Holidays of a Lifetime Part 2

We made a very early start this morning in order to be in Weymouth in time for the 6:30 am high speed ferry to Jersey. It would have been even earlier if we hadn't decided to stay overnight in the spartan surroundings of the Yeovil Travelodge, which enabled us to have a lie in until 4:00 am before the alarm woke us up. The sunrise over Weymouth harbour made the pre-dawn start seem worthwhile, although 30 minutes into the four hour crossing, I'm starting to feel distinctly queasy and wondering how long I can keep looking at my laptop screen as we bounce speedily across the channel.

Well, that was as I managed to write on the ferry before my forehead started to break out in a cold sweat, and I needed to close my eyes and sit very, very still until we finally docked in St Helier. We are now fully set up in a lovely campsite up the hill from Rozel Bay in the north east corner of Jersey with a beautiful view across the shimmering sea to northern France. More about our camping holiday will follow later in a later post. For now, in between various holiday activities, I'm going to write about what I'd set out to cover on board the Condor Vitesse, although due to the absence of broadband in our tent and so far only being able to connect to French mobile phone networks I have no idea when I will be able to get it posted.

Back in January I wrote a nostalgic piece about our family holidays in Cornwall in 1969 and 1970, which received a very favourable response that suprisingly went well beyond the family members who took part all those years ago. Inspired by our journey through Thomas Hardy country en route to Weymouth, I thought the crossing would provide an ideal opportunity to extend my nostalgic ramblings to the five consecutive years  between 1971 and 1976 that we spent our summer fortnight in the Dorset seaside town of Swanage.

If you've read my Cornwall memoir you will already be familiar with the daily routine centered around a six hour stint on the beach. It was exactly the same at Swanage. For five years. The only differences being different beach and different house.

The beach at Studland Bay

The beach at Studland Bay extends for a number of miles as far as the Sandbanks chain ferry that links the Isle of Purbeck to Sandbanks, Poole and beyond. The beach is backed by extensive sand dunes, and we would set up for the day a fair old hike from the car park to where other groups of sunseekers were few and far between. Once our patch for a particular day had been identified, the ancient ritual of erecting the windbreak would begin. Ours was no ordinary windbreak, however. Oh no! It was home made, far more substantial than any available in the shops and is still breaking wind effectively 40 years after its construction. It was, and is a marvel in yellow, red, black and white. Its sturdy construction is not the only reason for its remarkable longevity, though. Equally important is that its six posts have never, ever been banged in using a mallet or similar implement. Instead, after the direction of the prevailing wind had been determined, the windbreak would be placed flat on the sand and each of us six boys would have to dig a hole beside the pointed end of each of the six posts. The windbreak would then be lifted and inserted into the six holes, which would be refilled and compacted to provide the securest of underpinning. Simple but effective!

Grandma and Grandpa joined us for the day on this occasion

Digging holes at Studland wasn't confined to windbreak erection, however. Sand excavation constituted one of the major activities throughout all of our Swanage holidays. Paul was the most accomplished practitioner of the art, able to sustain the concentration and willpower to bore down to incredible depths, but in truth none of us were at all shabby in our hole digging capabilities. After a couple of years honing our skills, a new expertise emerged. Two adjacent holes would be dug simultaneously, and these would then be joined below the surface to create a tunnel that we would then crawl through. A kind of precursor to the Channel Tunnel if you like. Looking back from these days of over-zealous health and safety regulations, such undertakings seem outrageously dangerous and ill-advised but at the time they just felt like a bit of harmless underground fun and adventure.

Going underground

Another favourite activity was cricket, a game of which would sometimes go on for hours. The sand at Studland was wonderfully soft and deep, and so all deliveries were of necessity full tosses, which narrowed down the choice of bowling styles but enabled spectacular diving catches to be attempted with very little danger of sustaining an injury.

