[2004] FAMILY
HOLIDAYS
One aspect of my early life, which was unusual for the time, was the extent to which my family traveled on holidays. Indeed the foreign travel, which we eventually graduated to, was then more typically preserve of the upper middle classes not of the lower middle classes; and certainly not of the lower classes, as came about with the package holiday boom a couple of decades or so later.
I remember, in 1952 having just got back from Austria, telling my adventures to a friend who lived on the main part of Bromborough Pool village. I was astounded to discover that the furthest he had traveled, and then only once, was to Chester just 12 miles away. Exceptional people have always traveled long distances, even in the bronze age, but most people until the 1960s rarely traveled more than few miles from their home.
However, before the limitations on foreign travel were relaxed in the 1950s, even we were limited to holidays at nearby locations. Indeed, at first we followed the British tradition of the sea-side holiday:
0082 - Holidays 1943-1947 (0082T*) at Llandudno & Rhyl in North Wales:
Eventually, though, the most frequent destination became our rented cottage in North Wales; where our holiday activities were quite different to those of the sea-side and indeed to anything most of my contemporaries experienced. These new adventures did, though, give me an invaluable insight into the heritage of previous agrictural lifestyles.
0010 Haymaking at the Cottage (0010T*)
0004 A Welsh Hill Farm (0004T*)
0068 Phyllis & Lillian, 1953 (0068 T*) they also gave me my first romantic episode, with the twins of my dreams
Just occasionally we also went to London, then the mecca for adventurous living:
But, more in keeping with the lives of our peers, we also regularly went out at the weekend to local tourist sites for the day:
0092 Days Out (0092T*) New Brighton, Chester & Liverpool
It was not until the 1950s that we first went abroad, and even then we were at least a decade ahead of our contemporaries who were still going on beach holidays in Britain.
0075 Austrian Holiday in 1952 (0075T*) this was my first taste of foreign travel, to the then most popular destination before the package tour operators came on the scene of the Austrian Tyrol. That, and Switzerland, were the preferred holiday spots for the upper classes who then dominated the foreign travel market. Sun, sea and sand packages for the masses were still several decades away
0001 Italian Tour, 1956 (0001T*) and then, four years later, my second foreign trip and my first experience (of many) of coach tour- then an innovation in foreign travel indulged in by just a few Brits - and very brief romantic encounter with Marie.
0178 Spain, 1959
(0178T*) another coach tour, before going up
to university, but
still with my parents.
0121 Spain and Pat
(0121T*) but also meeting Pat, who was
to
become my wife.
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