Childhood holidays

Yes, I think you are right. Chalky White would have been named after the character in Andy Capp. It’s all a bit of a blur!
I remember having to eat the food at the boarding house, which I was not keen on, and I think we had to stay out all day, whatever the weather. I also remember loving the beach except when my brother chased me with a crab!
My Dad was away for about six weeks but I think we only went for a week,

I think lobby lud was daily mail and chalky white daily mirror

Storynanny, I do remember the name Lobby Lud but I’m not sure he was the Daily Mirror man. I remember saying to someone ‘you are Lobby Lud and I claim my £5’, but he wasn’t! It was in the ‘50s. I remember my dad organising treasure hunts on the beach.

We once went to the seaside for a week when I was five. That was very new and exciting for a child who travelled and lived abroad. I’d flown, sailed in liners and lived all over the east but buckets and spades on the beach were amazing!

Grandma jet was it Chalky White or Lobby Lud? Find the mystery newspaper man and claim £5?

For about 7 years in a row, my parents rented a bungalow perched on top of the cliffs in Scratby on the East Norfolk coast. Not sure of the dates - this would have been between 1955 and 1965 some time.

I remember the bungalow being cold, dark and damp, although I am sure we enjoyed lots of sunny days and played in the sea.

I used to get up early sometimes and scramble down the cliff and walk about on the beach on my own, until my cousin was sent down to look for me - they had been very worried about little me down there on the beach. We always went into Yarmouth on one day if it rained.There was the penny arcade, we would eat fish and chips and I also remember a roller coaster, which may or may not have been there.

My dad was a keen sailor though, and once we were older we spent many holidays on hired yachts, then our own, sailing to Holland and Belgium, or pottering around the Cornish and Devon coasts.

Having spent most of our earlier married years camping, I feel sorry for my mother, who on those boating holidays not only had to contend with feeding and clothing the whole family without mod cons, but also in the very cramped galley conditions. At least when you're camping you can send the children off to play.

Scarborough, as my grandparents and great aunts lived there and in Pickering. I loved it: beach, castles, funfair at Scalby Mills, rock pools, becks, country walks, cricket, farms. I remember seeing Oliver! & The Sound of Music at the cinema in Darlington on days when it rained.

My Scottish mother met my dad in wartime Belgium and after they married spent the rest of her life in england. Our childhood holiday every other year was a fortnight in a tiny tenement flat in Glasgow, visiting her family. Eight of us squashed into two bedrooms with a galley kitchen and bathroom, sofa bed in the living room. I loved it! There was a little play park down the road where we met local children, and a bigger park where we played pitch and putt, and tennis. I loved the rattly old trams on which we could visit the town centre, or Glasgow zoo. We went to Loch Lomond where we went out fishing. My uncle had an outboard motor and his friend had a boat! I never tired of going there. Apart from that I remember one leaky old caravan holiday in Devon and a cottage by the sea in Sussex. Oh, and a week on the south coast in a boarding house where my dad was working a summer season - he worked for the daily Mirror and they did promotions at the seaside, I’m not sure what!

I am from Scotland, and as a child, every single year, my paternal grandparents took me to Millport, on the Clyde Coast for two weeks holiday - to give my parents a break from me!
We always went the first 2 weeks in July. I grew up in Clydebank and that was the local trade holidays! Millport was chock full of fellow "Bankies", so I had lots of other kids to play with!?. To this day, I am still good friends with a few of the girls I met back then, in the 1960s.
I left Clydebank in 1975 to attend university in Edinburgh and have lived on the East Coast of Scotland for almost 20 years now! However, I have always tried to keep in touch with my old friends! When we meet up, we always enjoy a trip down memory lane! ?

Blackpool in 1959. I have photos from the Pleasure Beach.

The next few years it was Llandudno and Ambleside in alternate years for a while. Always a week in a boarding house.

In 1966 after my dad had left the shipyard and got a better-paid job with ICI we pushed the boat out with two weeks in a farmhouse in Pembrokeshire. It rained every single day, as I recall. In 1967 we were back in the Lakes.

