Your holidays as a child.

Every year we had a week in August in a caravan on a site at Lyminster, just outside Littlehampton. I remember it rained a lot, but as long as I had a new book, a colouring book and pencils I was quite happy. At the age of 13 they suddenly wrenched me out of my comfort zone and we went "foreign" - to the Isle of Wight, where the weather was miraculously better.

Bridlington, every year. I wish I could say I have happy memories but I still hate the place. Much preferred roaming the countryside with my friends or reading. I love holidays now and manage about 4 or 5 a year. Have to make up for a childhood of 'Brid'.

As a young child we always went to Cornwall to stay with relatives. I loved it there and had great times with my cousins on the beach all day.
There was a lovely old fashioned beach cafe....in the 40s and early 50s this was. It took a whole day on the steam train called
The Cornishman.
We were met at the station by relatives and one of my cousins. She was always excited to see me....then after a few days we'd fall out ! Lol.
One year we were there when my Dad came back from WW2 and we all met him waving ? Union Jack Flags and I also remember my cousin and I being woken up one night to be told that the War was over.
Memories aye ?

My mum used to threaten to take me on hop picking "holidays". She never did, thank goodness. I think we would both have hated it.

I have lived in Devon over half my life now but I was 'born and bred' in Croydon. Holidays for many years in a rented bungalow in Dymchurch, Kent. Always windy on the beach - sand in the sandwiches! I remember following lorries full of hop pickers on our way down. We used to walk down the road from the bungalow to watch the little steam train go past. When I was about 15 we reached the heady heights of the early days of package tours to Majorca!

Sunday School outings to the seaside was the sum of my holidays. I was always sick on the coach, but I so remember that first magical glimpse of the actual sea!

I went once to Bournemouth on the train with a friend and her family. I managed to get off the train before I threw up. I have pictures of us all covered in sand sitting in a dugout we made. Happy times.

Until I was 10 my dad was chauffeur to the owners of a country estate and we always had use of the car for a week in the summer, when we'd journey from Yorkshire to my grandmother's near Portsmouth. We'd travel overnight with mum and dad taking turns at driving. No motorways then so straight down the A1, through London and onto the A3. Most days were spent on the beach at Southsea or Hayling Island and we would also have a picnic in the New Forest to see the ponies. Southsea had its own wonderful illuminations then so an evening trip to see them was on the cards.

About a year before we left there dad bought an old 'jalopy' and we'd have occasional precarious days out to Bridlington or Blackpool!

After that we moved to Portsmouth and didn't go away for holidays as we were so near to the sea. However, many of mum's Yorkshire relatives would come to stay with us in the summer

The year dad died, mum took my younger sister and I to Butlins at Filey. We all enjoyed it so much we went to their Bognor camp the following year, which was the last time we three went away together.

I never went on holidays until I was about 10 then it was to stay with relatives in Birmingham, not to be recommended. I spent most school holidays at home but my mother
Would take me to Whitley bay for days out, to rothbury which I love to this day but I have never prioritised holidays as I've always b egrudged the cost, I think about how I could spend the money on the house or other things. Many people do holidays on debt but I couldn't live with myself if I did that. Of the few holidays I have had, I think of the cost once I get home and regret it.

DH lived in Havant & they went to a holiday camp on Hayling Island- about 5 miles away- every year. His Dad maintained all camps were the same anyway so why travel for hours when he could pop home to water the garden!

Cornwall & Devon in small hotels or on farms. As an only child I spent loads of time with my Dad rock pooling, building huge sand castes & rock climbing. Wonderful days. One set of GPs lived near Clacton on Sea so we went there a lot-always Easter, bank hols etc. Then my mother's God mother was Spanish & so I got to spend a lot of time in Barcelona too.
I think I was very lucky.

We took our boys to farms in Dorset & Devon when they were young as I had enjoyed that life so much & they had a wonderful time.

