Coming Home to Shrewsbury - by Laurie

Over 40 years ago (!!) my family spent a year traveling through Europe in a Volkswagen bus--all 8 of us (!!!). I was 17 years old, in what should have been my senior year of high school, and it must have been a traumatic year because I remember almost nothing.

We traveled just about everywhere in Western and Eastern Europe that year, except Greece (where there had recently been a coup and people were asked not to support the new government), Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia (which required tourists to spend a certain amount per person per day), and Scotland and Ireland (my parents waited until after we went home at the end of the year to go there).

For 5 months in the winter we lived in a house in Shrewsbury. It was a nice big house in a newer development at the outskirts of town, with four bedrooms upstairs. Pretty luxurious for the likes of us who had been camping/hosteling for months. We settled in and my brothers and sister went to school, my parents traveled around looking at sights, and I stayed home totally bored. At my age students had either left school to work or were going on to university. I wasn't allowed to work. I did have two friends, Rita and Carol, but I believe they worked during the day. The only things I remember are that there were only three channels on the telly and nothing to watch during the day, and that this was when I taught myself to knit and knitted my little brother Jon a sweater.

So, fast forward 40+ years and I'm back in Shrewsbury. I've lost touch with Rita and Carol, which I greatly regret, and have no idea where that house was or anything else here. It's still a total blank.

But, we are staying in the nicest B&B yet, had a fabulous dinner last night, and look forward to exploring Shrewsbury as tourists. It's a really charming town.

Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury.

There is also a Darwin Shopping Centre.