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.
Good Morning Saturday 2nd May 2026
Long, long ago just after the war, the primary school parents association used to organise a charabanc (what a nostalgic word) trip to the seaside . It was considered to be a real treat, but I dreaded it. Being a coach-sick child, I was nauseous after a few miles, then we would stop halfway there for a drink at a ramshackle roadside caff where the only thing on offer was bottles of violently orange fizzy pop. At the beach there was no shade and after a few hours of sun I was invariably burnt and, going home,would have a thumping headache and feel really ill. The next day, I would look like a boiled lobster and after a week or so,my skin would peel off in strips. What a treat that was.Of course, there was no sun cream then,just copious applications of calamine lotion after the event, and sunburn was considered to be healthy! My sister died at 60 of malignant melanoma and I often wonder if these early sunburns contributed to it.
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.
Sunburn, does that happen in England?
75 moi ?
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)
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!!
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.
as we lived by the sea in devon we didn't have trips to the seaside but up to dartmoor with the sunday school every year.
we all piled into the coach [or coaches i forget!] and stopped at a church hall way up on the moors.
the field beside the hall was used for games and also for the picnic - it was covered in rabbit and sheep droppings but nobody bothered about it!!!
everyone had a fantastic time and came home full to the gills with paste sandwiches and fizzy lemonade [all i can remember - it WAS a long time ago] and absolutely tired out.
i don't think sunday schools do this kind of thing now - if they still exist anyway ......... if children actually go to sunday school any more.
Dymchurch by charabanc was our treat of the year at primary school. Unbelievably exciting to paddle in the sea with schoolfriends and, as mentioned, all that singing on the coach. I wish a trip to the sea was half that exciting these days. They are lovely memories, aren't they?
I remember the sunday school outinga! Wexwent be coach butcit was always called the charra! I divremember singing all the songs roaesareted mentioned plus gillyflyosandfeffer, youll never get to heaven etc till i was quite hoarse. We were mikes from the sea being in the peak district so went to places like latgkill dale for a picnic and games. Great fun! I was never coach sick.
We used to take a very early bus into the coach station in Manchester and then get on the coach (I always imagined it to be spelt sharrer, as that's how it was pronounced) and off to Blackpool for the day; very occasionally it would be Rhyl, Southport, or one year Colwyn Bay. Usually Blackpool though. I was ALWAYS sick and my mother was NEVER prepared, apart from having a bag of barley sugars to proffer and which I still can't stand to this day. We were usually accompanied by my maternal grandparents and we took sandwiches (jam butties for children and chicken paste for the grown ups) and fizzy pop with us to have on the beach. A real treat was to share a pot of winkles, whelks or cockles and mussels. Yum. I remember how excited we all used to get at the first sight of the sea to jingl. 
Our Sunday School used to have outings to Barry Island too, and also to Weston Super Mare where it always seemed to rain and you had to walk miles over the mud flats to have a paddle.
I loved the description of your knitted swimming costume canarygirl1. We had an elderly neighbour who used to take a daily dip in the murky waters of the River Severn in a black woollen costume with a vest top and legs.Not a pretty sight...
However, coach trips from Sunday school or school were to New Brighton or Alton Towers.
We used to hire wooden surf boards - couldn't afford to buy one - looking back they seemed to work just as well as the ones they use now.
I can remember being left with a hired wooden surf board to surf happily in the sea at Newquay (where my aunt lived) from the age of about 11! The only thing was that I was banned from going on Fistral Beach (too rough!).
I always had my face buried in a huge candyfloss, not liking icecream.
True 'charabancs' are 30's and 40's but coach travel in the 50's and early 60's were a real treat, as were the train journeys to places like Blackpool or Brid or Scarborough.We used to sing all sorts of things, 'The Quarter Masters Stores' and 'Ivan a Bulbul Ameer' and ' She wears red Feathers' etc.Going into any cafe was also a treat, it was always too hot, the tide was always out and there were hundreds of brown jellyfish on the beach.Happy days!
I dont remember charabancs but we had sunday school coach outings. I seem to have spent a lot of my life living quite a way from the seaside.
Wicksteed park in Northamptonshire was the nearest we got to seaside outings.
I love this film clip.
www.facebook.com/wicksteedpark/posts/592753444076235
I went on Sunday school outing when aged about 10. Since we lived no where near the sea mother purchased a brown knitted swimsuit from a jumble sale. Off we went and on arrival dashes into the sea only to find the suit was full of tiny moth holes and when it got wet and stretched (and I was quite big busted even then being an early starter) quite a lot of me was revealed - never got over the shame and even now it makes me feel hot and bothered to think about it.
My grandma used to take me on the Yelloway coach from Rochdale to Blackpool. We`d have our dinner at a fish and chip cafe behind the station, called The Little Café, and a big treat was a gigantic ice cream wafer from Pablo`s. And it always rained, so we`d nip into Woollies to buy Pakamacs.
Anniebach, we did Sunday school trips to Barry Island. Tea on a tray from on the promenade. The big ' shelters' if it rained, and my Mum would always sit beneath one of the ' numbers' painted on the wall. so we knew where she was.
If we had any money we went on the ' shows' Porthcawl was good too. My uncle had a caravan at Treco Bay.
Happy days
I have heard of a charabanc but before my time I would think.
We lived about 8 miles from the sea but without transport it was like visiting a foreign country it was so difficult.
Our Ukulele group is organising one in June, we are al off too Worthing, ukes in hand. Knotted hankies are the dress code.
Yes. I was always sick, on or off the coach.
But oh the magic of that first glimpse of the sea!
I remember, in the fifties, going on an annual outing to the seaside - usually Cleethorpes or Skegness - by "charra" organised by the working men's club that my father belonged to. There were separate coaches for adults and children ( with minders, of course!). All the children were given a gift of money to spend when we got there. I don't remember how much it was now; probably a couple of shillings. It seems odd now to think of all the mums in their best dresses and the men in suits or sports coats - their only concession to a holiday atmosphere being an open neck shirt - sitting in deck chairs on the beach!
We use to have two day trips every year but by train , too many people for a coach. One trip was the Sunday school and the other the miners club, Barry Island , they were fantastic days and we were from the same chapel, same school, and our fathers were miners , so we were the same group on both trips every summer
I'm another one who did coach trips with the family because we never had a car. I expect we did trips with the school but I don't remember them. These trips were part of every day life when I was growing up in the 60s. Simple days!
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