What we did on our holidays.

So how did we spend our holidays when we were children back in the 50's and 60's ?. In my case family holidays were often spent at a boarding house in Minehead, usually in poor weather, a factor which has led to Minehead becoming one of my least favorite seaside resorts. Back in the day you could get a Western National bus that ran from Exeter to Minehead via Silverton which usually considerably increased the risk of Coach sickness which did not tend to enhance your holiday experience. Other family holidays that I remember were to Kent and Lancashire in the early sixties both of which were notably wet.

Apart from that there were the organised outings and daytrips run by various village bodies. We had the school trips, Sunday School trips, and Choir outings. Usually these were by coach but some I can remember were by steam train from the old Silverton station at Ellerhayes. I can still remember the smell of the smoke to this day.

The coaches tended to be elderly and laboured up Haldon or Telegraph hills towards the usual destinations of Dawlish, Torquay, Tiegnmouth or Paignton although I never remember any breaking down. Coachloads of Children and their parents would then be deposited at the beach to enjoy the sand, sea and candyfloss. One of the highlights of any tripo that I made was the trip to the pier to risk your pocket money and the vast array of primitive fruit machines that faced you on arrival. You could also try your hand at target shooting and when we reached our teens the pier became the ideal venue for ogling members of the opposite sex. Thankfully, some of the piers still exist and still provide the same pleasures for the suceeding generations.

The only major School trip I took part in was to Lugano in Switzerland in 1962 when we also visited Milan. The enjoyment of this trip was wrecked by the sort of stomach bug for which foriegn travel is renowned. I also had my one experience of flying at that time which left me deaf for a week and may well go towards explaining why I have not been enthusistic about forien travel from that day to this.