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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Holidays as a child - Prestatyn and Porthmadog

Pontins Prestatyn

Obviously as a child, most people will say some of their fondest memories are when they went away on holiday. And I am no exception, and I have quite a good memory too. Up to the age of 4 we used to go to Pontins at Prestatyn in North Wales. Although the years may merge into one, I do remember the ladybird swarm, where mum simply put our raincoats and wellingtons on and sent us outside to play in essentially was a plague of biblical proportions! But that was the 1970's way of parenting, "go out and play!"

Another unusual aspect of 70's parenting was to tell ridiculous lies to your children so as to frighten you to death, like "if you're naughty a policeman will put you in prison and you'll never see anyone ever again!" Or my mum's favourite when I used to ask for my dad was, "He's run off with the Bogey man!" She told me this when we were at Pontins, so I took it upon myself to go and find dad and give the Bogey man a good telling off... Naturally I was soon lost and a kind man with his son took me to reception. I remember sitting on a chair behind a kind lady dressed as a blue coat, not feeling remotely frightened telling the staff I had to find the Bogey man because he had my dad. You can imagine my mothers face when she turned up to collect missing child from the reception and being asked why I would think the Bogey man had run off with my dad!


Red faced, my mum took me back to the chalet and should me where dad had been lying in bed all day with a stomach bug. She told me the lie to stop me disturbing him! Be warned what you lie to your kids about is all I can say. I have lots of other dodgier memories, like this puppet machine that had these hideous dancing dolls in them that fascinated and frightened me to dead all at the same time. I loved the chalets we stayed in and playing on the park. The little Noddy train that took you around the park and the yellow glass roof in the huge swimming pool. I actually thought I'd imagined some of these things until, by chance, we went there for a day visit and the swimming pool or chalets hadn't changed at all in 40 years... Hence all the photos.







Greenacres Porthmadog

From aged 5 to 12 years old we changed destinations and Dad began taking us to Greenacres caravan park in Porthmadog North Wales, which has created a life long love affair for the park, the town and the dunes on Blackrock sands. We first stayed in a caravan belonging to a friend of dad's from work, which was on what is Narcissis Way. I loved this old caravan, back then they used to have proper living rooms and bathrooms, which I think some of the newer higher grade models are reverting back to funnily enough. I remember loving Wonder woman, The Incredible Hulk and Spiderman on TV at around this time. I think I'd been watching Wonder Woman and decided I was going to create an assault course around the freestanding table and chairs in the living area using my bunk bed ladders and bedding! Naturally I fell off the ladders and busted my nose! I had a scabby nose for weeks afterwards.

I loved going to the beach at the end of the caravan park and where there are grassy dunes with rolling hills of soft, velvety sand. I loved it so much I have written a short story about the place and a supernatural series based around the area. My brother and I would play bowls, make sand castles, dig huge holes and bury each other in them, take our Labrador dog, Bonnie for a run through the dunes, which she loved. As soon as we drove into Porthmadog, she would go mad in the car, whining and panting and as soon as we opened the car door, she would run off into the sand dunes.

So our job was to look after the dog while mum and dad unpacked. We had this obsession with jelly fish too. For some reason these huge jelly fish would get washed up on the beach and me and David would get sticks to try and pick them up with. How on earth we never got stung I do not know. We would also see how far we could jump off the highest sand dunes and land in the soft sand below. No fear then, although I did go back with my brother about 9 years ago and I dared him to jump over the highest dune and he did! Bonkers!

A few years on and another of dad's friend had bought a double chalet AND a new Monaco Riviera Caravan (which was very posh for it's time (picture across). I decided dad's friend must also be very rich to have a caravan and a chalet. I loved this caravan so much and wanted to live in it permanently. It had rich, red, velour curtains with proper tie backs, (which was my job to tie back in the mornings) and a lovely wine red and beige velour seating and dining area. I thought it was so pretty. The owners also had a speed boat, which he took us all out in when he turned up at weekends. It was great fun and exciting.

