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Childhood Holidays


faraway saint

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In the modern day era where holidays are costly and faraway where did you go when you were a child?

I used to go to Saltcoats, mainly by train with steam pouring from the engine at the front and bucket and spade at the ready.

Used to go to a small cafe close to the train station for a knickerbockerglory, oh happy days. thumbup2.gif

PS It was ALWAYS sunny in the summer in them days. lol.gif

Edited by faraway saint
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What a lovely Thread................thumbup2.gif

Millport for me from the age of 5 till about 14..

Great beaches, swimming in the Sea and in the Harbour, playing football nearly all the time and lots of sunshine.

Ritz Cafe was wonderful as was The Nixe.

Had a few Knickerbocker Glories, but a Cheeseburger and an Irn Bru Ice drink was tops.

Edited by shull
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Saltcoats, largs, stevenson, all day trips my dad driving everywhere, Day trip to Butlins. Thats all we could afford. My kids now adults have been all over the place. All parts of Spain, Turkey, Malta, Tunisia, France, America,. All that was only a dream in my younger days.

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Apart from the odd camping or caravan holiday to sandylands or seton sands, most of my best memories

as a kid was the old street bus runs down to ayr or saltcoats they were pure magic, the whole street would

pile on to a bus and head to the seaside, the weans would go down to the beach and some of the auld yins

would head straight for the bozzers and get totally pished, brilliant day outs...sorcerer.gif

for some in our street it was the only way they'ed ever get to see the seaside.

did everywhere have these bus runs or was it just a feegie thing....

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It was Rothesay for us. The crossing on the steamer from Wemyss Bay seemed to add something special. There was a wee Italian Ice Cream shop up beside the castle but you couldn't see in the windows for thousands of empty ice cream tubs. Went swimming in Rothesay Bay and round the other side of Bute at Ettrick Bay. I don't remember it raining but I'm sure it did. Great really fresh fish suppers. Seems unbelievable now but many a day if you stood on Rothesay pier you could look out and see possibly up to about half a dozen steamers criss-crossing the Firth of Clyde.

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the whole of my childhood, our holidays were Anstruther the caravan park which I can still see and visited a few years back (not the same) big caravan with a wee garden surrounding it, the bubble swimming pool, down into Anstruther for the world famous chippy, the park's tartan lounge im sure it was called at night. loved it! we did go to a tiny caravan in pittenwem one year (dad obv skint) and it was terrible, plaugued by wasps and feck all on the site.

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We used to holiday in the far east......... Sunny Burntisland !

Open air pool, dippin a toe into the azure blue Firth of Forth , relaxing on the Golden Sands with the Railway line 10 yards behind us ! & the occasional trip to the Big City for a day out in Kirkcaldy with the ever present aroma of the nearby linoleum factory.

Ahh, the memories ! Who needs Majorca ? tongue.png

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We went to Arran a few times. The (usually bracing) ferry journey always signalled that we were 'getting away from it all'. The island was quiter in the '70s, even during holiday periods, so it felt like a peaceful break.

Static caravans were the accommodation of choice - in Whiting Bay. I remember the indescribable excitement of eating my first corn-on-the-cob outside a restaurant in Brodick, with butter streaming down my chin, much to everyone's amusement.

Nice thread, incidentally.

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Remember going to Millport once, Mother handed me my roll & banana, yummy, fcuking big seagull swooped down, nabbed the whole damn thing. ohmy.png

Nipped my finger a wee bit, cried for ages, fcuking seagulls.mad.gif

I was at a BB camp in Glen Rosa on Arran in 1961. We got washed out one night in a horrendous storm. The following morning a couple of us came a bloody great seagull which had somehow got all tangled up in wire. We managed to free it but just before it flew away the big bastard bit me across the back of my hand. It was really sore and bled like hell. Maybe it was the same vicious sod that got you, Faraway.

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In the modern day era where holidays are costly and faraway where did you go when you were a child?

I used to go to Saltcoats, mainly by train with steam pouring from the engine at the front and bucket and spade at the ready.

Used to go to a small cafe close to the train station for a knickerbockerglory, oh happy days. thumbup2.gif

PS It was ALWAYS sunny in the summer in them days. lol.gif

being from saltcoats i didnt get to go on holiday ,i had it all on my doorstep,only problem was numptie tourists every day stealing OUR sun and knickerbockerglorys .

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What a lovely Thread................thumbup2.gif

Millport for me from the age of 5 till about 14..

Great beaches, swimming in the Sea and in the Harbour, playing football nearly all the time and lots of sunshine.

Ritz Cafe was wonderful as was The Nixe.

Had a few Knickerbocker Glories, but a Cheeseburger and an Irn Bru Ice drink was tops.

