The Volcano Cafe in Lyttelton, pictured in 2008 having reached its 20th anniversary. It was demolished post-earthquake.

Recently, an academic friend pointed me towards the word solastalgia.

Solastalgia is a kind of homesickness for a place that no longer exists, a "place that you did not leave but that somehow left you".

Finally, a word for the Christchurch spaces, hangouts and quirky moments and places in our region's history which are now confined to memory.

Dean Kozanic Airline owner and businessman Sir Richard Branson was in Christchurch in 2003 to launch an airline. He boogied in the garden bar of Warner's Hotel.

Coined by Glenn Albrecht in 2003, solastalgia also describes a form of existential distress caused by environmental change. It was apparently formed from a combination of the Latin word solacium (comfort) and the Greek root – algia (pain).

Author Fiona Farrell uses it in her excellent book The Villa at the Edge of the Empire: One Hundred Ways to Read a City.

A recent house move prompted my solastalgia, with photographs and memories of Christchurch in the 1980s and 1990s leaping into focus.

Vicki Anderson A ticket to Radiohead's 1993 concert held at the now-demolished Warners Hotel in Christchurch.

Remember when Cantabrians wore Bata Bullets, sucked on Sparkles and washed them down with a box of ZAP chocolate milk?

We left our (glass) milk bottles at the gate. People left their doors unlocked and weren't robbed. We bought Golden Kiwi tickets, MC Hammer and his silly pants ruled the radios and cassette players of the nation. We watched Alf and the Dukes of Hazzard. We were wowed by tricks and bought stink bombs from Delano's magic shop in that curiously dark central city arcade which was also rich with an eccentric mix of religious ephemera, barber shops and cheesy nightclubs.

These are not the most important places Christchurch has lost, by any means. They're not even my favourite places. The below are just some of the many Christchurch places and landmarks that I sometimes think about which leads to a dose of solastalgia.

Anthony McKee The Firehouse Nightclub was a Christchurch nightclub in the 1980s and 1990s. Converted from an actual firehouse, it burnt down in the mid 1990s.

Some were felled by the earthquakes, others were gone long before that but they were all, at one time, part of life in Christchurch.

1. The Palladium Niteclub

The Palladium – often charmingly referred to as the "getlaidium" – opened in 1986. It quickly become a popular mainstream nightspot in Christchurch and was the first club in the city to offer a full laser light-show. Entry at the top of the stairs in Chancery Lane was always guarded by at least two bouncers.

Supplied Cantabrains dancing at the Firehouse nightclub in 1989.

2. North New Brighton Zoo

Remember when New Brighton mall was the only shopping centre open on weekends? Families went there on "Sunday drives".

Charlie, the crocodile from the North Brighton Zoo, was the instigator of many of my childhood nightmares.

Supplied The interior of the Palladium Niteclub in Christchurch.

Owned by Bill Grey, who died in 2003, aged 89, the "mini zoo" was the first in Christchurch. It closed when Grey retired in 1996. Before the zoo, an aquarium had occupied the site and had been in operation since the 1880s or earlier.

The zoo had four big cats which were rehomed from a circus – a lioness, a tigress, a black panther and a leopard. There were monkeys, bobcats, wallabies and small-clawed otters which Grey was, apparently, exceptional at breeding.

A giant feral pig which reportedly "rarely did anything except sleep" lived beside emus and weka. In 1990 three kea were stolen from the zoo by notorious animal-smuggler Freddie Angel.

When it was built, the zoo was surrounded by sand dunes. By the time I visited as a child, it was surrounded by houses and made for a quirky sight.

The Press stories of the time are full of neighbours complaining about noises from the big cats ruining their lives.

A trip to New Brighton meant a paddle in the sea, an ice-cream and a visit to the mini-zoo.

Charlie was one of two saltwater crocs imported by Grey from Australia in around 1955.

The crocodile tank wasn't that big, from what I recall, but Charlie reportedly lived there for 40 years, dying a year before the zoo closed in 1996.

It was discovered, upon death, that Charlie was actually a female.

