Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

How do?

Well, the job/career thread has proven an interesting and beneficial read. So I’m hoping lightning can strike twice.

This time? I’m interested in you’re home town, and what you consider interesting about. This can include adoptive hometowns. After all, I was born and spent my childhood in Edinburgh, but haven’t lived there in 29ish years!

I’ll start off.

Royal Tunbridge Wells.

Locals of note? Well, for us punk fans, The Anti-Nowhere League for a start. So local, I know their guitarist, and Animal sometimes drinks in my local. But you might be surprised that it’s also where Shane ‘manky teeth’ McGown from The Pogues was born, and Sid ‘not very good’ Vicious spent a chunk of his formative years. Indeed, legend has it he used to drink in the graveyard behind my old flat.

Nearby places of possible interest? Well, Henry VIII spent a fair while in this neck of the woods. There’s also Winston Churchill’s old home. But for me, it has to be Piltdown. You may recognise the name from such infamous hoaxes as Piltdown Man! Yep, really not that far by Car!

Feel free to create your own categories! And off you go!

Barnstaple, North Devon

Notable 'celebs'. hate klaxon Katie Hopkins and Murderess Rose West

Other things of note

Nothing, its just a fupping horrid 70's throwback run by inbred nepotism with a lovely sideline in casual Xenophobia (selling property and land to outsiders is allowed so long as you moan about it after)

Redeeming features

Everywhere around it is, by dint of not being Barnstaple, quite nice

I’m not keen on giving away personal info, but I will say it’s one of the larger cities.

We have a big river that may or may not have a lot of e-coli bacteria in it (it’s a bit of a rumour). Doesn’t stop people from going into the water for swimming or a kayak ride, but there’s an unspoken rule not to drink water from the river.

We finally have a public train system, but it likes to break down when everyone’s commuting to work. Really convenient when it does work though.

We also have a McDonald’s from hell on the shadier side of downtown. It used to be open 24/7 until the nightly (yes, every night) brawls got to be too much.

The funny thing, is that the main reason residents don’t seem to like the place is because it’s kind of... boring? Even with the stuff mentioned above, you can get by just fine if you avoid drinking the river water, taking the train, going to McDoes, driving anywhere near downtown. There are small events here and there, but they need to be advertised a bit more.

I grew up in the Everglades, grandfathered into the national Park. During my childhood the closest City turned from farms to single family housing, stop lights every block. My childhood home doesn't exist anymore.

Well, I was born in Sevastopol in Russia (although back then it was part of Ukraine). It is quite a pleasant small coastal city with a nice warm climate and surrounded by mountains, forests and an amazing coastline with beautiful cliffs and great beaches. It has a 19th century city centre that was reconstructed very well after WW2 and which could be really beautiful if there was more money for maintaining the buildings. There are also lots of ancient ruins right next to the city and scattered throughout the mountains and the Crimean peninsula, which as a kid really awakened my interest in history and archaeology. The Crimean coastline is a popular holiday hotspot for Russian tourists, so that makes nearby towns like Yalta quite fun to visit in the summer.
Overall, it would have been a great place to live, if only it hadn't been a poverty-ridden post-Soviet gakhole full of crime, corruption, decaying infrastructure and rabid nationalism. Nonetheless I have fond memories of the place. Wouldn't want to go back though.


For just over half my life now I have lived in the Netherlands. I now live in the city of Groningen, where I rent a room and attend university. It is in the northern, somewhat more rural part of the country, so it isn't as overcrowded as the rest of the Netherlands. Groningen is a really nice old city with a beautiful medieval/early modern town centre. It is home to lots of educational institutions and has a very cosmopolitan and vibrant atmosphere because of all the (international) students. I have heard somewhere that about 20% of the entire city consists of students, which is pretty amazing. There are a lot of different bars and clubs that are fun to visit, and there often are festivals as well. I am not really a fan of festivals, but hanging out with friends at different bars tasting all the different beer and whiskey is quite fun. My favourite place to visit though has to be the archaeological institute of the university. I really like archaeology and because the institute is quite small it is easy to get to know everyone and hear all about the latest archaeological news. Plus, it is also a good place to study as most of the teachers hang out there so it is easy to ask questions. Also my friends tend to hang out here a lot as well. All in all it just has a very nice atmosphere. The biggest drawback of the city is that there is virtually no nature surrounding it, as is common for the whole of the Netherlands (it is almost 100% intensive farmland). To find a proper forest that is not overcrowded you really need to across the border into Germany (which is not very far, but far enough to prevent day trips, so no picking mushrooms for me :( ). The sea at least isn't all that far away, and there is a lake that is large enough for a bit of sailing.

