Sunny Holidays
 

Aren't we lucky that most of us can afford to go abroad for holidays? Catch the sun in winter and a week here in the sun, a week there.
I have happy memories of the town closing mid-July and the station platform being crowded with an abundance of the population of Accrington excitingly awaiting the train heading to the West coast ... all classes sharing the camaraderie.
My destination was always Fleetwood, staying in someone's spare bedroom, my mum going to the market to buy the food to cook for tea.
Can't really remember the bad weather, except one particular occasion, when I had gone in the sea and the wind and rain demanded to appear. The sand, which is very fine at Fleetwood ,was beating against my legs and my Dad coming to help me back to the chalet we always hired on the beach.

My friend, who now has retired to Spain, used to go to places like Torquay in their Austin A7 and I thought that was very grand.

How times change, *****s me off when people grumble about their holidays abroad, know what I mean ?

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

yes i do katex....ours used to be in a caravan at heysham in good old morcambe, but will admit to enjoying them as we got older it got to a boarding house. good old days.he he he

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

Any holiday, anywhere would be grand. More than happy with my own country, plenty of places yet to visit.

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

Oh do so agree with you Sarah, having travelled extensively around the UK in the last 32 years, our country is sooo beautiful .. Scotland to die for and Northumbria (little known) wonderful. Could go on and on. Even lack of the sun doesn't worry me. Just the difference now, and how lots of people don't appreciate the fact that they have the funds to have holidays abroad, but like that with lots of things I suppose.

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

I would love to visit Loch Lomond, my Nan and Grandad used to take caravan holidays there when I was little ..... I took my first baby steps at the side of that Loch :)

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

i would like to be anywhere that isnt so cold....brrr

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

Athough I have vacationed in most of the great holiday destinations of the world during my lifetime, it is the holidays of my childhood that are fondest in my memory -- and that means: Blackpool!

http://jp29.org/hf049.jpg
Blackpool 1934 - with my mother and father

During the Depression years of the 1930s just about every Lancashire family that could afford it went to Blackpool for holiday during wake's week or August bank holiday. The travel by those marvelous steam trains to get there was itself memorable -- I can still recall the excitement of seeing the engine approaching Burnley Bank Top station and the thrill of arriving at Blackpool Central!

Blackpool continued to be the favored holiday vacation destination for Lancashire families throughout the war years. Travel was difficult and we were encouraged to stay at home for the Holidays -- or to go to close-by destinations -- Blackpool was certainly that. I have fond memories of many war-time Blackpool holidays and adventures.

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

do you not mean loch ness tinks?:D

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

Does anyone remember the excitement of trying to be the first one to see the Tower? and the way it changed sides as the train drew on? Although the weather in Blackpool and Lytham was often not great, we didn't seem to feel the cold. And the way everyone sat on the beach dressed as if for a tea party?

I know we now can have fabulous holidays in faraway places, but are we really any happier with them than those much anticipated weeks at Blackpool?

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

You could probably have a better holiday in the Blackpool of old compared to to abroad; but Blackpool is a sh!t hole at the mo.

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

My mum used to buy 'Runabout tickets' they were 21 shillings for an adult and 10 shillings for children......we used to go all over on the trains using these tickets......though my Mum must have been knackered at the end of a week.....she had 4 of us to get ready each morning and would make up packed lunches to cut down on costs.......and we would often be down at the station for 8 am.

I remember one time when we were coming back from somewhere...can't just remember where now, except it was seaside......and we got on the wrong train and ended up in Carlisle. The station master there was very good to my Mum and gave us tea and biscuits in his office while we waited for a mail train to Preston......we were very late home that night......Dad wondered what had happened to us. We though it was a wonderful adventure.

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

well im going to jamaica in april and i cant flipin wait......hmmmmmmmmmmmm red stripe lager brewed in jamaica and supped in jamaica instead of gt harwood ...:D

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

We always went to Skegness when we were kids. I don't remember the weather being bad on our holidays, but I suppose that you don't notice the weather much when you're little. My mum used to take us for day trips to Blackpool on the train. Dad used to go spare at the money she spent as we always ended up on the pleasure beach. Whenever my dad took us we had to spend the day on the beach and never got anywhere near the fairground. Naturally, we preferred going with mum..:D

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

oh the wonderful memories of most of these posts....SIGH

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

We never went to Blackpool......and I think it was because of the Pleasure Beach......our horde would have bankrupted Mum and Dad.
We used to go to St Annes and we would each be given sixpence in pennies to go on the promenade and play the penny machines. Sometimes that sixpence would last ages......and sometimes it would be gone in a flash.
What I DO remember is that if any of us had any brilliant wins we would share our winnings......was that good ? or was that good?
Once we had exhausted our sixpence we would go and do some cockleing......I would dig the blighters up but couldn't bear to eat them. Though I can't say I don't like them because I was never brave enough to try them.

