More Holidays as a Child - Fond Memories to Fire the Imagination

Torremolinos

At the age of 8 or 9, I was so excited to discover mum and Dad had booked our first ever holiday abroad to Torremolinos, Costa Del Sol in Spain. I even remember the name of the hotel, The Principe Sol, which I thought was so beautiful inside with lots of marble and shiny brass everywhere, with comfy blue velour seats. In the main reception were lots of the old Space Invaders games and my brother and I spent most of our pocket money on them.

I joined in with most of the kids clubs activities including a fancy dress competition where I was dressed up as a doll! Didn't win. I wanted to be the Fairy Princess! Hey ho! We played water volleyball and I made friends with a girl called Rachael, who went to a catholic school and all she wanted to do was put towels on head and play "nuns!" Just goes to show how influential a child's environment is as they grow up. Naturally as I went to a church school, but not a nun in sight, I had trouble understanding the point to the game.














I entered the kids club talent competition and sang do your ears hang low and did a great disco dance manouvre which I have no idea what music I was dancing to. I didn't win, decided like the Rose Queen attendents incident at Sunday School, (Please read St Margarets Blog) that this was also a fix and a rich parent had paid off the judges!

I tried Paella for the first time and I thought it was amazingly tasty food, but as an adult I find it too salty and not that nice at all, even though I've tried to eat it at several different restaurants over the years. The hotel food was self service buffet style and I don't think I'd ever seen so much food laid out to try in all my life. I remember granddad coming back with plates piled high with food and I chastised him once for having four boiled eggs for breakfast, as well as everything else!











We did go on some trips, but all I remember is the Bull ring and Fuengirola market, which I loved because I got my Hawaii t-shirt and Flamenco dancer in a pretty pink dress there.






















Blackpool

On the estate we lived in, there was several families we were friendly with and on was the Baglins, Doreen and Ray. We went away with them a couple of times to Blackpool to see the Grumbleweeds and Bob Calgees with spit the dog on the Central Pier. I remember sitting on the front row and Bob Calgees Got my dad up on stage and made him sit on his knee and began pretending he was a puppet, making him open and close his mouth and coming out with hilarious comments in a high pitch voice.



Forget Nina Conti my friends, Bob Calgees was doing this act thirty odd years ago! And he didn't need a silly face mask! We stayed at the Claremont hotel whilst we were there and I thought it was so beautiful and special because we didn't stay in hotels very often, we always stayed in a cottage or in a caravan. I keep trying to go back to the Claremont Hotel and stay for a weekend, but it is so popular, it's always booked up.
The Baglin's also had a static caravan in at Cala Gran Park in Fleetwood, which we stayed there a couple of times with my Aunt, Uncle and cousin and I remember being Sindy mad at the time as we drove through the lights and imagining my Sindy doll was enjoying all the twinkley Lights as much as I was!

If you've never seen Blackpool Illuminations then you have never lived. Think Vegas on Northern steroids! I also played Sindy in the caravan and in the club house at night, where believe it or not, children could buy pretend play cigarettes which blew talcum powder out like smoke!!! I know it would never be allowed today, but then this was back in the day when you could buy cigarette candy in a little box and kids would pretend to smoke! Horrified if I saw a kid doing that today.








Humanby

Nanna and Granddad would take it in turns to take me and David away on little weekend breaks (they couldn't cope with us both fighting together) so we went separately. The first holiday was to The Cottage in Humanby in Yorkshire, which was this quaint little terraced cottage all still furnished in 1940's furniture, it truly was like stepping back in time and I loved this place so much it did receive a special mention in my Beyond Series of  books as the home of the Easterly Witches Coven Castle. There was a girls private boarding school in the village (now apartments... Sigh) and they wore blazers and straw hats and it reminded me of St Trinians and so I wanted to go there. It never occurred to me that it would cost a fortune to educate me in such a refined institution.





We'd walk through the church graveyard and try to spot wildlife like foxes and hedgehogs and we'd go to the pub on the High street at tea time and stop off for fish and chips on the way home. Nana and Granddad took me to Butlins in Scarborough where I made friends with a lovely girl called Dawn, (I know I can remember her name even after al these years. She was staying at the campsite and she showed me around while my grandparents sunbathed by the pool. I loved it there, even the chalets reminded me of the Sitcom Hi-De-Hi! I wanted to stay the rest of my holiday there, but all I have is this photograph.







London

The other fantastic holiday my grandparents took me on was to London, we stayed in the Cavendish Hotel, which was very posh and for 1981 hi tech, with credit card like keys to unlock our bedroom door. We went passed a very grand looking building and the fires were lit above the gate and Granddad said, "Hold on a minute, I think someone official is about to turn up." Sure enough a black limo pulled in with flags at the front and the Queen Mother stepped out in a beautiful floral chiffon dress, she stood by the door and waved for photographs then moved on inside.

I am so chuffed with this photograph because although it looks far away, we were actually very close to her. (no wide angled zoom lenses on digital camera's back then. We then saw the Trouping of the colour and we camped out on The Mall since the early hours just so we could get to the front of the barriers and what a view. I managed to see pretty much all the royal family go past including this one of Her Majesty The Queen go past side saddle.

Other great memories of the London Trip: Feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square, feeding sparrows in Hyde Park, watching my first horror movie late at night in bed whilst Nana and Granddad slept... It had something to do with Telekinesis, (and no, it wasn't Carrie). I only stayed up to watch it so I could impress my friend at school who watched all the 70' and early 80's video nasties, because she had two much older brothers who watched the stuff all the time. On the way home from school, we would stop off at the video shop, I would pick a horror film and then we'd walk home whilst she told me the story behind the picture of the head exploding on the video box cover (Scanners), much to my excitement and joy! But I digress.

Finally the thing that really did horrify me was my granddad taking me down a tube station and as we got in the carriage he said, "See all that water running down the walls?" (Condensation no doubt) "Well, that's the Thames River seeping into the tunnels!" What the Hell? It's no wonder I'm claustrophobic and Aqua-phobic! Deary me, the rubbish adults tell children!






Great Langdale
                                                                                                   

Weekend at Great Langdale with the Corrigan family was a wonderful experience and although I was quite young (about 3 or 4), I do remember quite a bit about it. We stayed in a farm house, it had an outdoor pool that I remember playing in with the other kids and the other couple had just had twins, and we all took it in turns sitting in the pushchairs and tearing around this huge garage and farmyard in them.

The other clear memory I had was of an old lodge house, I think it was on the main road, my dad and Pat had taken us all out for a walk and when we came across the run down property my dad and Pat decided to go and have a nosy. It was overgrown with weeds and the net curtains were torn and filthy. I asked my dad who lived there, and he said... "Witches!" So after that I called it the witches house and imagine old crones with green faces and crooked hooked noses cackling as they fly around the farm on broomsticks! And I guess my obsessions for witches and Halloween was born from there.

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