During our years holidaying at Greenacres, we had a number of family members join us in the fun. Nana and Granddad came to stay in the old caravan with us for a weekend once. Then my Aunt and Uncle came with my cousin twice, once they had a touring caravan which I always wanted to play house in because it was just too cute. I even tried to persuade my dad to buy a touring caravan, but he said the nearest he got to camping was in a static caravan! We'd go to the clubhouse at night and get dressed up in my favourite dresses (no jeans and t-shirts back then) and we'd be entertained by the camps staff with party games (a bit like what they do today, but there was no Bradly Bears, Sid the Seagulls, shops with endless amounts of expensive kids light up toys etc or highly polished wanna be stars and cabaret acts). Just a glass of lemonade, a packet of salt and vinegar crisps and then dance and play until carried back to the caravan exhausted.
Although,we also sometimes went to a pub down the road that didn't charge to get in and they did fried chicken or scampi in a basket then they'd put on a disco for the kids. I remember doing "Oops up side your Head." and dancing to Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners. Whenever I hear that song, it takes me right back to that holiday.

The second time my cousin came to Porthmadog, they camped in this huge tent on another campsite close by with Gran and Granddad. It is probably one of my most memorable holidays in Porthmadog. Dad got the Brothers in Arms album by Dire Straits, Zig Zig Sputnik and Dead or Live were in the charts and it was just a special time with my grandparents on the beach. I went to my first car boot sale, which I thought was marvelous and wanted to buy everything I thought was cute, but was probably just old cheap rubbish, but I'm a magpie for all things shiny and pretty.

We used to go for lots of day trips out over the years to places like Caernarvon Castle, Harlech, Abersoch, Angelsey, Portmerion, but the two things we did every year without fail was a trip to Criccieth to see the castle, sit on the beach wall and eat fish and chips then go to Cadwaladers ice cream shop for the most amazing ice cream ever. Like everything, Cadwalderwers is a highly polished commercialised chain across Wales now, but it started out at one little shop in Criccieth. I love the place so much I based my witches coven in Didikai Witch there and when I had to return to the characters and Castle in the third book Vampire Sorceress I spent a chunk of my Christmas break there, sat in what is now Cadwaladers Cafe looking out towards the Castle for inspiration. The other trip I loved was on the steam train to Blanneau Ffestinniog. And I still love doing those things to this day, along with exploring Portmerion, which is a colourful and bonkers make believe town used to film the Prisoner in the 60's, but I still love the fantasy aspect of the place even to this day.


Finally, the daft things we buy as a kid and think they're great! I collected foreign dolls, of a fashion, so I bought a very cheap doll in Welsh dress whose eyes fell out with one shake, it had the doll with these creepy, empty holes instead of eyes for years. Then I bought this old wild west lady doll with a massive head in a blue chiffon dress. They were all the fashion at the time, I believe they are called Southern Belle Bradley Dolls, but I dented her cheek as soon as I got her back to the caravan, she went to a good home years later though. And the other thing I remember buying was this cute little gorilla that sucked a dummy... I have to confess, I still have it!

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Great Ghost Stories on Children's TV in the 80's

The one thing I loved as a child was ghost stories. The first time I heard War of the Worlds at school I went home, nicked my brother's tape recorder, locked myself in the bedroom in the dark and created my own haunted house story complete with creepy sound effects. Fast forward a couple of years and I was excited to get home from school to watch The Children of Green Knowe. 
It was a guilty secret because I was in high school at this point, but I was still a kid, right?

In a boarding school somewhere in post-war Britain, Toseland (Alec Christie) or, as he preferred to be known as Tolly receives word from his Father that he will be spending Christmas with his maternal Great Grandmother known as Mrs Oldknow (Daphne Oxenford). Tolly's festive home will be the ancient Oldknow family home of Green Knowe. Within the confines of Green Knowe, Mrs Oldknow regales Tolly with the stories of years past. Tolly plays hide-and-seek with ghostly children who perished in the Great Plague and it turns out these children are dead rellies somehow (Not sure because a whole generation seemingly was wiped out, but hey, I was 13 so I didn't ask such questions back then. 






