Heaven on two wheels
They’ve long been a target of snobbery. But as caravans mark their centenary, CHRISTOPHER STEVENS says for generations of us, they’re...
ONCE they were the mainstays of a traditional family holiday, as much a part of the holiday season as picnic blankets and whipped ice cream cones.
Hundreds of thousands of us looked forward all year to the weeks spent in a caravan, whether in Donegal or Kerry, or further afield — crammed in with aunties, cousins and grandparents while it rained outside, eating fish and chips from greasy newspaper around the Formica-topped table.
I remember how ours was on a campsite which had no running water or heating. The communal toilets were 200 yards away.
My first job every morning was to fill a four-gallon canister from the standpipe and haul it back up the hill, so everyone could have a wash. I loved it.
Up and down the country in the Sixties and Seventies, families were doing the same thing. The roads turned into processions of cars towing caravans, and every layby was a makeshift campsite with a folding table set out and laden with Tupperware.
The caravan — which celebrates its centenary this year — may no longer represent the height of glamour, but that wasn’t always the case.
When, in 1919, inventor Bill Riley and his son, Bill junior, set up Eccles Motor Transport Ltd and crafted a wagon that was light enough to be pulled by a Model T Ford, their first customer was none other than the Dowager Countess Rhonda (think of Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey deigning to holiday in a caravan, and you’ll get the idea.) Caravanning came to symbolise a spirit of adventure, capturing people’s imaginations.
Eccles’s first designs, based on traditional gypsy caravans, were made from wood, and — since this was well before the invention of plastics such as Perspex — the windows were glass. Around 100 Eccles caravans a year were being sold over in the Twenties, while models were also exported to India and other countries.
A basic 9ft 6in model in Britain was €190 in 1927 (about €11,700 in today’s money), making it affordable to the professional classes — the people most likely to own a car. For the first time, it wasn’t only the wealthy who could afford to explore the countryside and shores around them. The Eccles caravan, in particular, ushered in a leisure revolution. But there needn’t be anything frivolous or lazy about taking a holiday.
Adverts also encouraged the idea of an education on wheels, with monuments and historic buildings waiting to be discovered.
Celebrities soon endorsed the craze, with music hall stars such as Gracie Fields and Max Miller declaring themselves caravan enthusiasts.
But it wasn’t until mass production after World War II that prices really dropped and caravanning became a holiday available to all,
as many of us growing up in the 60s and 70s — spending our childhood summers in caravans — will remember. Lightweight materials such as aluminium and plywood meant just about any car could tow a tourer — and campsites popped up wherever a farmer had a spare field. Yet despite their ripe old age, caravans are seeing something of a renaissance.
‘Today’s caravans are a five-star experience,’ says holiday historian Andrew Jenkinson. ‘You can use them all the year round: modern tourers have full heating systems and double glazing. They are spacious, robust, ingeniously designed and incredibly comfortable. They have evolved.
‘A few years ago, they tended to appeal mainly to older people who had fantastic memories of childhood holidays and had never lost the bug — or who wanted to rediscover it,’ says Andrew, author of caravan histories such as The CI Story. ‘But now lots of families are first-timers. Caravanning is enjoying a serious resurgence.’
The comeback is driven, Andrew believes, by both the rising cost of holidays abroad and by the popularity of travel documentaries presented by the likes of Griff Rhys Jones (Griff’s Great Britain) and Julie Walters (Coastal Railways With Julie Walters). Their adventures in stunning countryside are inspiring many to discover what’s on their own doorsteps.
Decked out with comfy beds and fancy gadgets, caravanning today is more about comfort rather than getting back to basics.
Today’s glitzy state-ofthe-art motorhomes can cost well over €115,000. I’m sure they are lovely.
And today the holidays of my youth would probably be classed as child cruelty.
What fun while it lasted, though.
PS: Who needs a tow bar!