The pool area was like a packed A&E
IT WAS 1981 and my friend Suzanne and I had just finished our A- levels and were desperate to go on our first independent holiday.
Having saved a little from our Saturday jobs, I was thrilled when she called me to tell me the travel agency had ‘a couple of last-minute cancellations’ on a holiday to San Antonio in Ibiza — at a bargain price.
It was only after we’d paid that we realised we had signed up for a Club 18-30 holiday — and we were horrified.
That year there had been lots of lurid stories about all the awful things that had been going on during these notorious trips — including drugs, drink-fuelled violence and no-strings sex.
But the lure of two weeks in the sun was strong, so we decided to spare our parents the finer details and flew out for our Balearic break.
Our hotel was an ugly highrise block next to a patch of wasteland. We opened the French doors to let some air into our poky room — to be faced with four boys, clearly worse for wear on the balcony of a facing hotel, completely naked apart from strategically placed blobs of shaving foam.
Down at the pitifully small, overcrowded hotel pool — where a greasy pole had been placed across the water for the guests to try to cross and win a scary green cocktail — things didn’t improve much.
The boisterous shouting and joshing we could hear as we approached suddenly hushed — and we were greeted by stunned silence.
There were about 150 people round the pool — and every single one was male. Scared off by bad publicity, it appeared no woman had been brave enough book a Club 18-30 holiday to San Antonio that year. ‘Throw Silly fun: Mandy, aged 18 them in the pool’ someone suddenly yelled — and a massive cheer went up. But we needn’t have worried. Being British, the four boys that approached us politely asked for our sunglasses, purses, towels and sun hats — placed them somewhere safe and dry, checked we could both swim — and then threw us in.
After two days, the swimming pool looked like a hospital A&E department. One lad had a plaster cast on his ankle (run over by a moped when lying drunk at the side of the road), another two had black eyes, there were a couple of cases of blistering sunburn and a septic tattoo.
We went on only one of the notorious Club 18-30 organised trips. Yes, there were drinking games, yes, there was a foam party in a local club afterwards . . . but there was no casual sex, harassment or spiked drinks — just good, silly fun.
Fond memories of a first holiday without parents. But with a 16-year-old son champing at the bit for independence, I’m relieved this kind of trip is on its way out.
I’d rather he came home with some contrived holiday snaps than ‘San Antonio’ tattooed on his buttocks.