EDITOR'S PERSPECTIVE: Visiting old haunts helps clear up a few issues from the past

I had been back, but this was a proper return, a 26,000-step delve into the past with a few demons to confront.

There were, in my mind at least, difficulties to overcome, but it transpired they were more to do with places than people.

Unsaids and unseens lurked around every corner, Avoidance was a possibility but just because somewhere may not serve up a memory to treasure doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go back and face up to it.

From Kingsbridge to Plymouth and Exeter to Exmouth, pubs I used to drink in, places I walked and worked and houses in which I lived.

Some weren’t there anymore, demolished in the name of progress or were hidden within a mass of new-build student accommodation, others had somehow survived, or had perhaps been overlooked in favour of bigger targets for change, while the odd one had altered beyond recognition.

Staring into rooms in which I used to live, spent time in with people I no longer keep in touch in. Looking through pub windows, entering old favourites and remembering conversations and events which now mean little or nothing or perhaps contributed to the shaping of lives.

A turn round a corner to be greeted by the shock of a building I had forgotten ever being in and maybe what happened in there, a light flickering on along the seafront triggering a muscle memory of what appeared at the time to be sad and lonely walks to nowhere, but have since evolved into picture books telling stories of opportunities spurned or not noticed, regress, progress, desires to start a new life, setbacks and development.

I stared at people I perhaps once knew 20-25 years ago, but couldn’t quite place, a few I did know and could place, and maybe missed by metres or seconds others I would have been delighted to meet again and some I would not.

The general mapping in my mind of each place to which I went was not inaccurate, the structure was similar to how it was but spattered with additions and subtractions which caused confusion and hindered accurate recounting of my ghostly steps in time.

Had I kept a diary would my journey have been more reliable? I don’t think so because, unless it’s a straight recount of your days then, like history, the pages would be dotted with opinion and judgement.

That applies to people and places and it certainly did as bitterness and clouded judgment swallowed my 1990s and dropped both on the wrong side of the dividing line between good and not-so.

I walked round the catacombs and back streets of Exeter, the cliffs and former docks of Exmouth, stared in offices in which I wrote front page stories and suffered mental agony, trekked the cobbled alleyways of Plymouth’s Barbican and ventured inside the pub in Kingsbridge which dealt me a near fatal blow courtesy of some harsh locally brewed cider.

Meetings were arranged with people I hadn’t seen in years and they went well, I avoided at least one person I shouldn’t have and felt the sadness of some for who eras of their lives were ending and in a way putting an end to my experiences with them.

If I didn’t before, I know now that time puts perspective and meaning to the phrase “old haunts” and we are all contributing to new ones.