hols

Messages
6,001
Remember 1959 or so?
Uncle Bill got 6 or 7 and a dog in his Austin A30 and off we went on our hols
Parked on the cobbled bank near the Black Lion, took our only suitcase from the boot and wandered up the Wynds to our rented cottage. Outside toilet and 2 bedrooms for us to share. Quickly out across the bridge down the lifeboat jetty, round the corner, over the concrete pier to the flat rocks with thousands of rock pools that hid many secrets like crabs under boulders and anemones and limpets. Always keeping 30 minutes or so ahead of the advancing Sea.
As high tide approached back up the almost vertical concrete steps to the harbour side. Back past the artists over the bridge to the small gift shop where I lusted after a Matchbox sports car Austin Healey Sprite (I later owned a real one) in the window. Double back around the bend past the lady that made Cinder Toffee and we were given the scrap ends. . Past the Royal George whose cellars were always part full of sea water and on to the Cod and Lobster on the way to the ramp that led to the small beach. Up onto the second smaller concrete pier and dived into the sea at high tide. Back to the cottage to be shouted at and dad to the B;ack Lion where the bottom end people did not talk to the top end people of the village. If we were in luck and the Carnival was on and the rough hewn men camouflaged their boats into Viking Long Ships and a mock battle took place on the small beach with the Saxons. I believed it all. The dead men suddenly rose and we all repaired to the Cod and Lobster. Sometimes a small firework display and all the wives paraded up and down the cobbles with their Bonnets and half made fishermen Ganzies thay were thick and hairy and chunky the wives and the Ganzies!. Home to bed and there were giggles and pumps and laughter until we got a belt off dad and told to get to sleep.
The next day started and we repeated it all. It was always sunny and we were sad when Uncle Bill came to collect us a week or so later.
Time flew by in the blink of an eye..............................
Staithes
 

Nibby

Member
Messages
2,027
Perhaps 1969 for me, the long trip from North London to North Devon in a Riley or Wolseley. Even in those days getting across London took an hour, then the long trip to Devon, places I remember stopping along the way were towns like Devizes, Taunton. When we got a glimpse of the sea , we knew we were nearly there.
Halcyon days.
 

zagatoes30

Member
Messages
20,759
Annual trip to Sennen Cove, Cornwall - 1965 to 1977

M6 to Birmingham and then ever increasing lengths of M5 to Bristol then it was A roads Bridgewater, Taunton, Wellington, Exeter, Okehampton until the little bridge into Launceston and its slow hill with the bad bend. Then onto Bodmin with a stop at the Jamaica Inn if we were lucky then Indian Queens, Mitchell, Redruth, Cambourne & Penzance and then the last 9 miles to Sennen all in some variant of an A55, MG or Riley normally. Occasionally something from Rootes an Humber Hawk, Hillman Minx or Sunbeam Rapier until company Ford Cortinas arrived, 5 up and the dog use to take us all day unless we set off early morning, like 3:00am then we could be there for lunch. A week later we did it in reverse as we headed home.

Loved it, still do whenever I get the chance to go back there more dual carriageways and bypasses these days but it brings back all the same feelings
 

HenrysDad

Member
Messages
443
We went camping all over Europe when I was a kid (b 1960). One of my very first memories is being flooded near Lake Garda. Ford Zephyr then Zodiac for us.