A knickerbocker glory! Sheer luxury. Were your folks millionaires?

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I was at a BB camp in Glen Rosa on Arran in 1961. We got washed out one night in a horrendous storm. The following morning a couple of us came a bloody great seagull which had somehow got all tangled up in wire. We managed to free it but just before it flew away the big bastard bit me across the back of my hand. It was really sore and bled like hell. Maybe it was the same vicious sod that got you, Faraway.

Was it kinda white, had 2 wings and a beak?

Could have been Rick.

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It was usually Girvan for me, probably about 8 before we went anywhere else.

Up early with Dad for a walk down to the harbour to watch the fish come in and get the papers and rolls.

I loved the fact that they still had the old one arm bandits that took old pennies, and a wee train on the beach.

Day trips were usually to Saltcoats, a chippy in the car with a bottle of Irn Bru or Vimto shared around, then up the coast on the way home and into Largs for an ice cream.

It definitely seemed to be better weather back then - dad had a Hillman Estate, then a Vauxhall Victor - both with shiny plastic 'faux leather' seats that you had to sit on very gingerly if it had been in the sun all day and you only had shorts & a t-shirt on. Ouch!

Edited by Eddy
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the whole of my childhood, our holidays were Anstruther the caravan park which I can still see and visited a few years back (not the same) big caravan with a wee garden surrounding it, the bubble swimming pool, down into Anstruther for the world famous chippy, the park's tartan lounge im sure it was called at night. loved it! we did go to a tiny caravan in pittenwem one year (dad obv skint) and it was terrible, plaugued by wasps and feck all on the site.

I was at a BB camp in Glen Rosa on Arran in 1961. We got washed out one night in a horrendous storm. The following morning a couple of us came a bloody great seagull which had somehow got all tangled up in wire. We managed to free it but just before it flew away the big bastard bit me across the back of my hand. It was really sore and bled like hell. Maybe it was the same vicious sod that got you, Faraway.

Went to a BB camp in Anstruther, good old canvas tents that leaked if you touched the inside? blink.png

Had a rota to carry out various duties/punishment..............

  • PIck up litter, none of it fcuking mine mad.gif
  • Peel a mountain of spuds
  • check the guy ropes on all the tents

Playing 5's on a surface that was more suited to feeding coo's.

Shooting practice, a nice air rifle with a telescopic sight, we weren't allowed to shoot seagulls although they did move about a bit, not easy.

Down to the pier, small selection of fairground attractions, the waltzers, stayed on 16 times in a row. rip.gif

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We did once go to the Isle of Man on holiday. Went on the overnight sailing from Ardrossan, i remember people talking about the Cattle boat before we sailed.

When we got on i soon realised what they meant ! there were drunk people crammed in to every available space, spewing up & passed out on everywhere !

Isle of Man was nice enough though. & the weather was excellent. .. Honest , it was !

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Isle Of Bute for me which had a big influence on me to the point of buying a holiday home there now we are moving into it this June and selling up Lochwinnoch. It’s got an old world charm from a bygone age. Best of all it sits in a position making it easily accessible to Cowel and the highlands and Islands. Lots of people go to Rothesay and have no idea what the rest of the island has to offer. It’s a magical island with truly spectacular views . It’s also one of the most friendly places on this planet which I know from travels.

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I'm wallowing in nostalgia, 'cos I'm old, and it's braw! As the first born I have photos of me on the sand at Morecambe as a two or three year old. Don't remember it at all but my Mum never tired of recounting how bananas had just come off the ration and the landlady fed them to me morning, noon and night. After the sisters arrived it was a house in Largs for a few years and then a round of the traditional English seaside resorts. Whitley Bay, Scarborough (the model ship battles in Peasholm Park), Blackpool a few times (saw the Beatles do a live appearance on a TV show and Tommy Cooper), St Annes, Great Yarmouth (when England stole the World Cup), Bournmouth and Torquay (my first holiday romance, a smashing wee blonde from the Home Counties - my folks could afford a pretty decent hotel by then).

Been back to Scarborough a few times since and it's still quite genteel but went to Morecambe one day to take some photos of the big art deco hotel and the statue of Eric Morcambe which were fine but the rest of the place is an absolute dump. All the b&b's are full of kids on benefit and asylum seekers/cockle pickers, a tragedy for both them and the town.

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Nice thread,

Our summer holidays where spent in a small village in Devon where my Gran lived. Day's spent playing in the farms around the village or going down to the Ambrosia Factory where we played Russian Roulette with the bent/unlabelled tins (dreading a tin of Tapioca) then as we got older Ambrosia moved to LInton and we moved to the Inches Cider Works in Winkleigh no bent tins but lots of tasters with no complaints about us never buying as Sam Inch fancied my Grans sister.

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