The spooky kids were Toby (Graham McGrath), Alexander (James Trevelyan) and Linnet (Polly Maberly). It's not all fun and games, though, as the ancient tree-spirit Green Noah is intent on getting his branches on Tolly.
Again not sure why and there was something to do with St Christopher the saint of travellers walking through a stream in the dark! To be fair I do need to watch this series again and lucky for me it's on You Tube! 

Based on the Green Knowe series of books by Lucy M Boston, The Children of Green Knowe was dramatised by John Stadelman for BBC1 in 1986. 
The Children of Green Knowe is in the same vein as other BBC telefantasies The Box of Delights and The Chronicles of Narnia, so you know what to expect - well spoken children, a bit of magic, some horror and a wonderful soundtrack. 

 The BBC always do a great job with period dramas and The Children of Green Knowe is no exception. It conjures up a show which is watchable, cosy and just perfect for a quick spot of festive viewing. 

Moondial is a childrens ghost/fantasy drama made by the BBC and transmitted in 1988.The story is about a young girl, Minty (Siri Neal), who is staying with her aunt after her mother is injured in a car accident. Minty spends much of her time wandering around the grounds of a nearby mansion, and is drawn to a moondial that enables her to travel back in time, where she becomes involved with two children, Tom (Tony Sands), who lives in the Victorian era, and Sarah (Helena Avellano), who seems to live further back in time.

Jacqueline Pearce, who played Servelan in Blakes 7, plays the dual role of the vicious Miss Vole (who seems to have lived in the 18th Century) and the present-day ghost hunter Miss Raven. And she still creeps me out. She plays great characters. I also loved this series because the thought of being able to wonder around a huge mansion whilst being completely invisible to the other people (except the children) appealed to my weirdness.

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RentaGhost

“If your mansion house needs haunting just call Rentaghost,

We’ve got spooks, and ghouls, and freaks, and fools, at Rentaghost,

Hear the Phantom of the Opera, sing a haunting melody,

Remember what you see, is not a mystery, but Rentaghost.”

Rentaghost was a British children's television comedy show, broadcast by the BBC between 6 January 1976 and 6 November 1984. The show's plot centred on the antics of a number of ghosts who worked for a firm called Rentaghost, which rented out the spirits for various tasks. The company, located in South Ealing, is run by Fred Mumford, a recently deceased loser who feels he can find work for ghosts whose lives were as unsuccessful as his. 
I loved this series and even pretended my bedroom was haunted, drawing lots of ghosts like the rentaghost below and sticking them around my room. I then told a girl on my street my room was haunted and when she saw the paper ghost, she ran away screaming!!!

His first (and only) recruits are Timothy Claypole, a mischievous jester with a comical lack of knowledge about modern technology; and Hubert Davenport, a delicate Victorian-era gentleman who is morally shocked by the modern world. The ghosts work from an office, which they rent from Harold Meaker, who discovers the truth about them in the third episode. Over the course of several series, other characters were added: Hazel the McWitch, a Scottish witch; Nadia Popov, a Dutch ghost who suffers from hay fever and teleports away when she sneezes; and the pantomime horse Dobbin, and is brought to life by Claypole.

When actor Michael Darbyshire(who played the role of Davenport) died in 1979, Anthony Jackson (Mumford) declined to appear in the next series, leaving Michael Staniforth's Claypole the sole original ghost; Davenport and Mumford's absences were explained at the start of the series by the pair having gone on an extended tour of stately home hauntings. After Mumford's departure, the business was taken over by Harold Meaker and his wife Ethel, who suffered from the various problems the ghosts brought to their lives.

