Old fashioned Holidays

From the age of 5 until I was 11 we went on camping holidays, we would find a nice place & my Dad would knock on the farmer's door to ask if we could camp in a field. Only once stayed at a campsite for one night on our way to Devon, we lived in Yorkshire. We also did Scotland, West coast one year, East coast the next.

On our 1st holiday we went to Wales, 1st night we were washed out & spent the night in a B & B.

A friend of he family had a car so he came with us & drove, roof rack with spiders holding everything on

We went to Anglesey on my last holiday & stayed at a campsite, the Police came to find my parents to tell them that both my Granddads had had a heart attack so we went home early. Paternal Grandad died shortly after we got home. Maternal Grandad lived with us so from age 11 & from then on my parents went on caravan holidays, I stayed at home with Grandad.

I've very fond memories of my childhood holidays in the early 1960's. Mum or Dad cooking on a primus stove, my first taste of Smash, I wasn't impressed

My favourite holiday was in North Devon, visited Clovelly, Linton & Lynmouth. We stayed near Woody Bay. Now I live in Devon on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, I'm only about 8 miles from Teignmouth & 10 from Torquay where my DD & family live.

Happy days

Going to Butlins with cousins on a train.
My mum cried she said it was like a prison camp and didn't like the canteen like food.
The cousins were all left in a chalet one night {there was a constant patrol} and we started to fight it was announced in the ballroom where our parents were we were in lots of trouble. The highlight of the week was when my aunt fell out of a rowing boat and would not wade to the shore.
We then all changed to Blackpool , and so did half of West Cumbria. It was Stop fortnight in the mines.
Walking along the prom we played saying hello to people we knew, my cousins always won because my dad wasn't a miner.
Staying up late and going to shows to see Ken Dodd and Shirley Bassey in our Sunday best frocks.
Being travel sick as usual as soon as we got into the Lakes and having to stop the coach.
Mum making fizzy pop by mixing orange juice and AndrewsLiver salts.
Giggling at the raunchy postcards and getting pushed on.
Pocket money spent on Blackpool rock and if possible the ones like fried eggs or dog mess.

Seems we got up very early, still dark, very excited to be going by train from Yorkshire to Blackpool, my teenage brother was a signalman and we waved to him from the train. Same boarding house near Stanley park. Mum had to shop first to buy our tea for the landlady to cook. Mum knitted a white cardigan every year for me. I still have photos of us, (from 60 years ago) mum and dad with coats on in deckchairs. Happy memories but dad died when I was 11.

We lived in England for years when I was young, but mum, my sister and I went to stay with my nana ( exciting sleeper train on way up) and dad came up when he got his holiday from work. We went to Ayr or Prestwick to a hotel for a week.
Happy memories of playing on the beach or having a game of putting. Even when we moved back to Scotland, Ayr, Prestwick, Troon, Girvan were the regular holiday destinations.
I loved horses and remember one year on holiday in Ayr, spending the whole time going to the stables in the morning and helping take the ponies to the beach and lead them up and down all day! Unpaid, of course - they must have been short of their usual volunteers that year.

We always went down to Devon or Cornwall from Surrey & stayed on farms.
I was an only child so my parents had a hard time I think to amuse me all day. Dad was a champion sandcastle maker!!
Luckily by the time I had reached 13 Mum had discovered Spain so it was Costa Brava from then on until I discovered Greece & went away with my friends.

Wearing our oldest clothes on the days leading up to the holiday because all our proper stuff was being washed and ironed and folded up in the suitcase.

I have so enjoyed reading the wonderful holiday stories.
My mum was a widow with not much money and not much leave from her work so we went to childminders in the holidays and to summer Sunday school camp which I loved. We slept in Bell tents and there was one cold tap in the field.
A camp kitchen where many sausages and baked beans were cooked.
A camp fire and singing every night and a midnight feast was planned and happened but I slept right through and woke to find a tin of peaches had dripped all over my sleeping bag..
One night there was a storm and the boys' tent collapsed so they had to shelter in with us girls.
All this happened just a few miles outside London and we travelled on the tube to get there.

Ali08. Yes, I can see the sea!!

Going on the train to Blackpool, staying in the same boarding house each time. The Children's Show at Blackpool Tower and dancing round the Ballroom with my brother or my dad. The magic of circus ring filling with water for the finale. Going for an early morning walk along the prom with my parents and brother and drinking milky coffee bought from a narrow stall before going back for breakfast and going on the rides in Olympia after a first house show. By the time I was 9 we started going to Carbis Bay in Cornwall, we loved it there and spent many happy hours on the beach or visiting Penzance, Lizards Point, Lands End and of course St.Ives and I still have a glass ballerina I watched being made there at a craft market 54 years ago. Wonderful memories.

I remember in my sweet single days booking a week off work when the other half was working away and sleeping for about 22 hours every day. It was magical