Old fashioned Holidays

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Oh yes!

Picking mushrooms
Gas mantles

Lovely times

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!!

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.

Caravan holidays. Picking mushrooms in the field for breakfast.
The smell of bacon wafting over the campsite
Long walks - me on my brothers’ shoulders
The smell of the gas mantles.
Picnics on the beach and sand between my toes.
The sound of rain on the roof.
Cosy and happy and warm.

We would all travel in my dad’s small car down to the south coast. We usually stopped in the New Forest for me to be sick. We stayed in a hotel in Sandbanks, before it became swanky. We became friends with the owners’ son who would come onto the beach with us.

There was a hut at the end of the garden which was for the kids to play in. I think there was a snooker table. We sometimes put on small shows where individuals did ‘a turn’. I can always remember my Dad reciting ‘There’s a one eyed yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu’.

As a treat would would go by bus to Forte’s in Bournemouth for a knickerbocker glory. ?

Back in the early fifties, my Dad would hire a holiday home in Jaywick. I was always permitted to invite a school friend to come with us to keep me company, also having my same age cousin (who came from a one-parent family).

My Dad would only stay the first week as he needed to get back to London to work. My poor Mum was left with us, we were instructed to help her. Our main job was to go to the Stand pipe to get fresh water each morning. The loo was outside and not attached to the mains, and was the home to a multitude of spiders etc.

We kids loved it there, would spend long summer days (in my memory it was always hot sunshine then), on the beach around 'Uncle Kens' beach 'theatre. Running in and out of the sea, picking our way between zillions of jellyfish, hiring one of the double cycle type thingies which could take three of us. Would stay for three or four weeks. Not sure how my Mum coped, the only thing on in the evening was the local pub - and my Mum was quiet, shy and tea total!!!! Sometimes we would go into Clacton to the show on the Pier.

We never went on holiday, Dad had a small holding and the animals couldn’t be left.

My first proper holiday was a week at Butlins with a girlfriend after I started work. I was 17.

We often used to go to Cornwall, in the days before the motorway, and I remember travelling during the night because it took so long. I'd have my pillow and blankets on the the back seat of Dad's old Ford Consul car, so I could sleep, along with lots of books and toys. It was always so exciting! We'd arrive early in the morning, and we'd book into a B&B, or onto a caravan site. Such happy memories.

When I was older, mum & dad started taking me abroad, but when we had our own children my husband & I couldn't afford to go abroad when they were little, so we went to Cornwall & Devon instead, and looking back, they are some of the happiest and fondest memories I have.

Caravan at the back of Polzeath. We had our favourite spot on the beach which of course was far less crowded. We used to hire surf boards and windbreak. Buy pots of tea on a tin tray from the cafe and Kelly’s ice cream from the van driving around on the beach, my favourite was a cornet with a dollop of clotted cream on top.
Pasty for lunch.

A bus with wooden seats took us to Wadebridge or to Rock and across the river to Padstow. Or up to Port Isaac or Delabole - my home village.

My dad had a motorbike and side car but when he bought his first car, Morris Traveller, we went to the same B+B in Sennen, Cornwall for the same 2 weeks for 6 consecutive years starting in 1959.

It took him 10 hours to drive there from Derbyshire.

The owners, Mr and Mrs Waller became good friends of my parents. I remember them taking us to the airbase there to a fancy dress dance.

Our beach every day was Porthcurno. Almost deserted in the early 1960s.

Thank you for starting this thread beswitched. Lovely memories

I’m enjoying reading all these holiday memories. All our summer holidays were spent on my maternal grandparents farm in the west of Ireland.

We spent all day playing in the fields, collecting eggs, bottle feeding orphan lambs, helping to milk the cows etc.

My Gran made 2 large soda loaves and treacle bread in the open turf fire every day. She had a large butter churn and the cousins all stood in line to take turns of winding the handle for her while she made lovely fresh butter. Their field behind the house had a plentiful supply of spuds, cabbages, carrots, lettuce and onions. I’m sure it was a chore to go out in all weathers to dig up potatoes etc but on holiday it was a novelty and we just loved it.

No running water in the house, it was carried in buckets from a well half a mile along the road.

That was the only holiday I experienced till I was a teenager, we went every summer and I loved it. Ireland is still my favourite holiday destination and I go every year. Or at least I did before covid scuppered it for us.

