Heaven on two wheels
They’ve long been a target of snobbery. But as caravans mark their centenary, CHRISTOPHER STEVENS says for generations of Britons, they’re...
ONCE they were the mainstays of a British family holiday, as much a part of Bank Holidays as picnic blankets and deckchairs on the seashore.
Millions of us looked forward all year to the weeks spent in a caravan — 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 near Bexhill in Sussex, and 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, from the Scottish Riviera to the Cornish coves, 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The caravan — which celebrates its centenary this year — may no longer represent the height of glamour, but that wasn’t always the case.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. Caravanning came to symbolise the spirit of adventure that had seized Britain after World War I, capturing the imagination of the middle classes.
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 in Britain in the Twenties, while models were also exported to India and other countries.
A basic 9ft 6in model was £166 in 1927 (about £10,250 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 Britain’s by-ways. For a country steeped in a strong work ethic, the Eccles caravan 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