I'm from York in the UK. Founded by the Romans as eboracum. it served as the trade and legislative capital during their period. It remained the hub for the North throughout the rest of the ancient and through the medieval times. The vikings named it Jorvik, and it was also settled by the Norman's, and the Danes. It is a walled city and has been since roman times, although most of the remaining walls or of dane/Norman origin. It was often used as a jumping off point when we felt like going up north to have a rumble with the Scots. The city has many historic sites of interest, the walls being one, Clifford's Tower, York Castle, the shambles and York minster among others. In more modern times it was known as chocolate city due to both Terry's, and rowntrees (now nestle) having their factories there. Hugely popular for tourism, and consistently voted the most desirable city to live in in the UK (although recently it has begun changing for the worse)

The town of Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada.

Cami is the major draw, an automotive plant that started when I was young and struggles on, despite the union's seeming inability to realize the root of it's own destruction.

Situated between Windsor (Detroit) and Toronto, Ingersoll was once a major stop over point for travel between the two. Takes about an hour and a half to get to either city.

It was also the closest town to the 401 (Most-Driven highway in Canada) relative to the old tobacco belt South of us.

To the North, is Stratford, home of the Stratford Festival and a certain international music celebrity.

To the West, London has the Thames river running through it... and it's gross. You definitely should not drink the river water. I went to college there, and started my family there before coming back ot Ingersoll.

It's full of small town Ontario charm. I like living here.

Rugeley, Staffordshire (actually Brereton, put the council keeps trying to make that place extinct).

Never heard of it? Hardly surprising. Only person of note we got is the Rugeley Poisoner. At one point it was one of the biggest at most important coal mining / power plant locations in the country.

Like many other towns, the collapse of traditional industries with nothing to replace them has produced a zombie town. People are born, people die and nothing of note happens in between.

A walk through the town will have you pass charity shops, betting shops, fast food and takeaway outlets, and pubs, then begin again with the charity shops, betting shops...like a socially depressed Scrooby Doo chase scene where the back drop keeps cycling past.

The local biggest employer is an Amazon warehouse - zero hours and crap pay.

The only nice thing about the area is Cannock Chase - now that is a glorious piece of this earth worth visiting.

Oh yes! I used to love visiting my cousins when I was little. They lived in Brownhills, which is pretty close to Cannock Chase, and we always went for a picnic.

double post, sorry

I am from just outside Rosslare Harbour in Ireland. A small port village on the south east coast.

The port is our main source of employment, with ferries going to Wales and France every day. Most good jobs are down there.

We used to have a hotel and tourism industry linked to that, but nowadays there isn't much - the holels all variously burned down, got closed down, or got converted into accommodation for asylum seekers. This is sad, because they were major sources of services for the village. The swimming pool and pubs and so on used to be there. Now there is no pub in the village itself, imagine that in Ireland. This is mostly because people don't get the ferry as much any more, they fly into Dublin and head out West. Tourists rarely come down to the south east any more.

The place is pretty run down and there is a big drug problem.

We do grow a lot of apples for cider, potatoes, and strawberries. But that is all pretty poorly paid and seasonal work.

Our best feature is our beautiful beaches and coastline. I spent my childhood birdwatching, fishing and wandering along that coast.

Nobody famous comes from Rosslare and we are not famous for anything.

These days I live in Nürnberg, Germany, which is a beautiful town with a reconstructed medieval centre and obviously a lot of historically interesting things going on. Great game store, nice people and a vibrant place to be all in all. Plus we have beautiful countryside around us in the Franconian Switzerland, limestone caves and hills and huge forests, it is like something from a fantasy setting. Beer capital of Germany too (watch the other Germans dispute this!) with more breweries per square kilometre than anywhere else. I love Nürnberg!
The only thing I miss is the sea!

Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. Just over the Forth from Edinburgh.

It's the ancient capital - I think it's still technically the capital but that may well be tourism brochure misrepresentation - and Robert the Bruce is buried there (or parts of him, anyway).

It has the original Carnegie Hall. It was a mining town and famed for textile production (linen, particularly). Now it's much like every other large town. Dying high street. Major employees aside from the state are probably Amazon and Sky.