Some lovely memories here. We sometimes rented a caravan but other times we had a farm holiday, just BnB in the farmhouse, often with other families staying there, too. We went for walks in the countryside or visited local attractions. We always looked forward to our annual fortnight away and Dad would collect chocolate bars and sweets in a 'holiday tuckbox' for weeks before we left. He had a very sweet tooth! We went to holiday camps, too, and it was just like Hi-de-Hi, the TV show. We stayed in a chalet and were woken up each morning by someone shouting on the tannoy announcing that breakfast was being served. We loved it all. Thanks, Mum and Dad.

My sister and I always went to stay with Grandparents, who only lived about a half hour bus ride away. What fun we had, Grandad had a big allotment next door, helped him pick the soft fruit, he was also volunteer fire chief , took us down to the station, still had old helmets, and let us ring the rope bell. Nana used to tell me off for shaking up the milk, she lost her cream off the top, we had our own little oven in the shed that you could light with methylated spirits, under Grandads guidance of course. I remember a green and black bathroom, very Art Deco , and a Pianola in the parlour, which Nana used to let us play. A trip to Great Yarmouth on the Bus at the end of the week. Happy days.

In the fifties we lived in Dorset. At holiday times we would go out for the day. Never to Weymouth beach - far too crowded, but further along the coast where few people went. Sometimes we'd go by train to Swanage, stopping at Corfe and then catching he boat back to Weymouth. My dad had a motor bike and he built a sidecar for the 4 of us children. i was the oldest and we would sit 2 x 2, with mum on the back of the bile. We had a very large wicker hamper and mum would make jellies in jars for each of us. We didn't have sandwiches but we'd stop somewhere and buy rolls and sliced meat. Mum was Welsh and she regularly made Welsh cakes on an old bakestone. Sometimes we went to visit her aunt and uncle who live in South Wales and we'd walk over the sand dunes to what were then isolated beaches. Long stretches of sand and rarely anyone else there. We'd pick whinberries on the way back to make a tart for supper.

Some holidays I spent with my grandparents who lived near Hampton Court so that was a regular visit, plus boat trips up stream to Windsor, trips to the Kensington museums and the Festival Ballet.

All this memories have stayed with me and I still enjoy those things - beaches with no one else on them, often out of season, visiting stately homes, museums and art galleries.

My parents did not have a car until my sister was born, I was 13 at the time and she was the fourth child. I can remember going to the Isle of Man with me and my older sister sat on the back of our parents bikes - obviously not while on the ferry! We sent all our clothes ahead in a trunk which was waiting for us at the B&B. I used to get very upset as we approached a big hill in Port Erin as my sister, who sat on mums bike, was allowed to walk up it as mum could not cycle up with her weight in the child seat. My dad, being stronger, was able to ride up with me still strapped in on the back and I was so jealous!

Another holiday to The Lake District a few years later was made in our new motor bike and sidecar - bought to accommodate my baby brother. My mum sat pillion, my brother was in the carry cot squashed in the front seat surrounded by the luggage and my sister and I sat in the back seat. One year we went at Easter and for some unknown reason, my mum let us have an Easter Egg to eat during the journey. I managed to sit on some of my chocolate which stuck to the rear of my nylon trousers - looked like I had had an accident!

B & Bs where you had to leave after breakfast and stay out till teatime. Tinned grapefruit with a glacé cherry on top or fruit juice as your evening meal starter and a dish of ice cream with a wafer in for pudding. The circus and the ice show at Blackpool Tower - the coloured lights finale was magical. Sitting bored out of my skull by the floral clock in Morecambe while my parents read their newspapers from cover to cover. Having to go to the first aid tent when I was stung by a jellyfish, and again because I got tar (or was it oil?) on my legs at the beach - I don’t recall how!

My fave holiday was to a caravan my Gran had rented on the east coast. My parents weren’t there, just my cousins. My gran took me to the bingo with her and let me spend her winning tickets on a doll. She also let me buy bubblegum and have a go on the Penny waterfall slot machines. We ate fish and chips and played cards and it was total bliss.
We did have a bucket for a toilet though.

Always spent a fortnight at Granny's house in Fife. We went swimming at St Andrews, visited lots of relatives, crossing the Tay on the ferry - before the days of the road bridge. A relative hid pots of honey (from her own bees) for us to find in her garden and we spent a lot of time picking - and eating - berries in Granny's big garden where there was also a croquet lawn and a summer house where we could retire with a book, of which there were plenty to choose from.