The long-suffering neighbours of Rentaghost are the Perkins, who appear from Series 4 onwards, and think the Meakers are mad. I do actually remember the original series and cast, even though I was very young back then. Just goes to show how fascinated I was with the supernatural even at a very young age.

Children's Sci-fi and Fantasy TV of the 1980's

Aliens in the Family TV Theme Tune

Premise - David (Rob Edwards) and Phillipa (Clare Clifford), are a newly married couple, both having children from previous relationships. David is bringing Jacqueline aka Jake (Sophie Bold) to his new home to Phillipa and her daughter Dora (Claire Wilkie) and son Lewis (Sebastian Knapp) Jake, is very tomboy like in nature is the polar opposite of Dora who's into her fashion and appearance.

Meanwhile, up in that there galactic galaxy, is a Galgonquan spaceship where - another set of siblings - Bond (Grant Thatcher) and Solita (Elizabeth Watkins) are getting all anxious about Bond's upcoming assessment. Solita needs to disguise herself on Earth as an everyday object and Bond is tasked with locating and retrieving this (all after disguising himself as a human being man). 



Doesn't sound too testing, but there's also the threat of the sinister Wirdegen to contend with who want to do nasty things to Galgonquans.

Things go wrong for everyone. Jake can't stand life at David and Phillipa's house and Bond finds himself fleeing from the Wirdegen almost as soon as he's set foot on Earth. Bond ends up with the Earth kids on a desperate quest to find Solita and get home.

Bond finds Solita in an old transistor radio and must reach the stone circle before the Wirdegens catch them. They slip through time, and it's implied that Dora and Bond are related as they both posses the same family heirloom stone. What is fantastic is that the series is now on You Tube!

You Tube Series of Aliens in the Family

I loved this series because I fancied the pants of Grant Thatcher and I had this sneaky wish to be an Alien. Think it may have something to do with being all seeing and all knowing.

The Wirdegen were a great addition and the menace portrayed by the Wirdegen leader was simultaneously fantastic and nightmare inducing. (He was also a Deatheater in Harry Potter films!

And it turned out the Wirdegen's were just Galgonquan in disguise, testing Bond. The filming location was generally in Devon, spotting the Exeter bus station, stone circles on Dartmoor and the time slip scenes at Becky Falls.

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Another Alien Series - that I absolutely loved was the sci-fi drama series of the 80's I remember watching was the 1984 adaptation of John Wyndham’s Chocky. This was Wyndham’s final science fiction novel published in 1968 and set slightly in the future, where as the Children's TV version was contemporary. I have watched the 3 series on YouTube (Chocky's Children and Chocky's Challenge. 

The premise of both the novel and the series is that Matthew, a 12-year-old boy, suddenly appears to have an imaginary friend named Chocky. His parents become worried about his behaviour and eventually Chocky reveals herself as this ball of glowing light. She's here on a mission to understand Earth and uses Matthew as a vessel to understand the world.

The interest of the story is that it’s a kind of science fictional twist on the demonic possession idea, but the real twist is that Chocky really appears to be rather benign. Perhaps even benevolent. Having your son possessed by an alien entity, even an apparently benevolent one, is still rather disturbing. Although as a child watching this I just thought it was great to have a secret friend who made you super clever! We all used to talk about it at school the next day.

In Chocky's Children Matthew goes on holiday and meets a mathematical prodigy Albertine (after Einstein of course) who is unaware of Chocky, but the alien tutors her and makes her uber clever. The precocious child hates Matthew's suggestion that she is clever through alien intervention until she is kidnapped by a group who want to find out Chocky's secrets. 

The third series, I don't think I watched, or only watched part of it as it wasn't that memorable... Chocky's Challenge, (I was probably too old to watch kids TV by then), but I have watched it since and think it was... not very good. Basically, they had to build something that would save the world and create cosmic energy, but if trapped inside would kill them! The series threw up more questions and most of it was spent with Chocky's Children silently talking to each other telepathically and smiling or giggling at one another because they'd figured something really intelligent out. The acting was really wooden too. Big thumbs down.

