As a person whose vacations* are few and far between, I find many of my holidays* to be memorable!

When I was young (up to 16 years old) my family’s holidays were usually spent at home or at my Grandmother Ethel’s house, in a town less than a hundred miles from where we lived. It is true that I went to summer camp once but otherwise, until I was 15 and came to England, holidays away from Ohio didn’t happen.

My first ‘real’ holiday happened when I was sixteen. We had an au pair called Francine whose family lived in Paris but had a summer home in Le Touquet (France). Francine’s parents invited me to come to Le Touquet for the summer in 1959. Francine stayed behind in London to look after Judy and Jennie and her own brother, Jean Louis, who spent a month in London with my family.

That summer holiday was so wonderful! I was free to do what I wanted during the days and, what I wanted to do was go to the beach and soak up sun, sitting in the sand, watching the waves. Aside from that I rode a bike all round the town; hired a ‘little red bug’ – a small red-painted vehicle which one could drive around the town (not sure what powered it!); walked the very short distance to the shopping street where there was a wonderful shop that sold 2” squares of chocolate caramels; ate and drank gorgeous French food and drink. I met a young man called Jean Emile who drove around on a motor scooter and lived in the same road as I did. We spent a lot of time together and had fun – no hanky panky though – I was only 16!

The most memorable evening of the two months was the time Jean and I went on a ‘Ralley’. A ralley in Le Touquet was rather like a treasure hunt. Groups of people would drive around the area picking up clues and end up at a certain place where they might carry out a task of some sort. I can’t remember whether we were in a car or on the scooter but we ended up at some sort of municipal building which had a small pool outside it, filled with little fish. Jean and I had to step into the pool and catch as many little fish as possible in a certain length of time. In the photo below you will see me holding the torch while Jean collected the fish. (I look a little bandy-legged there but I wasn’t in reality!) I don’t remember how many we caught or whether we won the ralley but it was so much fun! Also in the photo is m. Prin, Francine’s dad. He’s the man just above my head in the dark shirt.

That summer I also went to the cinema and saw several French films in French with no subtitles! I learned to speak in French to the people around me and make myself understood. And, I got tipsy for the first time in my life!

When I went back to London and real life, I found out, quite quickly, the difference between speaking French in every-day conversations and really understanding the language. (That’s for another time!)

Another very memorable holiday was also in France but that time I was 40 and ever-so-slightly more grown up. That holiday was for two weeks. We (Veronica, Betty, Julian, Harley and I) drove from Calais to St Tropez, taking a week to do so and thus seeing some sights along the way. We were travelling in Harley’s car, which was a red Ford Granada. (Harley is one of Julian’s brothers.)

We spent the first night in the town of Sedan, spent a night in Switzerland, where I found I dislike cowbells (the sound kept waking me up!), and arrived in the south of France a week after leaving home. We were supposed to be staying in a caravan in a holiday park along the coast from St Tropez. When we arrived, there was the caravan which had sleeping room for four. The fifth person was supposed to put up a tent which was supposed to be in a storage space under the caravan – but it wasn’t there. (We later found out that the people who owned the caravan hadn’t known that the tent had just about disintegrated earlier that year and had been chucked away!)

Julian and I decided to stay in a hotel not far away, which we did except for one night when the hotel closed at 4 in the afternoon and no one had warned us! That night we all slept in the caravan except for Harley who slept in the car.

That holiday is memorable because it was, more or less, our honeymoon, as we had married in the June before, and it was the holiday when I went topless on the beach – not something I would do in England (much too shy) and, having been ‘flat-chested’ throughout my youth, my 20’s, my 30’s and well into my 40’s, it didn’t seem right. But, after seeing all the other women going topless that year in France, I thought ‘what the hell….’ and did it. No one seemed to laugh and life just went on, I wasn’t struck by lightning or hauled before a magistrate! There is a photo of me, topless and I have cropped it so that I can use it below. (Sadly, I can’t find that photo so you’ll have to use your imagination!)

There are several more holidays that are memorable – we went to the Isle of Man, the Isle of Wight, the Emerald Isle (Ireland); we’ve spent nights in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Herefordshire. Devon, Somerset, Kent and once at the Ritz in London. It was the night of my 50th birthday and we had been to a concert at the Barbican, had tea at the Ritz, and went out to eat at……McDonalds!

That whole day was unexpected. I knew we were going to London to meet Veronica and her first husband. In the taxi we took from Victoria, Julian made me close my eyes so I didn’t know where we were going. When the taxi stopped and we got out, I was allowed to open my eyes – it was The Ritz! We walked up the steps, opened the door and somewhere there was a harp playing Happy Birthday! I said, “Oooh, it’s someone else’s birthday!” Julian said, “ No, that’s for you!”. Then we walked into the restaurant(?) and had a wonderful tea!

I had no idea that we were spending the night in London, let alone the Ritz! I had not brought a nightie, a toothbrush, clean underwear! When we went out to the Barbican I stopped at a chemist somewhere to buy a toothbrush and tooth paste and made-do with everything else. At the Barbican we sat in the front row and watched and listened to Jack Brymer playing Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quintet. It was superb! When it was over, we took the tube back to Piccadilly, stopped at a McDonalds (money was tight in those days and Julian had already spent quite a bit!) and went back to sleep in the Ritz!

Of course, that wasn’t a holiday but I just had to get it in there!

The next day we went back to our shop in Kent.

*vacation – the same as *holiday

Veronica, the nom de plume of my daughter, Betty, the nom de plume of her best friend at the time.