Childhood holidays

We went to Cornwall, every year, in a camper van or caravan.
We absolutely loved it.

When I was very young we went to Arbroath, North Berwick, Troon etc. Slightly older was Scarborough and St Annes. Once I was a teenager we went twice to Ilfracombe in North Devon. I loved Ilfracombe. We lived in central Scotland so it felt very exotic. The worst yet the best was a caravan at Banff past Aberdeen. The caravan was infested with earwigs. They were everywhere. But we took my best friend with us and we all just laughed for the week.

1959 for 5 years Cornwall. Same B+B close to Lands End. Two weeks and got to know the family really well. Took Dad (in our Morris Traveller) 12 hours to drive there from Derbyshire. These days it takes 7 hrs.
Loved it. Weather seemed to be fantastic every year. Remember the beaches being quiet even in peak time !

When I was small my mother rented a caravan in Aberdyfi for two weeks. One week my older sisters went and the following week my brother and I went.

I can only remember a few holidays both in caravans by the coast. I used be taken down to my aunts in the country for a week in the Summer to have fun with my cousins. I do remember when I was seven being taken to Paddington station by my Mum and a bag of my things. She put me on a train and asked a lady in the carriage to make sure I got to Cardiff where my Nan met me on the platform. Goodness knows how I made it safely.

My mother was very before her time. I was the only one of my friends to go on 'exotic' holidays as a child. NOT that we were wealthy of course. One year my mum worked nights in a plastics factory to earn extra money so we could afford it.

I remember Spain and also Tunisia. Tunisia would have been 49 years ago. I remember my grandparents being horrified about it.

The Isle of Man every year. The same boarding house in a road off Douglas prom. It always smelled of fresh paint and porridge I believe the crossings were atrocious at times from Liverpool but I don't remember them as brother and I were eating crisps on top deck.

We had relatives and cousins there.

It was always caravan holidays either Weymouth or Paignton.

Days out to the New Forest or to Granny’s, who lived by the sea. Amsterdam when I was 11, I don’t know why, b&b in Wales for a couple years then Ibiza when I was 17, with the family.

Margate, I remember loving Dreamland, also went to Isle of White, Clacton, and Cornwall.

When I was very young, postwar, we stayed with my grandparents on the Lancashire coast. In 1949 we stayed on a farm in North Wales. I loved that.

Then in 1953 and 1955 we went to France and Switzerland. My parents were linguists so they could communicate with the people. We didn’t stay in touristy places. I kept a diary of the 1955 holiday, which I still have. We took our battered old car on the car ferry and drove round some wild places in France. I had a thing about Joan of Arc at the time, so we went to many of the places associated with her. Otherwise we had short holidays in Scotland and the Lakes. We didn’t go away every year by any means.

I remember a B & B in Blackpool with strict rules. We lived by the sea so I was sent to stay with my Aunt in Doncaster for a couple of weeks. My Aunt lived opposite the shop where Open all Hours was filmed. That was when I was grown up though.

We didn’t have family holidays, just days out, usually Bank holidays. I remember Southend then later on when we lived in Essex, Clacton. I disliked Clacton, we always seemed to be there at low tide. If you wanted a paddle, you had to struggle through knee deep grey mud to get to the water.
I also remember my sister and I getting taken down to Minehead to stay a fortnight by ourselves with my Dad’s parents. A lovely area and town, at least then

My parents and four older siblings were all born in North Yorkshire but moved South before I was born.

Every summer holidays we would go back to visit all our Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins. I loved it and still go back for holidays every few years even though all my Yorkshire relatives are dead now.

My mother had me quite late in life and prior to that she had been a governess in some posh places. We used to get invited for holidays. One place had Indian real tiger skins as rugs on the floor. I was horrified!
As I grew up it was mainly France and Switzerland because she loved mountains.

No family holidays but I stayed with my Aunt and Godmother in her cottage in Oxfordshire. She had no children. I thought I was in paradise; roses round the door, a mill and stream at the bottom of the garden, and my Uncle’s kitchen garden.
It was hard going back to inner city life...