3. The Firehouse

A popular nightclub in the 1980s and 1990s, The Firehouse was an old converted firehouse in Sydenham. Its downstairs bar was called Matches. With artfully-applied make-up 15-year-olds could gain entry and dance away an evening to Mel and Kim fuelled by raspberry and cokes, with straws. The Firehouse burnt down in the early 90s.

4. Wizards

Wizards gaming arcade on Gloucester Street, next door to the Theatre Royal, was an institution to many Cantabrians. Wizards had its own currency – silver metal discs with which we played "spacies" and fancied ourselves as pinball wizards.

5. The Doghouse / Cats Pyjamas

Dancing/seeing a gig in town – vague memories of summer raves in an old Chinese restaurant on High Street and friends who had loft apartments at the Para building. This was Christchurch nightlife in the 1990s. Climbing over the fence of the Centennial Pool for a midnight swim. Lying on the warm lights of the Christ Church Cathedral, while keeping an eye on the dodgy types who used the underground toilets in the middle of Cathedral Square (urban legend has it, there were tunnels under the Square leading from the Cathedral to the old The Press building and elsewhere). $1 salt 'n vinegar hot chips from the Cats Pyjamas at 3am. Dodging people fighting outside The Doghouse.

6. Warners Hotel

The photograph that sparked my solastalgia tumbled from a cardboard box during a recent house move. An image of a young Shihad band, perched on the hotel's stairs in the early 1990s, Jon Toogood grinning cheekily.

Thankfully there are no photographs of me dancing with Sir Richard Branson in the beer garden some years later in 2003. I wasn't special – Branson, who arrived with a posse of cabin attendants on his arm, in Christchurch for the launch of Pacific Blue, boogied with everyone that day. In the hotel bathroom I bumped into Prime Minister Helen Clark. I told her she had a bit of spinach between her teeth. It certainly made for a memorable lunchbreak.

When Radiohead played at Warners to fewer than 200 people in 1993, tickets were $28.

Where Branson and Thom Yorke once danced, now there's a Novotel.

7. Roller Dome, Hornby

The fashion was for four wheels. You shoved your foot into a metal shoe with gaudy wheels and 80s ties held your foot rigid as you moved to the disco beats as you tried to speed skate. An extra lump of plastic on the contraption was meant to help you stop but you fell down anyway. The Roller Dome, Hornby, was the place to be seen. It closed many years ago but, surprisingly, the signage is still there on Main South road, if you look closely.

The first roller skating rink in Christchurch was built in 1867. The Colosseum (on the site of New Regent Street) was used as a roller skating rink for some years. In the 1950s, the inner city's roller skating rink was on Kilmore Street.

8. The Volcano Cafe and Lava Bar, Lyttelton

My eldest daughter and I went to the Volcano Cafe in Lyttelton for lunch on Sunday, February 19, 2011. It was the first of what we'd hoped would be special weekly mum and daughter lunches there. Just two days later, The Volcano Cafe was destroyed by the earthquake. It was demolished in April 2011.

9. Occidental Hotel/Perry's Occidental Hotel

Built in 1861 and designed by Samuel Coleridge Farr (1827-1918) at 208 Hereford St, Perry's Occidental Hotel and livery stables were popular with the wives and families of the members of the nearby 1862 Christchurch Club.

The hotel became known as the Occidental in 1889.

It faced Latimer Square and was a two minute walk to Cathedral Square.

There were stories that the 35-room hotel in the middle of town was haunted by the ghost of Jane Jollie, the wife of Captain Francis Jollie of Peel Forest, who died while a guest at the hotel in 1869.

Renowned author Janet Frame was a housemaid/waitress at the Occidental in 1947.

By 1998 it was a backpackers hotel and became a little, shall we say, ramshackle. It closed in August 2006.

I saw many bands play there, but for some reason my lasting memory is of Jenny Morris singing Tears sometime in the 1990s.

Heritage campaigners certainly shed a few tears when the Occidental, the oldest surviving hotel building in Christchurch, was demolished in 2011.

10. The giant Santa on the side of the Farmers building with the disconcerting beckoning finger.

It just wasn't Christmas until you saw that giant wiggly finger.

Unlike some of the Hay's Department store rides, which are now at Ferrymead, Santa and his wobbly finger headed for the North Island.

*What Christchurch places or things give you solastalgia? Share your memories.