I’ve some notion of what it is that can make a person have a fondness for a place or hold it in some sort of reverence. Take Moorends (near Doncaster) for example. Not quite my first home but the one I remember as first. I lived there until eight or nine years old, my dad worked at the mine, and so did his dad. That’s all on the plus side and I remember no negatives about the village. I later learned that at one time my great grandfather was assistant engineer at the pit and if that’s not enough I had my first beer at my Aunties wedding in Moorends Hotel. 2 bottles of Darley’s IPA at age 12 and I floated down the road afterwards. What a lovely feeling. My maternal grandfather died there in a shaft accident at the grand age of 21. One big fat negative but no slight on the village and a link nonetheless.
The mine was always fraught with difficulties, the shaft for example was designed by German Engineers but its building was held up as they went off to fight in WW1. It was plagued with water and geological faults and eventually closed altogether in 2004 after years of static maintenance, a mining population that had mainly dispersed and a fairy godmother who failed to appear and sprinkle her magic dust.
Today the village has a population of about 4500, about 500 of whom are teenagers about half being hooked on heroin. 1999 was a busy year for Moorends in the media for all the wrong reasons. The Heroin problem hit the headlines, ‘The Pied Piper has come to town and heroin is his tune …’  for example. A quick google of ‘Moorends and Heroin’ for example throws up all sorts of negative stuff.
In fact between newspapers and Wiki we discover that Moorends in 2011 had 5 drug dealers, 3 fish and chip shops, 2 pizza shops, 2 Indian restaurants and 2 Chinese takeaways and is home to one pub, and two private members clubs. I’m not entirely sure which of these can count as pluses but the next time I’m in the area I think I’ll keep on driving.