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HOLIDAYS WHEN I WAS A KID

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DAVE BRICK

Guest
Going on holidays when you were a child bring back some wonderful memorys. We went to Rhyl umpteen times, sometimes staying in a caravan on Wincups Camp, over the iron bridge on the Abergele Road.

Trouble was I suffered from travel sickness, by the time we got to Brownhills from Aston I was allready feeling sick.
 
Most of my holidays were in Bewdley..........My brother and I would go and stay with my aunt for a few weeks as she lived there. I made friends with a girl whos family ran a farm....so every year I would meet back up with her and we became very good friends..........I would milk the goats, collect the eggs and clean out the pig stys. There was an unused 'rifle range' beside the farm, and we would go and play hide and seek or build a den on it, or just explore.....in what seemed a relatively safe environment.

As I became older and my parents a little better off financially, we would catch the train to Skegness and go to Butlins - A treat that we couldnt wait for, and we would ask months in advance if we were going 'on holiday', as a child the question was posed out of excitment, but looking back, it must have put terrible pressure on my parents as to whether or not it could be afforded
 
PUSHBIKES

Me and my mate went to Bewdley from Aston on our pushbikes, that was the worst bit, Mucklows Hill !

I went to Butlins Skegness, and I loved it at that time, the different themed bars, the massive resturants, the massive ballrooms.
The ballrooms were that big they had to have supporting pillars in the middle of the dance floor, you had to watch you did'nt dance into them.

I entered the fancy dress as a sailor but did'nt win.
 
WINCUPS

We were not going to Rhyl we were going to Abergle Holiday Camp and everbody crossed the Iron bridge.
!957 went there with wife to be and her family Mother, Sister and 3 Brothers. We all slept in the one Caravan myself on the floor. I wasn't suppose to be there I should have been in B&B but the kind Mother in Law to be sneaked me in and saved me money, having just finished National Service 5 months before.
The weather was great got my first real Sunburn could'nt lie down for 3 Days. Went everywhere on Train and Bus, Conway, Colwyn Bay, Llandudno and the day before we left Prestatyn. Cant believe we did all that without the car :shock:
I have potos somewhere might sort them out.
Dave have you checked you e-mail lately :oops:
 
My dad had a sister with a beautiful bungalow in Conw'y - bathroom and everything! :p So we went there for some holidays. Others, because Dad worked on the railway and got family travel passes, we spent in the West Country, Cornwall, Somerset or Devon, in caravans.

I remember having to wear my best clothes to travel. I'd stick me head out the window of the train and get me face blackened by the smoke from the engine. You could use the water in the toilets to wash but not to drink. I can recall sometimes having to travel in the guard's van, or sit on a case in the corridor 'cos the train was so crowded.

One bank holiday,on a day trip to Rhyl, I got lost on the beach in just me underpants. :oops: Because the weather hadn't looked too promising when we set out, we didn't take swimwear. It turned into a glorious day so I stripped off to go in the sea, got lost and had the worst case of sunburn I've ever had. Some bloke was just taking me to the lost kids place when I spotted the rest of me tribe. :lol:

I was seventeen at the time! 8)
 
Bewdley and Arley

I used to go there with my Uncle Les as a kid..I only went a few times as they mostly turned out to be disastrous..
We used to Camp there while my brother Robert and Uncle Les fished (I hated fishing and I only ever fish with my friend Andy when we go abroad, actually, for fishing read 'drinking')
Uncle Les got to Arley late one year and it was getting dark with rain clouds threatening...the silly sausage only put up the tent on top of an Ant hill...everywhere was crawling with the little buggers..I remember the ferry too that used to cross there...happy days.
Mainly I went up to South Shields though where Men were men and Polar bears died of frostbite..
We wuz poor, but (sniff) we wuz happy...
 
GOT LOST EVERY TIME

Our Dad always used to get lost on the way to Rhyl, every time, although he must had gone there 50 times.

Even as a kid I knew the route, Brownhills,Newport,Whichurch,Wrexham,Ruthin,Denbigh,St Asaph,Rhyl.
 
:D Never had a family holiday till I got married and had my own kids.

Went on a Day trip to Rhyl (wrote about that on another thread) with the Church at the age of about nine. Two weeks in Bognor with the school age eleven and week in North Wales also with the school age about fourteen and a day trip to Blackpool with workmates.

Worked at Butlin's Bognor and The Riviera Lido Club Nytimber in the Summer of 1967 (That was the best holiday I ever had and where I met Colin).

Chris :)
 
Yeah, Alf, grows in damp places, don't it?
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Rhyl Route 2

Great story to tell about that route, In the late 60s working for Plastec selling Troll Dolls yes Trolls, I sold them in Gift shops in North Wales. On my way home to Brum I spotted a young lady at a Bus stop miles from anywhere so I stopped to pick her up she was going to Wrexham. I dropped her off and here is the rub, it turns out that she worked making Firelighters and could I get that smell Paraffine, out of my car for? :oops: you guess. Don't stop to often now. :oops:
 
Buckley

Paul
I fogive you.
But what about Buckley thats near that route careful its my Surname 8)
 
SMELLY BIRD

Good job it was'nt me who picked up that smelly bird at the bus stop my missis would have said, "Wat yow bin up to,paraffine smell in ya car"

She's so suspicious,understandable me being so good looking.

