Magic on the edge of town: what remains of a childhood on the fringes

Our author returns to the playgrounds and woods of his childhood – and discovers how sobering reality can be.
By Robin Prottung (text), Noah Hermann (photos)

For many people, the subject of childhood opens a big chest full of memories. For some, the chest is covered in dust; for others it is opened regularly. Occasionally there is a heavy lock on it that is never touched. But what happens when you go back to the places where today’s memories were made? When I close my eyes and think back to my childhood, a thousand thoughts shoot through my head – small fragments, scenes and experiences that come together into a large mosaic. A mosaic that gives me a warm, familiar feeling.

My little village was a world of its own.

That carefree feeling, which as a child I did not recognise as such. Everything was big and important. Which footballer I wanted to be on the pitch, whether the other kids would find our hideout in the woods, or who could ride our bike track the fastest. In my child’s mind, my universe could not have been bigger. My home village on the edge of a big city. The city was as far away as another planet.

My little village was a world of its own. In my memory I was outside every day, exploring this world with my friends. Days when it rained, days when I was ill, or days when I wasn’t allowed out do not exist in my memory. Only in hindsight do I really grasp the greatness of these small things. Being active all day, free and unconstrained. I had a wonderful childhood – in a fringe area that was everything to me.

**‘Days when it rained** do not exist in my memory.’

**An old power line** against a cloudy sky.

But when I return to these places today, I am disillusioned. Woken up. Or do I simply understand that my huge universe of back then is just a small place where my parents bought a house and settled down? I try to see this world through the eyes of my younger self. I find it very hard. I feel as if I am in an apocalypse film in which people return to places that mean something to them but that have now been completely destroyed or have changed beyond recognition. Nothing has the magic I felt as a child any more.

The deep forest where we played hide-and-seek seems bleak and cold. The kickabout pitch, which in my head was a huge stadium, is now just a cage of cold metal bars. And where our bike track was, I can only guess. I walk in the footsteps of my memories, but I can barely make out those footsteps any more. I see no children playing anywhere. Their universe is probably in their smartphones or a video game. All these small, wonderful memories that made me the person I am today have faded into an ever paler thought.

The kickabout pitch, which in my head was a huge stadium, is now just a cage of cold metal bars.

Perhaps I simply have to understand that my world has shifted. The centre of my life, with all the magic of its time, is now somewhere else – magic I may only recognise as such in 20 years’ time. The beauty of simplicity during my student years. The freedoms I have now, compared with a nine-to-five job, a house, a wife and children. Memories I will one day look back on are being made right now. These memories are not tied to the place where they were made; they blossom in all their splendour in my head. And they will do so for ever.