'd spend all my time with my grandma. I was a fat kid, so it made sense that we'd go into a bakery. It was either Cooplands or WoodHead's bakers, which no longer exists. The place we used to go to was a bakery named Skeleton's, which isn't as it sounds. At the moment, it's a Mountain Warehouse. Each time we went in, I'd get the same thing: a football cookie. I'd get a football cookie, an iced finger and maybe a ginger square.

There used to be a shop called Kwik-Save, which was on the site of the current WHSmiths. I'd go in there all the time when I was going through this obsessive Star Wars Lego phase, where I'd get the latest sets and build them. I'd also collect action figures, which I still own, albeit, in bits because I'm an irresponsible child. In the back, there used to be a butchers counter where I'd go in and I'd talk to one of the butchers, a lovely woman named Claire. I'd chat with her for ages, but she left one day when she got pregnant. There was another butcher named Bob who was one of the nicest guys towards me, who went on to work at the butchers near my childhood home, just down the road. We'd always chat for a while and he'd let me hang behind in the kitchen with him while he prepared meet and skinned dead animals.

When my life got a bit more complex, transitioning from childhood to teenager years, we'd always be walking along to school, me and my older brother. We'd walk together and we used to walk with some of his friends and my auntie, especially when it got incredibly icy back in 2012 or 2013. It was so icy you couldn't walk, and we had some moments where we'd otherwise appear drunk, constantly toppling over each other. It would be an easy mask for true drunkness to be slipping on black ice when it was that snowy and frosty. For me, I'd normally rush getting a morning shower and I remember this one time where I didn't have time to dry my face properly, so on the walk to school, the water on my face froze and my skin felt like it had completely solidified. I couldn't really move my eyebrows or anything of the kind.

We used to walk through North Bar, which is the last remaining guard gate of the four which were built by the town council back in the year 1409. It's still here to this day, as fine as it ever was, and when all four of them were together, they encapsulated the entire town's shopping centre, right in the heart of Beverley. Nowadays, it's a part of our long history, the gates always being open for traffic to pass through.

I've mentioned The Push further up, so I thought I'd leave it until last, as it's my most fond memory. My grandma used to work there as a cleaner. She'd be cleaning glasses and tables and checking all was in order. Naturally, I was with her most of the time. I was five back then, so I'd normally go around the counter, nick a bag of McCoys crisps and I'd go around to the far end of the pub and sit in one of the booths and watch cartoons on the tv. Anyone here remember a cartoon called George Shrinks? or Boo's Clues / Where's Boo? Those were my childhood, man. And if I wanted a drink of cola, I'd go pour a glass! It was fun. An entire bar to myself, and I was loving it.

The owners back then were really cool, too. There was this one guy I remember called Willow, who was a very nice guy, the type of large but cuddly man you'd want to spend hours of your time with. He was a fun guy that knew how to entertain. I remember him showing me how to get a champagne cork out of a bottle with only a tea towel. 'The proper way', as he described it. He was a joking man, too, which didn't make sense to me then as a stupid, dead-brain kid, but when I got older, I understood he was having me on. Here it comes:

Willow, the charismatic, bear-like joker with Keith Lemon-style locks of long hair, mentioned every day that he had a dog that he kept downstairs where the coolers were, all the beer kegs and the fridges for bottles, a dog which he referred to as Shito. (That's Shite-O). Funny bastard. I never actually saw a dog down there, but here's what I don't get - every time I'd call the dog's name, I'd actually hear something howl back at me, from where I couldn't see at the back of the coolers. I'm not joking about that, either. I heard actual, honest-to-god howling, almost like a moan. But nobody or nothing was down there. Thinking about that now gives me shivers...

So, yeah, my childhood was pretty nice for the most part. I have fond memories of growing up in this little town, seeing a bunch of stuff, meeting a lot of people who are still happily working their same jobs to this day, and it's nice. I really wish the town stayed the same was as I remembered it back then. All of these 'modernisation' changes to get up to pace with the times is a massive insult to this town's heritage and history. How can we live in a historic town if we have people, muppets on the council and general people who don't even live here to begin with, destroying our history and going out with the old and in with the new? Our town is meant to be old, that's the most important, key ingredient in what makes this town so special to me and other Beverlonians!

I seriously and sincerely wish nothing else to change. This town has been here well before the 1400's, and I'll be damned if that's going to be taken away by modernisation. We're fine the way we are. If other people don't like our town, then it's better for all of us if they stay away and mind their own business. We're happy the way we are down here, and we're proud to be a part of Beverley's history. I may have come to hate certain aspects of what this town has become, but it's still a very important part of my life. You can't tear down memories or one's fondness. Take that to your grave.

I'm unsure of what the future will bring, but if one day I still find myself tied to this place, looming around my homestead, I'd gladly be buried here. If not, I'd rather rest in an urn and sit on a mantlepiece where I can watch it evolve, hopefully for the better.