Do you remember your childhood holidays?

Twixie

Member
There is a program over here where celebrities recall their childhood holidays..

We were quite poor and used to have 2 weeks in a caravan..it must have been hell for my mother, there were 7 of us..

We went to a place called ''Sea palling'' in Norfolk..In the morning we went fruit picking to make some money..

The afternoons were free..I used to go shrimping in a large sand pool..

I didn't have a swimsuit..so my mother sat up all night knitting me one..

It looked great until I got into the water..and then it became bigger and bigger..when I got out I looked like a trawling net from a ship..:D
 

Holidays of my lifetime..weekdays from this Monday..3.45 on BBC1..
 

We all had to snuggle down in a bed...which smelled like mould..but we were out every day..
 
The calor gas oven exploded in my mom's face..she fell back..no elf and safety there..
 
We went to Tenby every year for 10 years.
(Tenby is in South Wales, with fantastic beaches.)

I don't remember it raining; but I do remember an awful lot of those holidays.

I went back about 10 years ago; the town has shrunk, but the beaches and harbour were the same!
 
We used to catch crabs, shrimps, etc and try to take them back with us in a bucket to live with us in Birmingham..
 
We went to Tenby every year for 10 years.
(Tenby is in South Wales, with fantastic beaches.)

I don't remember it raining; but I do remember an awful lot of those holidays.

I went back about 10 years ago; the town has shrunk, but the beaches and harbour were the same!

My father used to go fishing off Tenby..(shark fishing) he called it..

He caught one once and called me over..I didn't speak to him for days!!
 
Here's me in Blackpool, circa 1954. ;)

dlrvvk.jpg
 
Here's me in Blackpool, circa 1954. ;)

dlrvvk.jpg

Oooh,I love the donkey! What fun! So wish I had started riding mine years ago-now I`m afraid we`re both too old lol.

Yes,I had to think a minute too. I saw "holiday" and to us that means Christmas,Thanksgiving,Easter etc. But to you all it means what we call vacations. Well,my vacations as a child were all pretty much the same. When I was 2,my parents bought land on the shores of the lake where I now live. It was 3 hours from our home. My dad built a log home on the land and until I married at 17,that is where we spent every vacation-and every weekend as well. As little kids we loved it-as teenagers not so much. Not enough "action",ya know? Somehow though,when hubby and I were looking for a place to relocate from the San Francisco Bay Area,this is where we ended up. That was 23 years ago and we have never once regretted it.
 
I remember going to my aunt Nancy's @Point Pleasant Beach in New Jersey. We would go to the beach and my aunt would put baby oil on me and that evening I couldn't sleep because I was burned to a crisp. But I did have fun with my cousin and her friends and look back fondly on those times.
 
Love the picture Pam! We didn't have holidays either. But there was always a family reunion at "the dam" with Cousins, Aunts and Uncles. Picnic's, women fixed the meal and talked, men went fishing and us children ran and played like wild Indians. Then when my aunt and uncle from Nashville came, Dad would buy a watermelon and go to the BAR-B-Que place for real Bar-b-que. My kids didn't per say get vacations but they went home to my Mom's every year where they were spoiled rotten by my brothers and sisters and their aunts and uncles. So I guess we had the best.
 
We would go camping every year. My dad and we kids thought it was wonderful. My mother, not so. Dad and the older kids would traipse off on an adventure and she'd be stuck back at the (leaky) old tent, cooking over an open fire, getting water from a central spigot and using an outhouse, trying to keep the babies from falling into the fire or off a cliff. Now she says her idea of camping is spending the night at a Budget Inn.
 
We lived in a big city, but for summers when school was out, my father rented a tiny bungalow on the beach for us to enjoy getting back to nature. He'd keep working and just see us on weekends, while my mother, brother and two sisters enjoyed swimming, etc. My user name SeaBreeze is in memory of my dad, and the small sail-less sailboat he bought used to take us out fishing on the bay, he named it SeaBreeze. Those summer vacations with my family are really cherished memories for me. Funny comment about the fish net Twixie! :D
 
I remember the beach donkeys in Blackpool [poor patient things] we may well have been on the same one Pam, in the 1950's.I got lost once on the beach there [aged 7] so after a while set about finding our hotel, and waited in the garden there while all hell was breaking loose on the beach and prom with people looking for me.An hour later I was found there in the garden and was told off by various angry looking people.That's how I remember childhood, constantly being told off by angry adults.It wasn't the fun that children seem to have today.
 
