Millions of families will be heading off for seaside staycations this week.
Youngsters more used to package holidays abroad may be feeling a tad underwhelmed at the prospect of a fortnight on a breezy British beach.
But for mums and dads and grans and grandads it should be a lovely trip down memory lane and a chance to remember the bucket and spade holidays of their youth.
Rather like a gloriously nostalgic new book called British Summer Time Begins in which author Ysenda Maxtone Graham has collected people’s precious childhood memories of their school holidays from the 1930s to the 1980s.
Here she recalls the excitement of setting off for the coast and the thrill of hitting the beach.
Despite the expectation of extended discomfort, and the fact at least one member of the family was in a foul mood before the adventure started, there was an air of high excitement for the big getaway.
Inside cars heading to the coast were children squished into the back, dying for the loo, unable even to look at the cover of their I Spy book for fear of vomiting yet again.
In front were their parents, smoking away, stubbing out their cigarettes in the pull-out ashtray before passing round the travel sweets in a circular tin, stuck together from the heat of the car.
They were meant to settle tums and produce saliva to help you swallow and clear the ears if you were going up or downhill. They didn’t help much. Nor did Kwells, the official anti-car sickness pills.
The chain hanging from the back of the car wasn’t much use either.
Its official name was the Anti-Static Ground Strap.
“There was a theory,” said historian Juliet Gardiner (who went from Hertfordshire to Paignton every year, feeling sick in the back of the car next to her horrible cousin) “that if you attached a chain to the back bumper it would cure carsickness. The chain was supposed to act as a sort of lightning conductor with the road.”
But nothing could alleviate the core problems: the dreadful suspension of low-slung cars, the constant lurching on winding roads, the pervasive smell of petrol from the spare can, the animal odour of the leather seats, the stench of old vomit from journeys past, the hard-boiled-egg-and-banana smell from the picnic basket, and the poor interior design which meant offspring and soft luggage were wedged in the back.
And people took so much luggage – everything but the kitchen sink.
Seaside boarding houses charged extra for the cruets, so you brought your own.
“My parents hated spending money,” said author Peter Stanford, “so we always took our own deckchairs to Barmouth to avoid having to hire them on the beach.”
Resourceful mothers were experts at stuffing luggage into every nook. Broadcaster Eleanor Oldroyd’s mum would open multiple Terylene sleeping bags and lay them on the back seat “so we’d be sitting on top of five of them, all slithering about.”
No seat belts were worn, which made inter-sibling punching and pinching all the easier – hence fathers turning half-round, arm outstretched for the “random swipe”.
Journeys, often started at an ungodly hour in accordance with fathers’ theories about getting ahead of the traffic.
This added to the atmosphere of unreality and thrill. Everyone was dazed and shivery from lack of sleep. Dawn preparation of the car picnics was the mother’s job; a skilled mum would ensure it dovetailed with fridge emptying, the last slice of ham and last dab of butter going into the last bread roll.
Loading the car was where fathers could shine – maybe doing a “dummy run” the evening before to see how everything would fit.
The older generation believed in “warming up” a car, so grandfather would go out onto the drive 10 minutes before departure and rev up the car, causing clouds of exhaust fumes. He would then leave the engine idling.
The British were a nation of holiday-repeaters who preferred to go back to the same holiday spot every year. And “breaking the journey” at exactly the same
stopping places was all part of “knowing the ropes” and “not having to do anything new”.
A single lay-by could accumulate deeply sentimental associations, through years of stopping for tea from a flask and a leg stretch.
Car-trip fun began with someone saying, “I’m thinking of something, and it’s animal”. And everyone thought, here we go: animal,
vegetable, mineral. Must we?
But gradually, the strange pleasures of family in-jokes started to be felt, and even the sulky silent sibling lightened up.
Then there was “pub cricket” points for the number of legs in pub signs - “Coach and horses: 16!” It worked best in pre-motorway days when you drove through an endless succession of towns and villages. You got a “wicket” if the pub was not legs but another part of the body, such as the King’s Head. Observation games helped carsickness, as you had to look out of the window.
Then the singing started with a round of “London’s Burning”. Then, at last, a parent would say “Prize for the first person to see the sea!”
The first sight of the shimmering sea was an unforgettable Favourite Moment of the Year. Not Going Abroad was so ingrained.
Parents wanted to keep their children in their English-speaking, non-rabies-infested country. They were certain (if the weather was good) no foreign place was better.
The seaside was also perfect to express the philosophy of thrift, as its entertainments – sand, stones, shells and sea – were free.
You did at least a full fortnight. It took long enough to get there, so you stayed put. And it was just bad luck if your parents chose a pebbly beach.
The British repeat-holiday instinct meant that whichever kind of beach it was, you went back to the same one. The British are experts at nicely and politely avoiding each other too.
Arriving at the beach the less discerning plonked themselves down at once, the more discerning walked a long way before doing so.
So it was not just that the British went to the same beach every year; they went back to the same spot on the same beach; and the less gear they brought, the more superior they felt: just a deckchair for nan and a rug for the kids.
In the 1930s and 40s children wore woollen swimming costumes, which, as soon as they got wet, sagged o the knees. Nor were you allowed to show an inch of your private parts to the world or even to your family, while changing.
Hence the towelling-cloak or “poncho” under which kids hunkered in the dark to take off their clothes and put on their costume, and, harder still, had to do the reverse after a swim.
It was partly to avoid this public embarrassment that families paid for a beach hut to change in. Beach huts answered to other deep British needs, such as the longing for a neat and tidy nest, for somewhere to dry wet towels, the longing to brew your own cup of tea, and the longing to have somewhere to hide when it rained.
■British Summer Time Begins by Ysenda Maxtone Graham, Little Brown £18.99, Ebook £10.99
Extracted by Rachael Bletchly
