It was blissful, like stepping through a portal to a carefree past

Every year when the schools break up for summer, a wave of nostalgia washes over me. I can still remember the excitement of that last week before the holidays. The big wind down usually included bringing in board games and getting to watch cool movies on the massive telly that was wheeled into the classroom on a trolley. After much fumbling about with the cables (usually involving an intervention by the janitor) the VCR would whir into action and Back To The Future or The Goonies would appear on screen. It heralded the beginning of six weeks of glorious freedom – of bike rides, and staying up late, and our family’s annual fortnight in Broadstairs on the Kent coast. My three siblings and I would pile into the back of dad’s big red Rover and drive through the night, to the soundtrack of ABBA’s Greatest Hits. The seaside town was where my dad holidayed when he was a child.And when I took my own son there years later I was delighted to see nothing had changed.We played the penny falls in the arcade, ate black cherry ice cream in the parlour overlooking the harbour and jumped on the same giraffe-shaped bouncy castle I had as an 11-year-old decades earlier. Revisiting old holiday haunts is like walking through a portal to the past. In this week’s fabulous Scotland The Breaks magazine, our columnists share their memories of summers spent closer to home. From trips “Doon the watter” to donkey rides on Scottish sands, we have trawled our archives for pics of yesteryear. We hope they’ll take you on your own wonderful journey down memory lane. Happy holidays!

EDITOR, JAYNE SAVVA JSAVVA@DCTMEDIA.CO.UK