1968 was a one-off - Dad was working in Rotterdam during the week and only home every second weekend, so by way of compensation we, ie Mum, my sister and her boyfriend, and me, were treated to a fortnight in a middling hotel in Amsterdam. The arrangements weren't ideal: I (aged 14) had to share a room with my sister (19) while her boyfriend (21) slept alone, which pissed off three of us, and there was one day towards the end which was spoiled by a standoff between Mum on one side and sister + boyfriend on the other and me feeling miserable because I was an unhappy teenager and I persuaded myself it was all my fault. I never did find out what it was about. Sleeping arrangements for sure but that was 1968 and the revolutions hadn't caught up with my parents yet. My theory is that they wanted to go off and do their own thing but Mum had insisted that we all stayed together to keep me company. In which case it was about me but not the way I would have wanted it, however much I resented my sister being stolen from me, but nobody ever asked me what I thought.

Morecambe and we loved it. Flamborough Head in my Auntie's caravan was another favourite childhood holiday. Never got taken abroad as my parents had not even ventured as far as London from Yorkshire. ?

Wizend that reminds me I did go on holiday earlier - my best friend's father, who owned a pub, was a keen fisherman and they had a car. He took us up to the Cairngorms and while he was fishing we went walking. I think we went up Cairngorm itself.
Also remember the B&B where we stayed made delicious 'high teas', ham and eggs etc.

Once I was 13 or 14 my mother said she’d never really enjoyed our lovely seaside holidays anyway, and we went driving around Scotland - a long drive from where we lived anyway. To me it seemed like endless just sitting in a car - usually with my head buried in a comic and being crossly told to put that away and look at the beautiful scenery!
Beautiful scenery be blowed! To me it was the most boring holiday imaginable and it’s put me off any sort of holiday involving a lot of driving ever since.

Being born and brought up in the Channel Islands we had the lovely beaches just a stroll away. No need to go anywhere else. Bliss.

My mother came from York and was the only member of her family who left her home town. Our childhood holidays were, therefore, spent visiting assorted aunts and uncles whilst staying with our much loved grandparents.

We lived in Chester so it was a three hour drive across the Pennines , usually stopping for a picnic en route. I still love York and have so many wonderful memories.

Aged about 9, I went to Norway with my best friend and her father whose sister had married a Norwegian so we stayed with them. We skiied and had great fun catching trout from the frozen lake after first having to break several feet of ice.

I also went camping with the same best friend and her parents, first in Anglesey, then a year later in France and Spain. I was very lucky and still remember those holidays. We are still friends, since we were 5 years old, and her parents are still going strong both in their 90’s now.

First holiday abroad with my mum and sisters was to Malta in 1968. We came in August for a month and I hated the heat! Never imagined I would end up living here for forty years or that I would find my soulmate here. Strange how life works out.

Weymouth l loved it a week in a static caravan, shared public tiolets, collecting water from communal tap and gas in bottles and the dreaded gas mantle.Happy days.

This is such an interesting thread, I have read all the replies! I don't know all of the places, but have looked up a few. I'm sorry for those that never had the chance to enjoy holidays with friends or family.

We would go every year to a northern Ontario town to camp by a river. I remember the excitement of the last day of school, and Dad and the car picking us up with the camper behind the car! It was a 7 hour drive and I remember the change in geology about an hour north of Toronto and starting to get excited.

When I think about it now, the small town where we stayed in a camp ground along a river was nothing really special. It was not a tourist town, but geared towards hunting and fishing crowd. Dad would go out fishing every day, and Mum and us kids would stay at the campground and swim at the small beach. There are a million beautiful lakes in Northern Ontario, but we went to the same spot every year until my fathers sickness made it impossible. We did have happy relaxed times there though, and I remember it fondly. Remarkably, the same family owns the campsite; I would love to have a family reunion there with my siblings.

