Old fashioned Holidays

Long car journeys with no air conditioning or seat belts. Games like ,"I packed my portmanteau" and "I spy" to keep us entertained.
Camping or a caravan was usual.
Mum never really had a holiday as she still had all the household chores to do just in a different place.

Dad didn’t come on holiday with us as he owned a newsagent business, didn’t want to leave anyone else in charge and probably welcomed a week away from us anyway. We usually went away with mum and an aunt to small hotels on the north Kent coast and if I ever hear a dinner gong I can almost smell those evening meals again!!

Oh yes!

Picking mushrooms
Gas mantles

Lovely times

Never had a family holiday.
I have a sibling 10 years younger and my parents took them away and left me and my elder sister at home. My sister and I were teenagers so we used the housekeeping money, left by mother, to go youth hostelling.

My maternal grandparents moved to the Sussex coast when we were young, and that's where we went every year as young children. Lots of memories of that, rolling downs, then those first glimpses of the sea. Those were my earliest memorable bucket and spade days, picnics on the beach, sand in sandwiches, watching the tide go out, vast expanses of sand, digging around in rockpools. Sometimes my grandparents got the use of a beach hut that belonged to friends of theirs, I particularly loved playing house in it. I also remember my father's interminable moaning about the sand that arose at some point during the day, I was to learn later that he spent almost the entire war years in Libya and consequently had an enduring hatred for the yellow stuff! Plus as he often told my mother, he'd rather be in France where he'd had better sea side holidays with my aunt, uncles and cousins, which even then I thought was quite rude of him. When he came off the beach, he was a happier person altogether, we weren't! bored going round what he thought was interesting, he liked to visit anything old and steeped in history, one day dragged us over to Battle near Hastings to the actual field where it all took place in 1066 I was disappointed............it was just a field! in my childlike mind I thought there might be a few swords and bits and pieces of armour lying around but nothing Anyway, I've now turned into my parents and love looking at ancient sites and bits of history.

Wonderful times with my parents all over the UK. On the journey we played I Spy and the first one to see the sea got a penny! No motorways and stopping overnight in a lovely little inn enrolled to our destination. Staying in self catering cottages or sometimes B & B. My parents always found a riding stables so that we could go out hacking, we had long walks, stopping at coffee shops or tea rooms, gift shops, we played cray golf, had picnics on the beach with crusty bread and thick butter and hand sliced thick ham. Cup of tea made by boiling the kettle on a little meths camping stove, no other cuppa ever tasted the same. Wonderful memories.

we still have old fashioned holidays

I took my children to somewhere I used to go as a child and it hadn't changed at all. You still had to use the payphone for example as there was no mobile signal or wifi. Only 3 channels on the television. We played board games and games and went for long walks. They absolutely loved it

I remember cooking them sausages, scrambled eggs and beans and it was apparently 'the best dinner ever'

We used to go to Rhyl in North Wales every summer. As we didn't have a car, we went by train. There were boys at the station who could take the suitcases on a homemade cart, for 6d, to the B&B or hotel. We followed behind on foot.
When we got older we went to the Isle of Man by plane. My dad told us it was so old it had outside toilets - we believed him! Thank goodness it was only 20 minutes from Blackpool.

I remember our Grandparents used to take us to Abergele, you have just reminded me GrandmaSue

I lived in the Channel Islands. I was permanently on holiday. Lucky me.

We didn't have many but one year when I was 10 we flew to Ireland, that was very exciting, and drove to Galway and stayed with aunt on farm. Great memories. Making hay. sheep dipping, mushroom picking, warm soda bread, trips on horse and cart with my cousin in charge and seeing the wilds of Connemara. Going to the peat bogs to cut the stuff. I loved it.

Also my mother booked a flat in Bideford in my teenage years twice. Spent a lot of time at Westward Ho and tried surfing on hired boards and exploring North Devon. The best of times. The first time we went over on the ferry from nr Chepstow then the Severn Bridge opened.

Two weeks down the Clyde coast with my parents and widowed auntie. We rented rooms and Mum and Aunt Jean did the cooking. My Dad was my companion as it was such a novelty for him not to be at work . First day was usually spent seeking out the best butcher , greengrocer and ice cream parlour. If we woke to a glorious day ( didn't happen often ) I was promised a full day on the beach. Sandwiches were always tinned ( John West ) salmon with the added crunch of sand and my Mum and Aunt wore summer dresses , stockings and sandals for the beach trip - bare legs were not the thing at all . My Dad wore an open neck shirt and "flannals" which I think the less formal trousers were called. One magical year at Ayr my best friend was staying in the neighbouring town of Prestwick with her family. She was allowed to come to Ayr by herself by bus ( we were 12 ) and she found us on the beach. My Dad saw her back on the bus to Prestwick at the end of the day. Nobody had a phone or any way of contacting her parents but it all worked out fine. Happy days.