We always had a holiday - we weren't well off but Mum saved up to take us to the coast every year. We didn't have a car, and my sister and I were both sick on buses, so we went by train. Skegness or Great Yarmouth were the usual destinations. We tried Blackpool a couple of times but then we had a terrible vomiting bug and never went back!

Sometimes we stayed in boarding houses but Mum hated the awkward conversations with the other guests - "Turned out nice again, hasn't it?" - and the need for sister and I to be on our best behaviour at all times, so our first caravan holiday was a joy. As far as I can remember, our holidays always followed the same pattern - all day on the beach, followed by evenings at a show or at the amusement park. It was very simple but we loved it, even when the weather was lousy.

Apparently my parents took me camping when I was six weeks old and I didn't go on holiday again until I was seventeen and I had a week at A holiday camp with a friend and her parents. Put me off holiday camps for the rest of my life, what a dreadful place.

Because my DM worked we were sent to stay with my favourite aunt in the Rhondda Valley for 6 weeks every Summer. Having been brought up in NE London this was absolute heaven. We ran free all day in the fields with our cousins and had the most wonderful times. When it was time to go home I would still be crying when the train got to Reading which was more than half way home! I still feel as if I am going home every time I cross the bridge into Wales. Cymru am byth.

For years we always went to a boarding house in Colwyn Bay and spent every day on the.beach! I do remember some wet days though and trailing round shops as we werent allowed back before evening! No ensuites then of course - - a shared bathroom and rota for the bath.
We also visited my grandparents in Cardiff sometimes and went to Roath Park and onto the beach at Barry Island which was always heaving. When I went for a paddle it was difficult to find my parents on the beach.
I have photos ofme making sandcastles either in a ruched swimsuit or with my dress tucked into matching knickers! Happy days!

We went to the same place every year, southern Ireland, my mother was Irish. My parents owned a VW camper van, my mother and I sleeping inside, my dad in a tent beside. We camped at the farm owned by my grandfather for part of the time and the other week or so in Co. Wicklow where more relatives lived. I had plenty of cousins with whom I could play and we were always close to the sea and in those days I was a good swimmer. My recollection is that it was always sunny but I am sure that was not true.

I only went "abroad" to Spain once I had left home as was fending for myself.

The good holidays for us were when my parents were not there arguing! My brother and I, when we were old enough, used to set of for a little village in Devon called Lympstone, where we stayed with my grandmother - we walked on the beach and fished from the harbour wall, and took the train from the little station to Exmouth where we loved the boating pond.

My OH and I returned to Lympstone recently and thankfully it is relatively unspoiled - but my grandmother's house is unrecognisable now as it has been extended. They had a lovely vegetable garden surrounded by trellisses full of sweet peas. The memory of my brother pushing me round there in the wheelbarrow and brushing by the sweet peas releasing their wonderful scent is a precious one, and I plan sweet peas in my new garden!!

We had a seaside holiday every Summer, my parent were not well off but I was an only child for 13 years & my mother was a very thrifty housewife. My father was an office manager at the Midland Red bus company and we had free travel which helped. We stayed in a big hotel in Bournemouth and changed for dinner every night! We went to the beach every day, a coach trip once & a variety show one evening in the week. I could have as many ice creams as I wanted on the last day, it seemed wonderful but of course I couldn't really eat very many but it was such an indulgent idea. WH at I really wanted was one of the beach huts where people could change clothes and make cups of tea but we never managed that. When I was 13 my sister came along & everything changed!

My first holiday was in Blackpool aged 9months, we went to the same boarding house (Hull Road)every year until i was 7 or 8, I loved it there the couple who ran it had grandchildren similar ages to me and my brother, we didn't think they had to go to school because they lived at the seaside. We always had milk and chocolate biscuits for supper. When I was 9 we started going on holiday to Carbis Bay, Cornwall - it was like a different world.We stayed in a boarding house, Bed, breakfast and Evening meal, Mrs Roach ran it, her husband and brother ran the local garage and I remember taking their daughter Helen who was a similar age to my youngest brother down to the beach with us several times during our holidays, we were lucky as we always went for two weeks.at 12 i was lucky enough to start going on the annual foreign holidays with my secondary school, always 2 weeks at the beginning of the school holidays. Yugoslavia, Austria, Switzerland and France amazing holidays that I have never forgotten. It was only when I grew up that I realised the sacrifices my parents made that allowed me and then my brothers to have these holidays and I am forever grateful to them.