Cricket on the beach

Our clothes for the beach were made to measure, no less. Distinctive too. Our paternal grandmother, Nanny, was an absolute genius with a sewing machine and could knock up a tee shirt or a pair of shorts in not much more time than it took to make a cup of tea. Every Thursday morning she would rise with the lark in order to secure the best choice of bargains from the fabric stalls in Bromley market, from which she produced many of our outfits over the years. Many of these were entirely tasteful, but floral prints were usually preferred for beach shorts and, although the style of fabric we sported all those years ago is not dissimilar to that commonly seen on beaches in 2011, back in the 1970s our shorts were by some margin the lairiest ones on show. Quite simply we were ahead of our time.

Where did you get that hat?

After a year or two, I can't remember precisely when or how, we made the discovery that about a mile towards Sandbanks from where we pitched our windbreak, in amongst the sand dunes, was a nudist colony, and what's more, every now and then naked people would break cover from the dunes and take a dip in the sea. Well, teenage boys being what they are, suddenly going for a long walk or run along the beach in an easterly direction became a popular addition to the activity menu. I can't actually remember whether we ever saw any naked bodies, which means that we probably didn't. In my mind, at least, I think there was something of the saucy postcard or Benny Hill in my image of what we might come across. Quite how we would have reacted or what we would have done if we had suddenly stumbled across a large group of cavorting naturists is anybody's guess. In all probability we would have turned away in embarrassment and ran back at great speed in the opposite direction.

85a Ulwell Road.

Our base for all five holidays was 85a Ulwell Road. It was a strange bungalow with only a tiny garden and consisted largely of a series of rooms either side of a rather gloomy corridor. It belonged to a couple from our church, Mr and Mrs Coverly, who I think planned to live there in their retirement. There wasn't a television, so board games and reading were the main entertainment after dark. It was at 85a Ulwell Road that I first read the Diary of Anne Frank, a book that made a profound impression on me as a 14 year old, the same age as Anne Frank when she kept her diary. It's a book I have read numerous times since.

Swanage town centre, which we visited every morning and sometimes in the evening too, was where we got to spend our holiday pocket money, the bulk of which was supplied by our kind next door neighbour Mrs Stringer. Lillian Stringer and her brilliant but reclusive husband, Fred, who was fluent in many languages but rarely left his own study, let alone his house had lived at 119 Farnaby Road for many years before we arrived next door at the end of 1966. Mrs Stringer, in particular, was to become a big part of our lives, and we hers over the next twenty years. Originally from Liverpool, Mrs Stringer had something of the Hyacinth Bucket about her and liked to name drop, especially in relation to the work that Fred did at the BBC. She had a heart of gold, though, and was generous to us as a family in many ways. Every Saturday morning all six of us would accompany her the half mile of so to Shortlands 'village' where she would do the rounds of her weekly shopping, which memorably included buying a few slices of tongue for Fred from the deli counter at Harrisons. As Dad worked every Saturday at this time, these weekly 'Saturday Club' outings gave Mum a welcome breather for a couple of hours. The pay off for us boys was the money we got to spend in the sweetshop – I think this started at sixpence, but then increased over the years, thanks to index linking I assume. Anyway, the night before our holiday to Swanage Mrs Stringer would present each of us with two envelopes, one labelled 'first week' and the other 'second week', both containing sufficient money to spend on ice creams, Dickie's Donuts, crazy golf and the amusement arcade amongst other holiday consumables. How lovely is that!

Nanny, Mrs Stringer, Auntie Jim and Uncle Will

If it ever rained while we were on holiday in Swanage, then I can't remember it. Certainly there wasn't a single day that we didn't go to the beach, even though I can recall a handful of days which were more overcast than sunny. It's often said that people  recall the sun shining through most of their childhood summers, and there may be an element of this in my reminiscing. However, I would be very interested to access the met office records for our five fortnights in Swanage, and would be extremely surprised if they didn't corroborate my assertion that for the 70 days that we were there Swanage was rain-free.

Happy memories of happy holidays.