Yeah I forgot about Mold, I'm just like our Dad, I'd have got lost.
 
Dave
I was single at the time, but its always a good for laugh story now we have grown up.
By the way have you checked your e-mail :x
 
RHYL, EITHER PAY OUT OR GET SPLATTERED.

We went, about five families, to a caravan park near to the Ferry Hotel just over the Iron bridge. All the men put horse racing bets on with the camp bookie and the horse came in, but the bookie would'nt pay out.

Our Dad got him and told him he would "Knock his head off his neck"
The bookie changed his mind and said he would pay, Later the camp manager came and said we would not be welcome there again.
 
Thanks Di,
Dave must be deaf in one eye.
Or hes thinking to much about Gambling 8)
 
ALF, MATE, ME OLD PAL

I checked my email earlier and I saw your comic strips and very interesting they were to. I returned an email to you telling you what I thought of them and thanking you etc....the only trouble is, as I'm useless on computers I don't know if you got it or not,although you got a previous email I sent.

There's a lot going on with the postings today, everyone must be off work,they ought to get back and get cracking, sitting around tapping keyboards is no good for the countrys economy.

Come on your lazy so and so,s get back to work.
 
Bed

I'm off to bed I've had a busy Dave Day.
Goodnight Campers 8)
 
SPIDERS RULE O.K.

The caravans we stayed in at Wincups Camp all had spiders and earwigs walking about. I remember my mom tucking me up in bed, dark grey blankets with red edging and then, thats when the earwigs started crawling all over the place.

She tried to pacify me by saying that they died as soon as they touched my skin.
 
ITS ROUGH , ITS TOUGH , ITS ME SKIN.

Yeah Alf, too many years in the building, my skins as rough as a bears a--

When we were flush we used to stay at the Clywd Hotel, on the left just over the lron bridge. l'm fed up of mentioning this lron bridge, mind you l hav'nt seen one like it anywhere else.

My favourite place in Rhyl was the Black Cat Amusements and also the Mad Mouse roller coaster, when you were on the top level you really thought it was'nt going to take the corner.
 
Wales

My vivid memory is of The Great Orme Llandudno, it was the time that Dick Turpin and Family owned it.
Boxing photos everywhere, bit rough though the Cafe was like a Transport one, wasn't meant to be. He also owned a Big Hotel on the road out of Abergelle. Got photos but but no name.
 
I remember going to a Caravan site just outside Colwyn Bay.....we thought it was wonderful, the gas mantles being lit at night so exciting. Dad fetching the water from a stand pipe, having a wash in cold water!
So different today, caravans are so nice now plenty of room, showers etc.
Llandudno....recall going up the Great Orm and the cafe with all the pics of Randolf Turpin. Happy memories. Jackie
 
I recall going up the Grt Orme and writing my name in the stones, do they still do that I wonder :?:

We didnt have holidays at first as I remember, but then mom saved up and we went to Darley Dale in Derbyshire for our first holiday. It was in a caravan on a site owned by a guy called Herbert Hardy who also sold furniture from a shop on the site. I believe it became the furniture empire DFS.
I clearly remember walking to the top of what seemed a very steep hill, and visiting Riber Castle, the interior of which had been made into a nature reserve. One of the animals, a very friendly little fox with three legs, recued from a trap :cry:
 
I thought he was a highway man. :?

Oh no, just come to moi - Randalph's dad (wasis?)
 
CHALET = SHED

We used to stay in chalets on a site at Towyn, this was, OVER THE IRON BRIDGE AGAIN, and about 3 mile further on. The chalets were like sheds with big gaps under the doors and lined on the inside with hardboard which was all bendy. You could see straight through the curtains when the lights were on of a nightime, not as if I had anything to do with that,Hmm.

All the caravan and other sites along this stretch of road had the railway line running between them and the sea, you crossed by either an iron bridge, yes another one, or just walked over the line on some sleepers, thats of course if there was'nt a train coming.

I suppose some of the women are thinking,why did you look Dave.
 
We always went to Dawlish, it used to take us ten hours to get there in the Morris Minor :( we stayed at the Golden Sands Caravan Park in Dawlish Warren, at night there was a club house we went in to the games room whilst Mum and Dad sat and had a quiet drink, every evening finished with a rendition of Green grow the rushes oh i think that is the name of the song any way. The caravans seemed really posh then i used to love going to get the water in the morning from a tap, at night you used to have to wait for ages to use the communal toilets goodness knows how you lasted all night with out going again :lol:
 
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