I remember two holidays as a child. Weymouth when I was 11 and the IOW when I was 12. On the Weymouth holiday we went to Bournemouth to see Tom Jones at the theatre, my brother was only 4 and got a boiled sweet stuck in his throat and began to choke . My father hit him so hard on the back the sweet bounced all down the steps in the aisle and everyone looked at us, I was mortified, never mind my poor brother. The second holiday my mother was ill for most of it but I do remember making sand shapes from the coloured sand to take home. Before that it was a day trip to Porthcawl on the train and the whistle of the steam train woke my brother up in his pushchair and he howled, he was only 2. My first "grownup" holiday was with my best friend when I was 16 we went to Pontins in Weston-Super-Mare and thought we were so grown up. I came third in the talent show singing. I still have a photo of it. My first holiday abroad was at 19 and we went to Tunisia for our honeymoon it cost us £37 each all in flights included. This was at the time my monthly wage was just over £20. Kids wouldn't believe it now. I still love to travel and adore flying .

Westward Ho ! circa 1956 in a family hotel which was full of happy youngsters and their parents. The hotel laid on fun and games for the children like egg and spoon races etc.

I remember being on the beach in my saggy,ruched swimming costume and how uncomfortable it felt if sand got in. A rubber bucket and spade. My father making sand cars, finishing off the finer details with a large penknife.

Thanks for reviving a happy memory.

Never had a holiday en famille until I was 15, when we went on the bus to Scarborough to stay in a b&b recommended by my grandparents. The journey was approx. two hours from where we lived, but the bus had two half hour stops en route so that passengers could attend to a call of nature or 'enjoy' a cup of strong tea in the cafe. I frequently take the bus to Scarborough nowadays to do a bit of shopping and always smile when it passes one of the stop-off cafes. Can't believe that we were considered quite adventurous travelling so far and also quite 'exotic'!

We always went to Boston to stay with my auntie flo then day trips to Skegness, loved donkey rides on beach.Then my parents decided to try b&b in Hastings for a week and I was allowed to take my best friend.

Did anyone experience the wild west of Ireland in the fifties? Chicken farms and donkeys on the fields where they were cutting up the peat.
As we lived in the north of Ireland from 1950-1954, we were often brought to my grandparent's farm in Co Meath. But for our family holiday we used to hire cottages in the west of Eire and took boats out every day to catch our meal, or go around the rocks with nets, catching a mass of prawns, plenty of them in those days. One cottage front door fell down on top of us, another had cockroaches all over the cottage, but all pulled down now!
However from 1956 we started to spend holidays in the south France as we were then living in Kent. I had one skiing holiday in Switzerland when there were only 10 others in the class learning to ski. Then came Spain when I was a teenager, but only one holiday with my parents, until I did the exchange visit that I have mentioned in previous messages. So I was very lucky as I do remember the mass of caravan sites that were not far from where we lived in Kent.

There is a lovely book called 'A fortnight in September ' by RC Sheriff. Its about a family seaside holiday. Its extremely simple and is about exactly that but its absolutely charming. I think it must be about the pre war period. I strongly recommend it for a lovely relaxing read.

We went to Ireland for our summer holidays, every year. My mum managed to take myself and my sister with 2 suitcases from London, on the bus to the tube station, tube to the train all the way to Holyhead to catch "the boat" to Dublin, where my uncle Dessie would collect us and take us to stay with family in Navan, Co Meath. Absolute freedom. Playing with cousins all day long. The best days of my life. What a great mum for giving us this every year.