Looking Backward

Nostalgia, eh?  My life seems to be entirely about the past these days, as I plough my way back through old movies, old TV series, old magazines and old books.  Growing older does that to you, especially once you pass that point where, although you don't like to admit it, you've got more to look back on than you have to look forward to.  You find yourself trying to relive what you remember as those good times from your growing past via the media of past days.  There's comfort to be had in past.  Except, in truth, a lot of the past I find myself reliving isn't actually my past - in large part it consists of catching up with all that stuff from back then that I missed at the time.  The fact is that while we're living through something, some era, we are, more often than not, poor judges of what is actually good, in media terms, frequently missing on something that turns out to stand out the test of time in favour watching some ephemeral crap that nobody remembers today.  Indeed, much of the 'must see' TV from my youth has turned out, in retrospect, to be pretty terrible.  Of course, back then, we only had the three channels, home entertainment in the form of VHS (and Betamax) were in their infancy and there was no internet and hence no streaming.  If you didn't see something, then catching up with it later was nigh on impossible. Which is why, with a lot of the stuff I didn't see at the time, (often because I was too young to watch them, not just because I was a poor judge of their quality),  I'm finally able to catch up with, thanks to modern streaming (and associated piracy).

While I've been enjoying a lot of my catch up viewing - which also includes stuff that I did see, but was too young to properly appreciate at the time - there have been a few things that I've seen (and read) that I'd earlier experienced and enjoyed but which, to my adult eyes, now seem awful.  The things that appealed to me as a youth now, more often than not, seem clunky and either painfully naive or painfully pretentious.  But it isn't just media where I find myself getting nostalgic.  I've mentioned before those snacks and chocolate bars of yore which seem to have vanished (and often apparently completely forgotten by everyone but me) but every so often one of them will unexpectedly return.  Recently, for instance, I spotted that Rancheros had reappeared on some shelves.  If you don't remember them, Rancheros were one of the many rivals to traditional potato crisps that appeared in the seventies.  These tended to boast exotic flavours and shapes and were generally corn based rather than potato based, often produced by companies like KP, who were more closely associated with snacks like peanuts, rather than traditional crisps.  Some have stood the test of time - Monster Munch comes to mind - but many simply faded away.  Like Rancheros - which, as I recall, came in flavours like 'barbecue beef' and were advertised with a 'Western' theme.  The resurrected Rancheros, though, came only in bacon flavour and were in unfamiliar yellow packaging.  Naturally, I bought a packet.  Unfortunately, they weren't as I remembered them - they were just another bacon-flavoured corn-based snack, little different from those Bacon Frazzle type snacks that most supermarkets have own brand versions of on their shelves.  Perhaps they were always like that and it is my memory which is at fault - back when I was a kid they were the big new thing and seemed exotic and my memory has consequently conflated their novelty with their satisfaction.  

But there you go, you just can't trust memories, particularly where nostalgia is concerned.  I have to say, though, that one piece of nostalgia that hasn't, so far, disappointed me is the whole area of vintage model railways.  Thanks to the monthly local toy and train fair, over the past eighteen months or so I've been able to acquire a lot of sixties, seventies and early eighties stuff made by Tri-ang (in all of its guises, including Triang-Hornby and the current plain Hornby), Hornby Dublo, Wrenn, Lima and Mainline at bargain prices and none of it has disappointed me.  Sure, a lot of it is far cruder and less detailed than modern (very expensive) equivalents, but all of them are decent representations of their prototypes, all quite recognisable as models of their real life counterparts. They are also far sturdier than the equivalent modern product.  Of course, these were the objects of my desire as a child but back then were beyond my financial means, and those of my parents, so it shouldn't be a surprise that finally getting my hands on them gives me such pleasure.  At long last, I can achieve my childhood dream of building a layout similar to those pictured in 1970s Triang and Hornby catalogues!