Not many famous folks I'm aware of. Andrew Carnegie is presumably the most famous. A few rugby and football internationalists. Iain Banks, Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull, and The Skids, Big Country, and Nazareth.

queen_annes_revenge - I visited York last year. Fantastic place with incredible history. Must be a great place to live.

I’m lucky enough to live in Auckland, New Zealand, although I grew up in a coastal town a couple of hours north of here. Auckland is consistently voted one of the top 10 cities in the world to live in by various publications, although that kind of measure is always subjective. We have a beautiful harbour, with forests and beaches not far from the city. Some of the nicest beaches are actually in the city suburbs - in fact I have a very nice beach a short distance from my house.

Being the largest city in the country, there is plenty to do and see here, although if you are used to the pace of somewhere like London it might seems a bit laid back. The lifestyle here is what makes it so popular - lots of outdoor living and a (mostly) mild climate.

Like any busy city we have our problems - congestion, crime in poorer areas and a very high cost of housing (the average house price in Auckland is currently around £500k or $600k USD, double that where I live).

Still, I’m very happy here and would recommend it to anyone, especially as part of a visit to NZ - make sure you get out on the harbour and visit one of the beaches - either on the calm east coast or the wild and dramatic west coast (well, once we are all allowed to travel again anyway...)

 Gordy2000 wrote:
queen_annes_revenge - I visited York last year. Fantastic place with incredible history. Must be a great place to live.

I’m lucky enough to live in Auckland, New Zealand, although I grew up in a coastal town a couple of hours north of here. Auckland is consistently voted one of the top 10 cities in the world to live in by various publications, although that kind of measure is always subjective. We have a beautiful harbour, with forests and beaches not far from the city. Some of the nicest beaches are actually in the city suburbs - in fact I have a very nice beach a short distance from my house.

Being the largest city in the country, there is plenty to do and see here, although if you are used to the pace of somewhere like London it might seems a bit laid back. The lifestyle here is what makes it so popular - lots of outdoor living and a (mostly) mild climate.

Like any busy city we have our problems - congestion, crime in poorer areas and a very high cost of housing (the average house price in Auckland is currently around £500k or $600k USD, double that where I live).

Still, I’m very happy here and would recommend it to anyone, especially as part of a visit to NZ - make sure you get out on the harbour and visit one of the beaches - either on the calm east coast or the wild and dramatic west coast (well, once we are all allowed to travel again anyway...)

Amazing! Yeah it's a nice city. I don't live there any more.. I'm currently living in Oxfordshire, which is also nice, but I never tire of going back to my hometown.

I'd love to visit NZ! it was never something I'd really considered, but then I saw the lotr films and the landscape looks amazing, so I'd like to go, maybe visit hobbiton. Plus I think the Maori culture is cool, and I always enjoyed watching the all blacks. My best pal spent a year there travelling, and actually met his wife there (although she's also British not NZ)

Not far from you, originally. Gillingham. The Kent one, not the dumb hard-G one in Dorset. More specifically, the satellite town of Rainham. Obviously I mean the one in Kent, not the crappy one in Essex.

One toyshop had some Games Workshop stuff when I was young, then I had to switch to making trips to Maidstone for the GW in Pudding Lane. Went there regularly until I was 17 or so. Over fifteen years later, I was in GW Bluewater and the manager there remembered me, despite the fact I had gone from long metal-hair to a shaved head!

I spent a lot of time in historic Rochester, famed for its Dickens museum and a kick-ass castle and cathedral. I mainly went there for the second-hand bookshops. There were five of them at one stage, plus a comic-shop. Only three now, and none as good as they used to be.

Rochester seemed nice, a friend of mine used to live there. Sadly he passed away last year, so don't imagine I'll be back there for the foreseeable...

 Fifty wrote:
Not far from you, originally. Gillingham. The Kent one, not the dumb hard-G one in Dorset. More specifically, the satellite town of Rainham. Obviously I mean the one in Kent, not the crappy one in Essex.

One toyshop had some Games Workshop stuff when I was young, then I had to switch to making trips to Maidstone for the GW in Pudding Lane. Went there regularly until I was 17 or so. Over fifteen years later, I was in GW Bluewater and the manager there remembered me, despite the fact I had gone from long metal-hair to a shaved head!

I spent a lot of time in historic Rochester, famed for its Dickens museum and a kick-ass castle and cathedral. I mainly went there for the second-hand bookshops. There were five of them at one stage, plus a comic-shop. Only three now, and none as good as they used to be.

Ahhh, Pudding Lane! Until RTW got its own, that was my local!

