The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
‘I cried hysterically when it was time to go home’
For Carol Decker, lead singer of 1980s band T’Pau, a trip to Malta at the age of 12 brought many new experiences – not least falling in love with a lifeguard
My career as a singer has taken me all over the world, but no holiday has been as exciting as my first trip abroad, to Malta, at the age of 12. It was a package holiday to the Golden Sands Hotel in Golden Bay, in the north-west of the island. This was in 1970 and, until that point, my family holidays had either been in a caravan at Clacton or at Butlin’s in Skegness, and I’d loved them – but Malta gave me my first glimpse of adventure, and a taste of the world beyond Blighty.
My Golden Bay trip came at a time when the universe seemed to be shifting. Not only was I hovering on the brink of adolescence, but my family’s fortunes were changing, too. My father Kenny, always a determined man, had spent years at night school, and over the previous few years we’d swapped a council flat in Liverpool for our own detached home in Staffordshire. Going abroad seemed to seal our new status.
As a working-class girl who had never been on a plane, just getting up at 3am to drive to Gatwick felt exhilarating, and I remember sitting in the back of the car with my brother Gary, who was 10, our eyes grainy with sleep, smiling joyfully as we munched away on Mother’s Pride cheese sandwiches.
I will never forget the wonder of that first flight, as we cruised above an underbelly of cloud to the bluest of blue skies. I can still remember my mother, Patsy, winking at me as she squirrelled into her handbag a pair of miniature salt and pepper pots that came with our meal. But it was the marble-stoned splendour of the hotel that truly mesmerised me, with its huge sweeping staircase, turquoiseblue pool and terraces lined with palm trees. I had honestly never seen anything as exotic in my whole life.
The first thing we did when we got there was run to our rooms, dump our suitcases and race to the pool. I’d always been a great swimmer, and my dad and I – both born exhibitionists – were soon taking turns to outperform each other on the diving board, him with his “pikes” and me with my bellyflops. We must have been in the pool for hours and it was only when we got out of the water that the full force of the sun struck me. I felt my hair frazzling, heat filling my throat.
Like my mum, I was a pale redhead, and the minute I was out she wrapped me in a towel and slathered me in Factor 50. Lying on a lounger to dry, I must have dozed off. When I woke up an hour or so later, my head felt detached from my
To his credit, Mario humoured me and listened politely as I told him all about England
shoulders. Blinking, I tried to stand up, my knees buckling Bambi-style, and the next thing I knew I was trembling in my father’s arms. Somehow, the two of us hobbled to the lobby and got into the lift and it was then that I started screaming.
Apparently I kept yelling: “Get it away from me!”, and I have a vague recollection of seeing a spider in the lift the size of a dog. By then, it was clear that I was hallucinating, and the hotel doctor was called up to my room. He told my parents I had a bad case of sun stroke and asked them why nobody had thought to make me wear a hat.
My mother was mortified, and as she sat with me over the next 24 hours, giving me ice-cold water and mopping my brow, she kept saying: “I’m so sorry darling, I just didn’t know. I’ve never been anywhere like this.”
You would have thought such an unfortunate start might have ruined the holiday, but nothing could dampen my excitement. Even in my delirium, as I lay in bed, every sight and smell felt like a new experience to digest – from the honeyed scent of the bougainvillea outside my window to the charmingly foreign music on the radio. I loved it all and wanted to absorb every second.
The first day I was back in action, we took a trip to the walled city of Valletta. What struck me most about Malta’s tiny capital, with its ornate palaces and splendid churches festooned with artefacts, was that it was a city of contrasts: * all extravagance and beauty in the centre, and struggle and hardship on the hinterlands where the houses were nothing more than huts. It stirred something new within me, a flurry of anger, and a budding sense of social justice.
Outrage and wonder weren’t the only new emotions to assail me on that holiday. Malta was where I fell in love for the first time, and the object of my poorly concealed affections was Mario, the hotel’s 19-year-old lifeguard. With his chocolate-brown eyes and long, tanned legs, my feelings towards him weren’t exactly sexual – at 12, I was still too young for that. I quite simply thought he was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen, and I followed him around the pool relentlessly. To his credit, he humoured me, listening politely as I told him all about England.
After 10 wonderful days at the Golden
Sands, I cried hysterically when it was time to go home. I don’t know whether I was heartbroken to be saying goodbye to Mario or just bereft at leaving Malta – but either way, that holiday has never left me. Now, as a much older, more jaded traveller, I often think longingly back to that magnificent Maltese adventure, when the world seemed such a beguiling place, so full of new surprises.
Carol Decker is taking part in the 21-venue Essential 80s UK tour – which will also feature Paul Young and Hue and Cry, and begins in September. For tickets, visit myticket. co.uk, and for more information on T’Pau visit tpau.co.uk