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

I remember your dad spoiling you rotten so i cant believe me was ever that mean.

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my mum and dad had a camper van that was alwaya braeking down remember spending half of my holls on a layby ho happy days

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The spoiling came after the divorce, he could afford it by then... He still spoils us rotten now though..:D

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Yes Pendy. My dad used to say when on the train from Accy "first to see Blackpool Tower gets a penny"

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

oooh we got a threepenny bit..... but its a long time ago...

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

yea ours was a threepenny bit too......he he he

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

When I was very young we never went away as a family. After the war my dad was in business as a spectacle frame maker in Bolton, later became an optician, and I can't remember him ever taking time off until I was about 10. I used to spend my Summer holidays, from the age of 7, with a childless aunt and uncle in Whitley Bay, Northumberland and I loved it. They had a quite large house with a big garden, only half a mile from the beach. Auntie was a cordon-bleu cook (she had little else to do apart from bridge parties) so I ate wonderfully well and I was the "daughter" she never had so I was indulged.

Whitley Bay had a lovely beach, was very unspoilt in those days, and there was Spanish City, the smaller equivalent of Blackpool pleasure beach. It may have been the freezing North Sea but it was there that I learned to swim on my back, in the sea, where Uncle Vic taught me how to "skim" stones across the water and where I spent some of the most carefree times of my life.

Re: Sunny Holidays at Blackpool
 

Wakes Week
Come July it'll be wakes week, When most people go away
Some folks travel t' Blackpool. Some fer a week or a day.
Mi favrite place wer' Blackpoo' I' digs on General Street.
At Mrs Pooles, wi mi Mam an Dad, We allus stopped fer a week.
Y' could bet ther wer' someone ther we knew. Oo'ed come fro' our 'ome town.
Fer i'd wer Accrinton's wakes week.They'd come t' try t'ge'd brown.
Ah couldn't wait t' ged down t' beach. In a deck chur mi Mam allus sat.
While me an mi Dad sailed on a boat, no further thant' pier that wer that.

Wi'd build sand castles an wid mek sand pies. I'd ride on a donkey named Jill.. Then wid eat shrimps an ice cream, an Mother ud sey. Dorned eat so much tha'l be ill.
T'ower an t' cirus wer allus a must. Wi offen went in t' zoo. There wer lions an t'igers an munkeys. An aquerium wi lots a fish too.
Ther wer shows on all o't piers, wi singers an dancers galore. As wi sat theer in't theatre wetchin, knowin't' sea wer theer under t' floor.
Ther were side shows all along t' promenade. Cum see tattooed lady they cried. or 't two eedid twins, or't worlds thinnest man.
An fairyland's on'y tuppence a ride. I'ds allus excitin at Blackpoo. There's plenty to do an t' see.Wakes weeks ar over an it's time to go 'ome. Mi Dad an mi Mam, an Me . Ah! Memories.:engsmil:

Re: Sunny Holidays
 

My July holidays were 2 weeks in northern ireland every year. Always without fail i would miss the last week of school and spend my birthday either travelling or in northern ireland. My mum & dad came from there and used to go 'home' and visit everybody. We used to stop at Granny's until she died and then we stopped at my aunts for a couple of years and then at a hotel. Used to spend a week visiting everybody and then the second week we'd set off and go out on day trips or drive round ireland but always end up back where we set off from for the last night. Then go for the ferry in the morning. We always went stranraer to larne on sealink. Never had seasickness and went to holland with the school when i was in the 3rd year and we sailed the north sea in the middle of a storm - me and one of the teachers were the only ones who wasnt seasick - well when you've crossed the irish sea in storms the north sea is nothing! lol Come September though we would have a week in Morecambe and we always stopped in the same flats every year without fail. Easter we went to scotland and always ended up at Loch Ness and Fort William on the Sunday.