Ruislip & Eastcote & Northwood Gazette
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Wish you were here... MARION McMULLEN looks back on some Premier holidays
LABOUR Prime Minister Harold Wilson once pointed out: “I’m an optimist, but an optimist who carries a raincoat.” However, even he ditched the emergency mac and opted for shorts and sandals when it came to sunny summer holidays in the 1960s with his wife Mary and sons Robin and Giles.
He could often be seen enjoying a pipe on the beaches of the Isles of Scilly and became the first prime minister to show his knees in public.
He loved the area off the Cornish coast so much he repeatedly returned to spend his holidays there and the politician was even laid to rest at St Mary’s Old Church on the Isles of Scilly when he died in 1995. His headstone bears the inscription Tempus Imperator Rerum, which translates as time is the ruler of everything.
First World War Prime Minister Lloyd George enjoyed fitting in a round of golf on his holidays and often stayed closer to home by heading to Wales with his daughter Megan. He once admitted: “With me a change of trouble is as good as a vacation.”
War-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill often headed to Switzerland and Italy for his breaks and looked forward to having time to paint. He once said: “Armed with a paint-box, one cannot be bored, one cannot be left at a loose end, one cannot ‘have several days on one’s hands.’”
True to his old Etonian background, the holiday attire for Harold Macmillan tended to be tweeds and plus-fours as he spent breaks in the 1950s stalking the grouse moors with aristocratic friends on a shooting holiday in
North
Yorkshire.
Ted Heath was
Britain’s leader in the 1970s and liked nothing better than spending his spare time afloat on his racing yacht Morning Cloud. He even joked: “I have no interest in sailing around the world... not that there is any lack of requests for me to do so.”
Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took breaks at the lakeside home of friends in Switzerland and also made regular trips to Cornwall with her husband Denis where they enjoyed walking their dogs on the beach in the 1980s.
Meanwhile, John Major and his wife Norma repeatedly returned to the quiet Spanish tour of Candeleda.
It was a long way off the tourist trail in the rural Avila province 100 miles from Madrid and his loyalty to the area even led to a road being named Avenida de John Major in his honour in 2013. The former Tory prime minister was invited to the naming ceremony and described the town as one of the “jewels” of Spain.
Tony Blair’s holidays took in glitzy locations, celebrity friends and occasionally bizarre pastimes.
The Labour MP holidayed as the guest of Silvio Berlusconi in Sardinia, spent time at Cliff Richard’s home in Barbados and stayed in luxury hotels on Egypt’s Red Sea coast.
He and wife Cherie also underwent a Mayan rebirthing ritual in a Mexican steam bath. He broke off from a Tuscan holiday in 2001, however, to spend a week in Cornwall on a rare staycation as the UK tourist industry reeled following a foot-and-mouth outbreak.
Gordon Brown’s holidays reflected his image as a man who was more at home behind a desk than on a beach. He invariably took his summer break in Britain and was often pictured in formal jacket and sensible shoes. His only concession to the holiday spirit would often be to remove his tie and undo the top button on his shirt.
Always ready to be called back from his breaks, he once returned from a holiday in Dorset after just four hours to take charge in response to another foot-and-mouth crisis.
David Cameron took a decidedly more laid back approach to holidays with wife Samantha and they visited popular resorts from Ibiza to the Cornish Riviera. His vacation attire tended to be a navy blue polo shirt and chinos or shorts and he was sometimes even photographed taking a dip in the sea in his swimming shorts.
“I am a pasty eater myself,” he said in 2012. “I go to Cornwall on holiday. I love a hot pasty.”
Current Prime Minister Theresa May enjoys getting away from it all by putting on her hiking shoes and walking. She has taken walking holidays in the Alps with her husband Philip in the past as well as trips to northern Italy and a hiking break in Snowdonia.