Do you remember charabanc trips to the seaside?

In the 1930s my sister and I had school trips to London to visit Musems and the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park to see Shakespeare plays. It was an all girls school and we had to behave like young ladies. But when going to the coast by car we shouted to Dad to over take any charabancs. Remember charabancs stopped by the road side with crates of beer and the men lined up to relieve themselves by the hedge.

1950 school trip to Ludlow and Cardingmill Valley. Entranced by the beautiful castle, never forgot that rounded archway, and loved climbing up and running down the hills. On the way we stopped at Wenlock Edge and I was fascinated by the first fossils I'd seen outside a museum.
I didn't know then that I was a geek or nerd but was mildly surprised to later bite on tiny fossils in my sandwiches. I took them home and added them to a bun penny and a piece of marble from Pompeii (don't ask!) to begin my museum!

Loved the word charabanc and had come across it in Little Women as a 'cherry bounce'! Only last week a poet friend said we should use it everyday to keep 'charabanc' in use - and here it is on Gransnet!!

bijou School trips in the 1930's is going back a bit!!
Makes me think, who are our oldest members if it isn't impertinent to ask?
(68 me)

75 moi ?

Sunburn, does that happen in England?

I remember my Sunday School trips to Weymouth or Weston -Super- Mare They were the treat of the year .

When you had b----r all they were a literal ray of sunshine for us yunguns.

Some children stll go to sunday school yes but not nearly as many as when we were small. But i dont think they have annual outings any more - sometimes other fun days. I remember going to other churches forctea and games, as someone mentioned . I remember ham and lettuce teas with trifle in little paper bowls afterwards. I dont think it would excite todays children!

My Dad took me on a day trip to Blackpool when I was 4 - I think Mum was expecting my youngest sister - the whole train was booked by the local Working Men,s Institute and we went direct from our tiny local station to Blackpool, stopping at lots of local stations in our area to pick up other people. We started off early, before it was light, and I shall never forget how terrified I was when an express went through the station while we were waiting in a rush of steam and sparks - diesels just aren't the same!

I too love the word charabanc and still use it - get some funny looks from the younger generation.

Only coach trips I did were school ones to London museums and Shakespeare at the Old Vic. Not a bundle of fun but very educational.

Trains used to make a lovely noise, tiddley-do, tiddedley-do, tiddley -do, made you go to sleep.

We used to stay with a family friend in a little village called Rhyd-y-Foel and go to Colwyn Bay for the day. There used to be a mechanical elephant on the prom that you could have rides on. Nobody else seems to remember it and thinks I am imagining it !!! This would probably be in the early fifties. Please tell me someone else remembers it

rosesarered they still do if you catch the right ones (and you can still get a smut in your eye if you're not careful! )

I can't remember it, hazeljoy although we did go to Colwyn Bay for holidays. I remember the jellyfish, my DB got stung by one.

Does anyone remember the sit-on Muffin the Mule on Brighton/Hove seafront?

My granny brought me up as my mother worked, and during the long summer holidays we would go on day long coach trips with gran and her sister to places of interest. I can vividly remember a trip that took in lavender farms, Sandrinham and Hunstanton all in a day from Sheffield.

Sunburn, does that happen in England?
Well, it used to (and in Wales too), although it is more like rust these days
I remember a friend getting heat stroke in Abersoch but that was many years ago now.

I used to go to Colwyn Bay in the 1950s with my parents and remember rock pooling and getting bad sunburn on my back. I had calamine lotion on at night which turned my vest pink and stiff! Don't remember a mechanical elephant though sorry. I remember running my metal spade along railings and making a very satisfying sound!
DH was from Oldham and everyone went to Blackpool at the same time on the train in Wakes Week.
The discussion on charabangs (that's how we said it) reminds me of the song 'Didn't we have a loverly time the day we went to Bangor!"

When I was a child we went on Sunday School trips. Once we were at the seaside and I ran up some steps, barefoot. I caught my toe, and the nail came right off. The pain was unimaginable, but as I didn't have my mum or dad with me, I gritted my teeth and told nobody. I remember we were taken for chips and I was in so much pain I couldn't eat. Not a good memory.

Have just googled mechanical elephant Colwyn Bay and there are pictures of it so it definitely did exist. Feel much better now !!

Alea. I shall be 93 next month.

Way to go, that girl!!!
Does that make you our top gran??

Who remembers Fairyland on the corner of the Promenade and Chapel Street in Blackpool? As a child, it was always the first thing I wanted to go on when we arrived.
We used to go on an annual day trip to Cleethorpes, it was always on a Sunday, and we used to go to Sunshine Corner at the back of the beach, it was a sort of Sunday school in miniature, but much nicer because we were on the sands. It was also very dodgy paddling there, because some sort of speeding car used to race along the beach through the edge of the waves, we had to keep a lookout, because the people in it didn`t seem to!

Not a charabanc outing but I remember going on the 1960 taxi drivers' outing in Edinburgh. They used to take us long term patients from the orthopaedic hospital out to the seaside for the day. We had crepe paper streamers hanging out of the window and everyone waved at us as we drove past in our convoy! I also remember Roy Rogers and Trigger visiting the hospital as well.

hazeljoy I am scouring the pictures of the elephant!!
Perhaps that was the elephant I remember riding on, rather than my memory being of a real one at Dudley Zoo!
Strange what you find when you start scouring the internet - I have just found a photo of me in the reception class age 5!

Ooh, number I had forgotten Fairyland! we had some great holidays in Blackpool as a child, and went in Autumn as well for the Illuminations.
Jalima I haven't been on a train of any kind for years and years, let alone the kind where you gets smuts, but the DGC have and loved the train but were afraid of the smuts in their eyes, aahh!

We are hoping to go on the Dart Valley Railway in a couple of months' time