1960s PRIVATE LIFE
0149 Cornish holiday in 1968
I nostalgically remember our time living at Slough as sunny days filled with real happiness.
The end of this was, unknown to me at the time, signalled by the first real holiday our family had taken. Previously we had gone to my parent’s home, and occasionally to the cottage.
This time we went further afield. The problem in taking a holiday was that, at that time in 1968, Sarah was four and Miles was only two. The thought of driving down to Cornwall -- where the holiday was to be -- was horrendous at the time before the motorway network developed. So, instead we went by Motor-rail. This was quite crude then, in as much as the cars were simply driven onto flatbed tracks which were hitched up behind a few passenger carriages. Crude as it was, it worked well. We had a compartment to ourselves and were able to entertain the children until we arrived on the edges to Cornwall.
The holiday itself was to be taken in a chalet village near St. Ives. The chalet had been hired -- as happened a number of times thereafter -- by my parents. It was a pleasant location with the chalet located in woodland. But the main point of it was to be able to go to St Ives and the other nearby seaside resorts. It was before St Ives itself contained the various museums which are now its main feature, so it was then just a fishing village. Mainly, though, we had come for the sandy beaches at Carbis Bay, between the chalet and St Ives. Accordingly the whole family spent a number of days down on the beach there, indulging in the typical British seaside holiday.
One day we got talking to the people sitting next to us, since their children were about the same age, only to discover that the husband worked for Cussons. As see elsewhere, I had just decided to join Cussons in Manchester -- so this was a useful contact to test the temperature of the water. Working in the product development part of marketing there, he was very enthusiastic about Cussons, and this reassured me; unfortunately though, as later events proved, his enthusiasm proved to be too infectious.
Whilst down there we did all things you might do at the seaside, going to the beaches of Newquay, driving around the countryside etc. The only thing unusual that we did, with my parents babysitting the children, was to go off driving around the countryside and -- for the one and only time of my life -- make love in the car. I know it was the great American teenage ambition, but they had larger cars. In a small UK car it was not such an enjoyable sport! In any case, we came back to find that Miles, having been told he couldn't have any chocolate, had managed to climb out of his cot and spread a whole one pound bar of the stuff all over his cot and himself!
On
the beach at Carbis Bay, with the sandcastle, at the end of very happy times
The really sad moment came when we left the beach on the last day of our holiday. We had been building a sand-castle and we all jumped on it to knock it down. Little did I realise that it was the destruction of the best time of my life!
As I have already said, this was at the time when I was leaving Gallahers and had looked around for marketing manager's job -- remembering that I was that stage an acting marketing manager. The one I had come up with was that at Cussons in Manchester. This was a genuine marketing manager job, since I had a brand manager reporting to me. It was also reporting to a boss who quite found a very attractive person. Hugh Goodwin was one of the Cussons family. His mother, Marjorie Cussons was married to a Goodwin -- although she was also president of Cussons. Hugh, as the son, was the marketing director. As well as being a multimillionaire, Hugh was a very nice guy. I liked him as soon as I walked into his office in Kersal Vale in Salford.
The only problem then was that he invited me to go for drink in the central Manchester, close to where I was due to catch the train home. Unfortunately, when we went into the hotel bar, I discovered that the Gallahers sales team was having a regional meeting there and everyone rushed across to ask what I was doing there! It was an embarrassing moment, but I managed to wriggle my way out of it and they didn't realise what I was really up to.
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