Do you remember charabanc trips to the seaside?

Does anyone remember Never Never Land in Southend, early fifties? I remember thinking I was really in Peter Pan's Never Never Land! I loved going there in the evening when the front was lit up too. We were so easily pleased in those post war days. I remember too going to see Robinson Crusoe on Ice and meeting Pluto, I was 6 or 7 and thought he was real!

Thanks for the link to Wicksteed Park Nellie .... lovely memories brought back.

Was Jenny Aggutter your big sister?
I think they made a film about your family once.

Oh that smell and the smuts, and train drivers that wave at children, oh happy memories. When I was a child we lived in a house overlooked by a elevated section of rail track. The steam train drivers always waved.

I'll keep my head firmly inside, unlike DH who will stick his head out to catch a nostalgic smut in the eye

Wear a mask like Zorro, or big sunglasses, just to be on the safe side!

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

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!

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!

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.

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!

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

Alea. I shall be 93 next month.

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

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.

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!"

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.

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.

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?

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! )

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

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

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.

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!

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!