GORMAN on Tuesday

RACHEL GORMAN arrived in Nottingham from the Big Smoke seven years ago and couldn’t be happier

HAVING a wander down memory lane used to mean voluntarily digging out a photo album or scrap book and flicking through faded snaps of questionable haircuts and downright offensive fashion choices.

But now, thanks to Facebook Memories, your poorly-thought-out outfits, drunken shenanigans and squinty beach selfies of the last 10 years are thrust in your face like an over-excited granny showing off bum-baring baby photos to a prospective significant other.

Yes, the “memories” feature on the social networking site seems to serve one of two purposes: to remind you how embarrassing you were X amount of years ago and to flag up just how old you are getting.

“Nooooooo. That wasn’t 10 years ago was it?” is the usual cry of 30-something Facebook users. Yes love, it really was.

Last week, however, one memory popped up which, rather than making me cringe, left me opened-mouthed for a different reason.

There it was in black and white, an overzealous status informing the 10 percent of my “friends” who would actually care that I had made the move from South East London to Nottingham.

“I’ve got keys,” I announced. But it wasn’t the 24 exclamation marks which followed those three words that was the shock, it was the fact it had been written seven years ago.

Seven years in Nottingham. Really? How can that be? It seems like three years ago max that the news of my departure from the Big Smoke was greeted with torment and laughter by friends and family.

The phrase “Shottingham” obviously cropped up, as did eye rolls and sneers at the thought that anyone would deign to leave the money vacuum that is the Capital.

“It’s so small!” said one. “There’s nothing there,” chimed in another. “They say things funny,” was a recurring “helpful” piece of information.

And yes, the friendly abuse still rears its head whenever I utter the words “baahth” or “graahse” but seven years on, I’m pretty convinced that I’ve had the last laugh because Nottingham is actually all right so it turns out. More than all right really.

There really is something nice about being able to walk across the city centre in a lunch hour, rather than jump on sweaty tubes or jam-packed buses, desperately avoiding eye contact with anyone and everyone. It’s also nice to be able to afford to live within walking distance of work, rather than face an hour or more commute.

So yes, it may be comparatively small; no, there is plenty of stuff here to do, and well, it’s probably safest to pass on the dialect debate... but I couldn’t be happier that I made the journey “up north three to seven years ago. And I’m glad to have been reminded of that.