Rochester is lovely. I walked down to it when I was on my JCB course at chatham barracks. had some nice vintage shops and historic architecture.didnt get to visit the castle but it looked nice.

I'm London born and bred, but I've live in various places including Liverpool and Tokyo, which have given some perspective.

My home since 2012 has been Henley-on-Thames. It's a town which doesn't know if it's posh or not, thanks to a mixture of wealthy/old residents and ordinary people trying to get by.

In my view the town is declining, despite being the site for a number of major rowing and musical/literary festivals.

Yeah henley is an odd one! It's known for the posh regattas, and when I was a young singly based at benson the drinks there were expensive. Now I'm back at benson married with kids, and visiting there, it does seem more run down. I take my little girl to the park by the river sometimes.

Originally I'm from Walton-on-Thames in Surrey. It's just on the south-west edge of the Greater London sprawl.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton-on-Thames

It's nice enough, *very* expensive though. Claims to fame? Various bits of Monty Python were filmed there. Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins) is from Walton-on-Thames. And allegedly we had the first disco in the UK...

The house prices in Walton drove us out though. We now live in Chandlers Ford, which is in Hampshire just between Southampton and Winchester, and is where my wife originates from.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler%27s_Ford

Chandlers Ford is a nice suburban town with lots of trees, good schools, good transport and so on. Placed 6th in a list of the most desirable places to live in the UK a few years ago...

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/15125598.chandlers-ford-town-named-one-of-most-desirable-in-the-uk/

I'm really struggling on the claims to fame. Apparently the fella that played Lou Carpenter in Neighbours was born here? And Isaac Newton lived here for a bit.

It was rumoured to be a hotbed of swinging in the 70s - 80s or so, but if it's still going on they don't invite me...

I'm from the most western town of Germany, Aachen (also know as Aix-la-Chapelle). It is an hour drive from cologne (which some of you might know).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aachen

Aachen has a rich history, and was the prefered residency of Charlemagne (Karl der Große in German). Most of the emperors of the holy roman empire were crowned kings of germany here.

Nowadays it is known for it's (allegedly) elite university specialising in engineering.

I live in San Francisco, California.

There's nothing for you here, don't come. We're full!

WE'RE READING, WE'RE READING, WE'LL KICK YER FETHIN HEAD IN

Or so the song goes. No, I don't come from the wastelands of Gorkamorka. This is the fearsome battlecry of the people of my hometown, Reading (pronounced red ing (listen, I know it's weird, alright, blame the Anglo-Saxons, not me)). What it lacks in wit, eloquence, or poetry, it makes up for in ferocity.
Or it would, if the football team in whose name it's sung weren't totally forgettable rubbish. Which they are. But there's a certain aspirational charm in it - a bunch of past-it skinheads pretending to be harder than they are, while all secretly switching their true football allegiances (listen, this is a really big deal in the UK, and you don't really see just how obsessed brits are with a childrens ball game until you leave the country for an extended period of time) between any of the top 4-or-5 premier league clubs at that specific moment in time. And if that isn't the heart and soul of my hometown, I can't tell you what is.

Reading is kind of stuck. Not like Hull stuck. Hull is flung far away from anything. When the Romans reached the south bank of the Humber, they looked across at Hull and said
"Nah, lads, not worth it, that. Wait until whoever's the Emperor by the time out messenger gets back to civilization tells us to cross. We'll stick it out on this side for a bit." and probably promptly looked at the freezing grey marshland all around them and wished they were back in the Mediterranean, warm sun, fine wine, the sea breeze and sparkling azure seas, the welcoming arms of a buxom...

*ahem* Yes! Reading!

Reading's caught between the dizzying academic spires of Oxford, the glitz, bright lights and beautiful people of London (also pollution and crime and coke), the seaside to the south presumably (old people live there I think) and then the Hardy-esque idyls of the southeastern countryside. So it's safe to say that anyone of any interest gets up and sods off to somewhere actually interesting. The writer Jerome K. Jerome once said of Reading, that at least "it had the good grace not to rear it's ugly head from the banks of the river Thames." And like, he wasn't wrong.

