Wednesday 7th July 2010 - In days of yore............

Come on, out you come, you're quite safe;  I haven't got any photos!  I don't think I have anyway.  


All this talking about my hols has had its usual effect - it set me thinking about how different hols are now from how they were when we were kids.  My German friend,  - it's all her fault really.  She just happened to mention that she and her mum and 17-year-old son had just paid a nostalgic visit to a place where family holidays were spent in a caravan during the 70's.  In all the years I've known Heike, I never knew that.  And having known her late father I couldn't imagine him in a caravan at all, let alone one shared with 4 females (wife and 3 daughters).  I was completely swept away on a wave of nostalgia.


My dad would rent a caravan in Bridlington on the Yorkshire coast for two weeks each summer.  This was in the days when a caravan was just that, a place that was really meant to be dragged along behind a car.  It had Calor gas mantels for lighting, a Calor gas stove,  no heating and bare linoleum on the floor.   Almost everything you needed had tro be taken along from home - bed linen, blankets, pillows, towels and so on..  Where we went cutlery, pots and pans  and such were already there  but I know some were not so lucky..   Goodness knows how people managed who had to go by train, and some did!


It was the time of year (usually 'stop fortnight' on the steelworks when production stopped so maintenance could be done) when my dad - just like Heike's I suppose - got stuck into all kinds of things that dad's of the time didn't usually do, not working class dads like mine anyway.  I never remember him peeling potatoes (spud bashing)at home or doing the dishes. He did in later years or else mimuther wouldn't let him go to the pub, but not then.  Not that he overdid it, like..  Neither did us kids.   But there was men's work and women's work and the two didn't mix - unless it was mimuther going out tatey picking to help the family finances..


It can't have been much of a holiday for mimuther because she srtill had to do everything she did at home but in a much smaller space.  Some of it was self-inflicted.  I shouldn't think anyone actually SAID she had to sweep the place and dust every day but I suppose it passed the time away while she was waiting for the spuds to boil!  There was another thing:  she cooked every single day.  I don't remember eating out or hacing dfish and chips.  We must have done surely but I think it wqas so rare I've forgotten.

Ooh, one year we had a change and went to Mablethorpe on the Lincolnshire coast  instead. They hired a bungalow but still had to take sheets, towels etc.  Dad's brother and mother came too I remember.  It was a great adventure for us kids because we'd never been in a bungalow before.  And we had neighbours, just like at home.  They were on holiday too and we never saw them again after that but I remember we were all very close for 2 weeks.  Maybe the fact that they were just 2 parents and child and we were 2 parents, 3 kids, uncle and Grandma had something to do with it. It must have been a bit squashed up in dad's car after all.  

We only went to Mablethorpe that once so it must either have been too expensive or the grown-ups didn't like it or, most likely, the caravan at Brid was booked out.  Mind you,  Keith and I have been there twice for single days (in 38 years) and the place still holds no charm except (aww go on, just one photo...)

 

 Love to all,

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