Somewhere, buried at the bottom of a shoe box probably...is a photograph of myself and my little brother just inside the Major Oak in Sherwood forest...it is a grim photo. I've obviously been crying because my eyes are swollen almost shut and my brother is glowering in the way only a five year old can when seriously pixxed off about something.
Mother had decided I needed to have curly hair so she permed mine using Twink which stank of ammonia and made my eyes water, she'd bought those truly awful perming curlers that bit into your scalp...my brother has a firm side parting and his hair was greased down to within an inch of its life...Fathers Brylcream I expect...we were on holidays!
Holidays were a rare occasion with Father having the farm to tend to...in fact I can only remember the one in Nottinghamshire...does anyone actually go to Nottinghamshire on holidays...we did. And the other was when we stayed on a mixed farm in North Wales...it hammered down with rain for most of the week and the farmer's wife cooked scrambled eggs for breakfast in six inches of water...then sort of slopped it all out on sliced white bread thickly spread with margarine.
We were virtually forced into the sea in our knitted bathing costumes that sagged the minute they were wet and my brother was given a plastic bucket and told to 'have fun'...I'd forgotten that until he reminded me when he visited me in hospital a couple of years ago...he also remembered the farm pony, who was a nasty creature who bit and kicked but we had to sit on its back and look as though we were enjoying ourselves...while the feckin pony did its level best to tip us off.
The minute my brother left home the parents went to wonderful places in the south of France and Greece and Italy...Father's car was lost on the Italian railway and we never heard the end of it...Mother met some Italian actor at a pavement cafe and we never heard the end of that either...Father peered into live volcanoes and Mother stood for hours in the heat waiting to see the Pope...
There was one holiday I enjoyed as a child...when I went to Barmouth with my best friend and her parents...it was boiling hot and we were terribly sun-burned but my friends Dad played with us on the beach and her Mum let us eat huge ripe peaches bought from a market stall...she tucked her skirt up into her knickers and came into the sea with us and we ate out every evening in a cafe...fish and chips and a knickerbocker glory with a plate of bread and butter and a teapot the waitress kept filling up...when we went back to the caravan, Pauline's parents played cards with us and I -Spy then they'd leave us while they went to the bar for a drink...
I didn't realise that...Warwickstag put a photo of it on today...all wired off and propped up!
A lovely story as always, vashti. We had few and far between family holidays...my dad would make a 45 minute car trip a 1.5hour drive...my mum scowled all the way..my brother and 3 sisters had the best fun in the back seat...no seat belts in sight! Family pics what a scream, forced smiles and all xx
You are so right it does seem that family holidays are there to be problematic. Went to Jersey and my Father fell in a hole I dug in the sand and broke his ankle We went to Blackpool and I had an abscess burst in my ear! Our first holiday in Spain my Mother fell down a hole that every one else stepped over and gashed her leg quite badly! Went to the Isle of Man and I had to have a tooth removed I broke while there. Was treated to a posh long weekend in Western super mare by my wife's mother and I got food poisoning! Two years later I got a septic foot from Weston's beach! I went to Germany with the school and got bit by a dashound of all things which cost the school £40.00 ( that was in the old money a long time ago) which they never let me forget. My son went to a safe play area in Blackpool and tore his ligaments in his leg and had to be plastered past his knee, to help the day my soon saw a boys deep cut on his knee and fainted into the boys lap. We ended up with them both on a bed next each other in A&E.
And I wonder why I cannot afford travel insurance?
I remember a perm for kids called "Toddilox"......or something like that? I always have had rotten fine straight hair and always hated it, so when I had a perm as a kid I loved it! Trouble was, if you brushed it, it just ended as a load of frizz instead of curls! It did, at least, put an end to having my hair put in rags every night.
As for holidays...we went to the same place every year, which was my adopted parents' home town. Consequently, most of the time was taken up visiting various "relatives", which I dreaded (all but one.) On times we went on the beach it was mostly great - digging in the sand, sitting in the freezing cold sea (in my knitted costume), searching the rock pools, eating cockles etc., But it was always spoilt when it was time to get dressed by my mother insisting on getting the sand off my feet! She'd completely ignore my howls as she rubbed away with a towel at the sand that had dried between my toes. I can still remember the pain of it after all these years.......and then trying to pull socks on over damp feet - ridiculous. Thank heavens today for flip-flops. Lol.
Lol...yes it's funny the things you remember Vashti. You do make me giggle.
I have some very happy memories of a holiday in Pembrokeshire when I was 16 years old. I went with a schoolfriend and her family and we stayed on a farm in Trefin. I can remember me and Jean getting a job potato picking so we could have some extra money for a day trip across to Ireland. We loved it...happy happy days. xxx
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We went to Blackpool and I had an abscess burst in my ear! Our first holiday in Spain my Mother fell down a hole that every one else stepped over and gashed her leg quite badly! Went to the Isle of Man and I had to have a tooth removed I broke while there. Was treated to a posh long weekend in Western super mare by my wife's mother and I got food poisoning! Two years later I got a septic foot from Weston's beach! I went to Germany with the school and got bit by a dashound of all things which cost the school £40.00 ( that was in the old money a long time ago) which they never let me forget. My son went to a safe play area in Blackpool and tore his ligaments in his leg and had to be plastered past his knee, to help the day my soon saw a boys deep cut on his knee and fainted into the boys lap. We ended up with them both on a bed next each other in A&E.
When We Lived On The Farm...
Summer holidays
holidays 
My old man Stan 💙
