‘We play cards by an open fire at night’
From milking cows to buckets and spades, our readers recall holidays that evoke memories of a bygone Britain
Eastbourne is a town in no special rush to accommodate the “anything goes” attitude embraced by so many seaside towns without a backward glance to their origins. People there are conscious of the watchful eye of the long-deceased Duke of Devonshire, who instructed his agent to construct a winding road up to Beachy Head in order to make the visits easier for his horses.
The terraced walks remain as they have always been; at the Hydro Hotel, guests approach their rooms via a lift that clanks and shudders as it has for decades. It’s not broken, so why replace it? Even at the elegant Sovereign Harbour, no one sells candyfloss and the eyes of locals narrow at dropped litter. Rosie Rushton, Northampton
GOING GWEEK IS PRICELESS
In the mid-1970s we started going to a working farm in Gweek, Cornwall, for our family holidays. A fortnight at the beginning of September was absolute heaven for us kids – two weeks off, with the school’s blessing.
We would be up at 5am to help Garth bring in the dairy cows, all with names, called in five at a time for milking.
My favourite place was a beach you could only get to via 200 or so wooden steps down a cliff. We would take a picnic, buckets, spades and a ball and Mum would have a book – nothing else.
I was disappointed to find that my special place – Kynance Cove – has easy access now, with a café and no steps. It’s still a beautiful beach.
Carol Doree, Devon
SANDS OF TIME IN DORSET
It was the original “pod” holiday – a stay in a beach hut on Hengistbury Head in Dorset, also known as Mudeford Island. I went there as a seven-year-old and for my 50th birthday (I could have gone anywhere in the world!), leaving the car and taking the ferry or the Noddy train.
Some huts are now modernised with solar panels and beautiful interiors but they have no loos or running water. Waking up and walking on the damp sand, being on the beach all day, cosying up in your hut in the evening with games, music or a book, barbecuing freshly caught fish… these are the simple pleasures on this microclimate island where the sun always seems to shine. This is my happy place.
Sally Westley, Southampton
YORKSHIRE ABBEY HABIT
Jervaulx Abbey, in Yorkshire, may be a ruin, but it is easy to picture it as a thriving place of worship and daily living, offering hospitality and producing Wensleydale cheese. Today there is a great sense of tranquillity, the silence broken only by cawing rooks. All that remains of the dormitory is a single windowless wall, but I look up imagining the monks quietly gliding along the corridors.
Standing in the charred kitchen, I can almost smell the bread baking. In the chapel, where tombs inscribed with medieval writing remain, I can imagine monks singing and praying. Norman dog-tooth decorations around doorways and ornate pillars survive – a reminder of how special the place was. Just pray for sunshine when you visit. Veronica Bliss, Hants
A DIVINE TIME AT HOLY ISLAND
During the early 1950s, there was still no causeway linking the mainland to Lindisfarne – or Holy Island, as it is also known – off the coast of Northumberland. To reach our holiday cottage, Mum, Dad, my brother and I were squashed unceremoniously into a black taxi and taken across the sands. As a three-year-old I watched with fascination as the incoming tide gradually enveloped the vehicle’s wheels.
Our holiday cottage had no running water but the village pump was handy, and there were glorious beaches, distant views of Bamburgh Castle and the Cheviot Hills, and the occasional seal sunbathing on the rocks.
I remember the simple pleasures of that “bucket and spade” holiday with great affection, not least looking forward to the excitement of a ride back to the mainland in that taxi.
David Littlefield, Tyne and Wear
ALL AT SEA IN A NORFOLK CHALET
In the pre-car days of the 1960s, we hired a minibus to take our extended family to a wooden chalet behind the sea wall in Hunstanton, Norfolk. Mum had sent a provisions list ahead. When we arrived, there on the kitchen table was the biggest catering-size bottle of salad cream we had ever seen.
We boys got the giggles, which lasted all week. We loved to sit by the sea as the waves chased along the concrete steps, yelping when we got wet. I adored swimming but seeing an eel in the waves put me off for nearly a day.
One night, the waves crashed over the sea wall, flooding our bungalow. Dad and Uncle Derek rolled up their trousers and tried to shovel the water out with spades, but they had to take the floorboards up. We children were consigned to the top bunks, what fun! Happy days.