In 1974 we went 'back to the old country'; Jersey and Brittany, and a few days in Paris. I was 12; it was delightful meeting cousins and seeing where my parents were from. I have very fond memories of that trip. That was our only foreign trip; my father's illness changed the family's financial circumstances afterwards. I feel fortunate that I remember all the happy times, and feel badly that my younger brother and sister can barely remember those happy times.

Childhood holidays? What were those? Aren't holidays meant to be fun, enjoyable times?

When I was 9 (1977) we had a cold, wet, miserable September week in Butlin's Skegness, it was the last week of the season, so the cheapest. All the entertainment had closed and there was nothing to do.

A few days in 1982 in (September again) Pontins Prestatyn but at 14, all entertainment on site geared towards under 12s and adults, so I was bored to tears and had to stay on site looking after 11yr old sister.

I did eventually get out of the UK at 17 for a break, through work but mother didn't approve, confiscated my passport when I got back and made life hell for 2yrs until I escaped her vile clutches!

Once I'd left, she started taking my sister on 'lovely' holidays several times a year. Not jealous in the slightest, just glad to be out of it and thankfully have had no contact with either for years!

From 5 - 11 we went on camping holidays all over Great Britain except N.I. Those were the days when you could knock on a Farmhouse door & ask if you could pitch your tents in field. Loved those holidays, lots of happy memories.

When I went to Secondary School my Granddad had come to live with us. I had one week Pony Trekking & an exchange to France when I was 15, al the French boys loved myself & a girl a year older who stayed with the family, we were way ahead of the French fashions with our mini skirts

I took my DD to N.I. to stay with friends in 1987 after H no 2 left us, we stayed with friends who lived there, I drove all over & have lots of lovely photos We visited the Giant's Causeway which was lovely

I went to Brussels when I was at College, Mature Student in my early 30s

Only holiday abroad was with my 3rd DH in 1990 to Portugal

Redhead56 What a terrible story, I’m so sorry for whatever occurred. These things leave their mark.

Camping in a tent, and later, renting a caravan, in Hayling Island or Bognor Regis, finally venturing to Weymouth, Torquay and Paignton. Weymouth definitely my favourite as an older child, I could leave my parents in their deckchairs and take myself off to the pony rides along the beach, sufficiently competent at 12/13 to help lead them and bag a free ride at the end of the day.

I didn't go abroad until I was 29 and married for the second time, a week in Marbella at his father's holiday apartment.

Never had a family holiday. I came from a seaside resort and from the age of 13, I worked every Summer holiday until I finished college at 21. Never thought anything of it really as I didn't know anything different. First holiday was Norfolk Broads with a friend. Since made up for it and have been all over the world. Really appreciate being able to still have holidays. Well eventually......

We never had a family holiday parents both worked but it was a struggle with seven children. We had the odd day out at New Brighton. When I was 10yrs old I was hand picked from my five sisters and two brothers. To go to my auntie and uncles caravan in Barmouth. All I can say is it was not a holiday it was an abuse of my innocent childhood.

Like many other families in a city, we went on a train to sit on the closest beach to where we lived.

We went to Blackpool in the same boarding house until I was about 8, the family that ran it were lovely and we used to play with their children. We then started going to Cornwall, first Newquay and the Carbis Bay. At the age of 12 my parents allowed me to go on a school holiday, 2 weeks in Yugoslavia, it was amazing travel by coach to Dover where we stayed in a Youth Hostel overnight, across the Channel on the ferry and then a sleeper train, I remember going through Cologne and seeing the cathedral lit up. We eventually arrived in Opatija where we got a coach and then onto a ferry to an island where we stayed in a beautiful hotel... 2 days travel to get there but a wonderful adventure. Trips to Austria, Switzerland and France followed, only when I grew up did I appreciate how hard it had been for my parents give me and my brothers these wonderful experiences and I am eternally grateful. My parents continued with holidays in this country until we were all grown up and then they took the opportunity to go abroad and loved exploring new places.