To really breakneck it through Reading's history, essentially for almost it's entire existence, it's been a feeder suburb of London. There's some pretty clear evidence that the Romans used it as such, and later the Abbey trading nexus made it pretty significant in medieval England - so much so that kings were buried here.
Unfortunately, none of the cool ones, but we can't all be winners, can we? Of course, being attached to any kind of religious institution is a bit of a risk in these misty islands, so when the reformation rolled about, Henry VIII decided to set it all on fire for a bit. While the English were doing Book Wars: My God Disagrees With Your Interpretation of Some Translations in The Book 2 - Succession Crisis and also Give Us All Your Money But Not For the Unethical Reasons That Other Lot Want Your Money there was a bit of warring, and some people got roasted alive over books, as was the fashion at the time.
Bit of industrialization, sent the Berkshire Regiment to the Anglo-Afghan War to abandon them to die in the desert in order to rescue some guns instead, all in the name of the 'Great Game', got bombed like 1 time in the war (2) and then pretty much now. The rich make their money in London, everyone else makes their lives more comfy. Homeless population is booming, and there's never been a better time to get stabbed by someone trying to impress someone in London who they sometimes get drugs off via Whatsapp.

In terms of Art and Culture... as I said, most people just toddle off down the road, but we can boast here and there! The prison that held Oscar Wilde for... various trumped up nonsense? The School notorious society-lampooning satirist Jane Austen attended, and the ww1 poet Wilfred Owen, among others who aren't as interesting to me. Oh, and Ricky Gervais and Kate Winslet. They were here for a bit before they left and now live elsewhere. We've got that one music festival which is really great if you haven't finished your GCSEs, and then is a bit crap after you've finished your A Levels, but then again, what isn't?

Do I hate Reading? I'm certainly mean about it. But to be honest, having lived in a few other places, and traveled around the UK a fair bit. Nah. It could be much worse. I'll keep coming back, but only for friends and family. I love the people there that I grew up with, and in that sense, it'll always kind of be home. The skate parks, the dodgy off license that used to sell us beers when we were definitely of age, no law breaking here, the odd patches of woodland, the shopping malls we used to loiter in and stuff like that. But a bunch of those places aren't there anymore. People have moved away, myself included. But I'm lucky. I've got the internet. At the push of a button, I can talk the same stupid nonsense with the people that I love, and it's usually as if I'm back in that crap town center, skint and adolescent and talking utter bollocks.

Waaaghbert wrote:
I'm from the most western town of Germany, Aachen (also know as Aix-la-Chapelle). It is an hour drive from cologne (which some of you might know).

Went there on a school trip (from the UK) 25-odd years ago. Only thing I remember was it was a very long bus trip.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Yeah henley is an odd one! It's known for the posh regattas, and when I was a young singly based at benson the drinks there were expensive. Now I'm back at benson married with kids, and visiting there, it does seem more run down. I take my little girl to the park by the river sometimes.

Marlow is nicer, but 8 miles further away from Benson than Henley.

East Sparta Ohio... only 4 things to do here. We work, We Drink, We Feth, We Fight.

It is a fairly small township of about 800 people. Grew up here, but traveled the world and lived in Colorado for years. I live about 6 houses away from the house that my grandfather was ACTUALLY born in... that is how they did it in 1926. It is mostly a small farming community. Corn, soybeans, dairy cows, meat cows, wheat, and hay. Most of us have small gardens in our back yard.

Not much to do here in town but we are about 20, 25 minutes away from the Pro-Football Hall of Fame. If you are a fan of American football, then you will know what used to be called Fawcett Stadium is now called Tom Benson Stadium, and a little fun fact: That football stadium is actually not owned by the HoF, but it is owned by a High School... the very one that I teach at. Oh, and I hate cities. I will work in one but refuse to live in one.

Love the reference to Dune... Epic.

I was born and raised in New York City, so you all already know about it.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Yeah henley is an odd one! It's known for the posh regattas, and when I was a young singly based at benson the drinks there were expensive. Now I'm back at benson married with kids, and visiting there, it does seem more run down. I take my little girl to the park by the river sometimes.

Marlow is nicer, but 8 miles further away from Benson than Henley.

I havent been there yet. Me and the family will be avoiding towns for the near future, but will be exploring the Oxfordshire countryside.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ouze wrote:
I was born and raised in New York City, so you all already know about it.

Tell us about your experience and or opinions on the place though?

Burgess Hill, around 10 miles north of Brighton

Famous individuals...none

Highlights...none

Local news...local council have spent £65 million on a redevelopment no-one wants that should have been completed last year, the only progress is that the abandoned function hall has been demolished, the rest of the project is on hold.

Overall it's not too bad a suburb town, good for commuters and some nice scenery. Now I'm living in London however I do miss it more.