Staying in some dingy flat with a shared toilet and the so called sea view you would have to stand on top of the roof with a telescope. Nasty cold weather and swimming in a nasty grey sea. Nothing like where we went after I left home aged 18, even though we didn’t have much money.

The first holiday I recall was when we rented a caravan at Skegness. I had lots of flea bites, probably from the blankets, and topped them with a wasp sting. Oh and I was sick every day.

We used to go to a boarding house in either Blackpool or Cleethorpes. As someone said upthread, out in the morning and no returning until teatime, weather notwithstanding! Mum loved it but I think that my dad hated it as much as I did, and then, as I got older, holidays dropped off the agenda and we would go somewhere on the train for a day. As a child my head was full of Famous Five and their Cornish adventures. Didn’t have a prayer of getting there until I was in my teens, living in London and a friend and I travelled down on the train for a week staying near Penzance. I’d never seen sea so blue; and the water was warm enough to swim in. It all took my breath away.

Always a caravan in the Lake District. We didn’t have a car so got the bus,an early morning start change at Lancaster for the Lakes, all the luggage in rucksacks.Walked everywhere,fishing with Dad who hired a towing boat for the day. Washing up in a bowl outside and trips to the loo at night usually in the rain wearing a plastic mac over pjs. Sugar puffs for breakfast as a treat.Happy days.

Car-bingo, a cardboard square with little pictures of things we might see on the way to our holiday destinations!
My mum complaining about a tapping noise that was annoying her and, after going thru the checkpoints as he drove along, my dad saying it wasn't the car and we were fine. Then we went over, I think the Severn bridge, and one of the sleeping bags flew off the roof rack, never to be seen again....yes, or was the old stretchy 'spider' thing that used to hold things onto car roofs! My mum berated my dad for that for so long afterwards!! ??
My big brother suddenly keeping his mouth tightly shut for the remainder of a holiday in Cornwall as he had been sucking a stick of candy rock and had swallowed a bit that wouldn't melt - it was a front tooth!
My parents buying me a new pillow and me finding a lump in it, eventually digging out an apple core! ?
Them buying me 'The Wind in The Willows' book to read on that holiday....and it leading to my love of Willow trees forever, especially trailing over water!
Camping gaz stoves, a strange thing mum used to heat up water cup by cup to make us cuppas - an element attached to a plug!
Meeting Christopher Biggins on holiday in Romania and him helping my dad to know who to go to for decent cash exchange, they said he was famous but I didn't know him! Lol I found out who he was a few years later.
My aunty and uncle had a private hotel in Teignmouth!
Looking for Nessie in the Loch!
Oh what glorious memories, thank you so much!!! xx

Shropshirelass,
"Can you see the sea?" ??

We were lucky enough to have our own caravan, so weekends, bank holidays and long summer holidays every year, great times with loads of fun meeting up with all the other kids. Rainy days were spent playing board games, reading or a trip to the amusement arcade with our bag of three penny bits, 2d and 1d, could get hours of fun for a shilling ☺️

My granddaughter loved the old fashioned carousel at Beamish and was absolutely entranced by the movement of the horses and the barrel organ music. It’s lovely to know that modern children can still enjoy the simpler pleasures that we enjoyed

We used to go by train to the coast...caravan usually. I know this from photos but don't actually remember them even ones when I was 11 or 12.

Caravan holidays in Beer, Devon, Dad going out mackerel fishing - and mackerel fried in butter for breakfast.

I have memories of my mother packing everything but the kitchen sink. We had a very small caravan that we used for holidays - however, it was no holiday for my mother who cooked three meals a day on a small 2-ring hob and tiny oven. At least my father did the washing up (in a tiny enamel bowl). It was only years later that I realised that this was all my parents could afford so that we could have a week away.

I grew up in South Africa where my dad was in the Army. There were 4 of us children and my dad never had any money, so we never had a holiday. Then one year he managed to get a furnished house in the army barracks in place called Rhyll. It was a dump and the loos and showers were a long way from the house. I met another girl there called Rosanna. We were both 16, and we used to go down to the beach together. One night we children were all asleep and got woken up by my dad shouting urgently for mum: "Sylvie, turn off the power!!" I went to the bedroom door to look out. I could see into the kitchen and there was my poor dad completely naked, standing in the butler sink and hanging onto a pipe which ran across the ceiling. He had grabbed at it on standing up in the sink to help him get out, and could not let go as there was a live electric wire running through it. It took my mum a couple of minutes to find the switch to turn off the power and he could finally let go and turn the power back on. Poor dad was very shaky and had to go to bed at once. Luckily he survived and was all right in the morning. But my abiding memory is not of the nice beach but my poor old naked dad...