My father loved driving and in the 1960s we'd go camping all over the UK in an oldfashioned green ridged tent. Remember Torquay, Paignton and Lands End. A year or so later we drove ovet to Paris and Switzerland - up the Jungfraujoch mountain railway.
When I was sixteen my pal joined us for camping holiday all the way to Venice and Yugoslavia. We lived in central Scotland and the car journey seemed never ending. Remember us teens caused a sensation in Venice in our miniskirts!

We like a lot of Glaswegians went "doon the watter for the Fair" the second fortnight in July was the Glasgow holiday period called and still called the Glasgow Fair
.Down to Wemyss Bay for a ferry to Millport or Rothesay where we rented a small flat .My mother always said it wasn't a "holiday" for her just a change of sink.She liked it really and we have lovely photographs of us all in Rothesay and Millport where hiring bikes was the usual pastime to cycle round the island .

We went to Cayton Bay on the Yorkshire coast every year until I was 13. A large group of my parents friends and associated children went. We always had a great time. It was a caravan and motel style place. You got a wristband denoting your age group. Only those over a certain age could go into the concert hall at night. There was a disco for a younger age group. The youngest had to stay in. We longed to be old enough to move up the wristband hierarchy.
Then, when I was 13, Clarksons advertised holidays abroad. We flew in a pink jet - pink inside and out! to Majorca. Cost was £50. We went the middle weeks of October. It was wonderful. There was a family there from Ilkley Moor who had won the holiday in a competition. They were there until the last week when it closed down. They were almost the only people there when we left. They joked they were putting chairs on tables when they left. Never been sure they weren’t right!!

Larne to Stranraer ferry then at least three trains when we finally arrived at my granny’s house in South Shields.That was our family holiday destination. We had the best time there and I have wonderful memories of the fairground, the beaches and eating chips from Frankies on the prom. out of newspaper.Happy days.

1950s/early 1960s, we nearly always had a U.K. seaside fortnight, somewhere in the SE or just once in Cornwall - always in a rented house, never a hotel. One or other granny and/or an aunt would often join us.

We had no car until I was 9 or 10, so until then we’d go by train, and oh, the excitement - who could be first to see the sea?

We always had a beach hut for all the paraphernalia of 4 kids.
I adored those holidays, and still love that seaweedy/seasidey smell, and the cry of gulls.

Much better off cousins of ours would go to Italy or at least Guernsey - very swanky at the time. To us, anyway!

I was 21 before I got on a plane, and that was to join dh (then bf) who was working in Cyprus. I’d been to France and Germany, but only for school exchange visits, by train/ferry/coach.

One special memory, we were always at the quiet end of whatever beach it was, never anywhere near the ‘rowdy’ pier (if there was one) fish and chip stalls, etc.

But one granny who often came with us loved the raucous pier as much as I did, and would happily take me there.

Of course one reason my folks didn’t take us, was because all the rides etc. cost money, which was always very tight, as I was well aware from a very early age.

My mum’s twin sister lived on the sea front in Bridlington so we went there a lot. It was cold but nice to catch up with cousins. We once went to a godawful place in Weymouth. A dingy flat with a shared bathroom, a real dump. As an adult I have travelled a lot , made up for it !

When I was very young we went for days out and picnics, mainly within a 20 mile radius of Birmingham which was where we lived at the time. Our home was a 2 up 2 down back to back end of terrace in a courtyard of about 5 other properties, surrounded by factories and bombsites so a day out in Worcestershire was a delight.
Every 3 or 4 years we went to Italy to visit my grandparents on their farm in Tuscany. Sheer magic! It was in the Chianti hills, surrounded by oak and chestnut forest. They kept goats, pigs and cattle as well as poultry and produced their own wine and olive oil.
We had a big extended family in the local area as well as in Florence and Siena so made trips to see them too.
Dad usually drove there in his little van with us crammed in the back!
When I was 11 we went via train, passing through France and Switzerland, which I thought was wonderful, watching the sunrise on the mountains.
We were there for 6 weeks, during term time. I didn't have any school work to do but I was asked to give a talk when I returned to school so I suppose that was my first attempt at public speaking.
During that trip I visited the Uffizzi and the cathedral in Florence for the first time as well as other tourist sites.
It started a life long interest in art and architecture. Not bad for a street kid from Birmingham!