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A GREAT/FUN "weekend" vacation for me, during my high school years, was going over to my cousin's house. Their parents were considerably LESS strict than my step-parents were and they had a ski boat. Their parents were on a bowling league on Saturday nights. When I went over there for Saturday and Sunday, Saturday night was "Party Time" for us three young teens. Coke, popcorn, a movie and plenty of laughing/romping around. We didn't mess up the house, but we sure had fun. Then, on Sunday, my Uncle would hook up the ski boat and off to the local reservoir we'd all go. Definitely a FUN weekend, that is, compared to feeding/watering livestock and other work around the farm, plus, that night, either watching Lawrence Welk (step-parents favorite) on tv or in my bedroom working on a model car.

My other "vacation" time was w/my step-parents going to Michigan to visit my step-mom's sister's. Now, to me that was BORING!! But, I coped.
 
My dad had an old army jeep..with tarpaulin covers...my mothers used to make us 3 girls a really comfy bed in the back...She was a feeder..we had just had a massive breakfast but before we got to the bottom of the road..she would say ''anyone hungry?''
 
Besides the camping trips, we used to visit my Virginia grandparents every year or so. It was a day and a half trip and we'd pile into an old station wagon (no air conditioning, of course), bickering and whining every mile of the way ("she's touching me....she's looking out my window....she's making noises at me....you get the picture.) One sister always got carsick. Another inevitably would step on a nail or come down with strep throat, which would involve stopping at some little town hospital for a shot. My mom would periodically reach back and flail away at whoever was in reach. The secret was to lean as far away from her as possible, while loudly protesting that you hadn't done ANYTHING! My dad would, at some point, pull the car over to the side of the road, get out, and announce that he was walking home and to go on without him. We'd all pile out of the car, follow him down the road crying, and he'd get back in the car and drive on. Our "port-a-potty" was a coffee can with a couple inches of sand in it......dad didn't like to stop for what he considered unnecessary reasons. We never stopped to eat at a restaurant; mom always packed enough food for an army regiment. There weren't any nice roadside parks in those days; they consisted of a wide spot by the road with a splintery picnic table, a fly-blown rubbish can and, if you were *lucky*, an outhouse in unspeakable condition. Otherwise, it was back to the coffee can.

Fortunately, for my parents, they could hand us over to the grandparents when we got there, and sleep for 24 hours.
 
Besides the camping trips, we used to visit my Virginia grandparents every year or so. It was a day and a half trip and we'd pile into an old station wagon (no air conditioning, of course), bickering and whining every mile of the way ("she's touching me....she's looking out my window....she's making noises at me....you get the picture.) One sister always got carsick. Another inevitably would step on a nail or come down with strep throat, which would involve stopping at some little town hospital for a shot. My mom would periodically reach back and flail away at whoever was in reach. The secret was to lean as far away from her as possible, while loudly protesting that you hadn't done ANYTHING! My dad would, at some point, pull the car over to the side of the road, get out, and announce that he was walking home and to go on without him. We'd all pile out of the car, follow him down the road crying, and he'd get back in the car and drive on. Our "port-a-potty" was a coffee can with a couple inches of sand in it......dad didn't like to stop for what he considered unnecessary reasons. We never stopped to eat at a restaurant; mom always packed enough food for an army regiment. There weren't any nice roadside parks in those days; they consisted of a wide spot by the road with a splintery picnic table, a fly-blown rubbish can and, if you were *lucky*, an outhouse in unspeakable condition. Otherwise, it was back to the coffee can.

Fortunately, for my parents, they could hand us over to the grandparents when we got there, and sleep for 24 hours.

Dad's never want to stop..my mom used to shout at him..''The kids need a wee'' It was like he was possessed..and if he lost his way..would he ask for directions??

Hell No!!
 


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