Chocky, Chocky's Children and Chocky's Challenge on YouTube

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Great Old Sci-Fi TV that Inspired My Imagination

Sapphire and Steel

This had to be one of the creepiest TV series I remember. Even back then I liked scary stories and science fiction. The programme centres on a pair of inter-dimensional operatives, Sapphire and Steel. Very little is revealed about their purposes or backgrounds in the course of the series, but they appear to be engaged in guarding the continuing flow of time. They are two of several elements that assume human form and are sent to investigate strange events; others include Lead, who takes the aspect of a jovial, friendly giant, and Silver, a technician who can melt metals in his hands, there is also Jet and Copper.


Sapphire's special powers is to manipulate time in small ways as well as determine the age or historical details of an object by touching it. Her most prominent ability is to "take back time," literally rewinding it in a localised area to see or replay the past. Steel can freeze himself to absolute zero which gives him the ability to destroy 'ghosts', which are remnants of Time. 
Theme Tune Intro


He possesses immense strength  and is telekinetic, freezing people with a look or unbolting or welding metal objects.

The scariest series I thought was assignment four where the man with no face controlled people in photographs and all the children were dressed as Victorian children, but when Sapphire touched them they turned to paper. The worst bit was the shop keeper setting fire to a photograph with a woman in the window of the building screaming. Horrible, but as a child I found fascinating and glued to the box.



Space 1999

The series is set in the year 1999. The crew on moon base Alpha are sent hurtling in Space when a nuclear waste storage unit explodes, knocking the Moon out of orbit and sending it, as well as the 311 inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, hurtling uncontrollably into space. The runaway Moon, in effect, becomes the "spacecraft" on which the protagonists travel, searching for a new home. Not long after leaving Earth's solar system, the wandering Moon passes through a black hole and later through a couple of "space warps" which push it even further out into the universe. 

During their interstellar journey, the Alphans encounter an array of alien civilisations, dystopian societies, and mind-bending phenomena previously unseen by humanity. Several episodes of the first series hinted that the Moon's journey was influenced  by a "mysterious unknown force", which was guiding the Alphans toward an ultimate destiny.
I loved this series so much and used to pretend I was on the spaceship and was some kind of alien like Maya, with special shape shifting powers.
Theme Tune and Episode


Blakes Seven

The TV show is set in the third century and at least 700 years in the future. Blake's 7's premise concerns the exploits of political dissident Roj Blake, who commands a small group of rebels against the forces of the totalitarian Terran Federation that rules the Earth and many colonised planets. The Federation uses mass surveillance, brainwashing and drug pacification to control its citizens. 

Blake is arrested and tried on false charges then deported to a remote penal colony. En route he and fellow prisoners Jenna Stannis and Kerr Avon gain control of a technologically advanced alien spacecraft. It's central computer, Zen informs them the ship is called the Liberator. 

Theme Tune and Episode



Liberator's speed and weaponry are superior to Federation craft, and it also has a teleportation system that enables transport to the surface of planets. Blake and his crew begin a campaign to damage the Federation, but are pursued by Space Commander Travis – a Federation soldier – and Servalan, the Supreme Commander who used to seriously scare me. Secretly I fancied Avon and used to play Blake's 7 on my local park many times. 


The Tomorrow People


The premise was about the emergence of the next stage of human evolution (Homo novis) known colloquially as Tomorrow People. Born to human parents, an apparently normal child experience a process called "breaking out" during adolescence and develop special paranormal abilities. These abilities include powers such as telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation. However, their psychological make-up prevents them from intentionally killing others.

Weirdly I don't remember much about this programme, but I do remember the Theme Tune and it still gives me goose bumps today. It also gives me a sense a nostalgia for the old house I was born and brought up in.

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