As kids we had several holiday down in the South of France and one with our cousins - camping and fancy dress parties and of course the worlds biggest peaches!

We would either take the train down which was a grand adventure, sleeping on the overnight train in bunk beds with my brother, or sometimes we would drive down but it took so long and probably even longer for mum and dad with me and my brother squabbling for the whole journey.

We stayed in huts or caravans - nothing fancy, but I don’t really remember much about that side of things. I do remember the peach on the train though - I don’t think I had ever either seen or eaten a peach before, so this was a real treat.

I remember the beach and an orange plastic digger I had which I could dig up the sand with, and yes we had sand, and not hoofing great stones like at home - it was great fun, you would wind the handle and and it would scoop it up. I would play with it for hours on end, but it was the fancy dress competition in the evening which was best of all, and one which we took part in to the background buzz of cicadas which I had never heard before.

Me and Jane, we would have been 7 or 8 dressed as Adam and Eve with just a bit of string and giant fig leaves, I guess it was what was available, my brother and Pam were Old Father Time and The New Year, complete with cotton wool beard and an embarrassing nappy for New Year. Fancy dress really was “home made” back then.

One day we had the mistral winds and a sand storm from the Sahara desert - it was quiet frightening I’d never experienced anything like it before or since.

I never understand why children can’t be taken out of school for holidays, for me this was one of biggest learning experiences of my life, so thank you mum and dad for the education of lifetime.

I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea to knit a swimsuit, but my aunties, god bless them, in post war austerity knitted everything, usually several sizes too big - so you could grow into them, including a lovely shorts and braces swim suit. One minor problem with wool is that it absorbs water, without all its protective lanolin and once water ladened quickly becomes very heavy - can I demonstrate the ankle version. Good Job I was only 4 or 5 at the time and probably quite happy to run around starkers.

We mainly went to Felixstowe on the East Coast for our holidays and over summer I would virtually live there, fishing off the pier every day and making Airfix models in the evening - getting Humbrol paint all over table and no one complained to me ever - it was bliss. In return I would feed them with whatever I caught - Pouting, whiting, cromer crabs, brown shrimps, dabs and flounders and the occasion Grey Mullet, and my Nan’s favourites Eels and Whelks. (I guess you can take the lady out the east end but not the east end out the lady).

I would go swimming with my brother when he came down in the ice cold waters of the North Sea, and the lovely stone beach with waves the size of cars that would knock you down - we loved it! I was surprised we were never swept out to sea. We played on the sewerage outlet happy in the knowledge that we had no idea what it was, and afterwards to spent our pocket money in the pier arcade.

My Nan. usually came down at lunchtime to the pier with a flask of tea and I’d sit and read Commando war comics and drink as the world past me by. They were endless days of innocent fun, no stress, no responsibilities and nothing to worry about.

At 8.00pm my aunty would pick me up from the pier or I’d get a half to sprites hall lane on the bus, we have tea, and I’d make models, or my nan would teach me to sow and make rugs in front of the coal fire which burned lovely shade of green and yellow on account of the high sulphur content.

Even now if I ever smell burring meths it pings me right back to childhood. Everything was heated on it including a little kettle that whistled when it boiled.

Holidays were simple affairs back then; a day in the county side or at the seaside - a rug, a thermos flask and some sandwiches, maybe if we were really lucky a bottle of Lemonade or Tizer. BBQ’s hadn't reached Britain by this time and certainly I’d never seen a gas cooker.

The Thermos was king! The inner lining was glass so if you dropped it they shattered. They always had a plastic - usually stained cup - I didn’t like the cups.

Sometimes we would stay with relatives, but mostly they were day trips. We even went to see “spaghetti” junction in Birmingham for one special trip - it was amazing, we’d never seen anything like it.

I liked fish and chips best and for me this is always best at the seaside. We didn’t have them very often - it was always a special treat.

I think it must have been in the very late 60’s maybe even early 70’s that they introduced the dougnut machine on the front of the pier - fresh made doughnuts and sugar.

Holidays were so simple back then, but then so was life? Or maybe that was just through the rose tinted glasses of a child, but whatever we had bags of simple fun.

We had beach hut envy - we’d do the shuffle dance to get changed under a beach towel or mum would hold one up. Plastic wind breaks on wooden poles leaned over in the pebbles unable to get a purchase to stand upright.

What little sand there was seemed to find its way into the sandwiches which gave them an interesting gritty texture, whilst every now and then a gust of wind would have everyone scrabbling about to hold things down - oh yes we looked at them beach hut holders with envy.

Near the Pavilion where they held the wrestling, which my Nan loved and we watched in black and white on a TV with dodgy vertical hold in the evenings, there was the Pavilion Cafe, and the cafe was the home to the Horlicks machine. It would usually be raining when we went in there, or perhaps we went in there because it was raining, but as a kid you don’t think like that.

This was my ultimate treat - and I’d always have the same and after much hissing and steam it arrived, it even came in a mug with the words Horlicks on it, in case you forgot what you were drinking, very thoughtful of them., but they forgot to put holes in the handles so you couldn’t lift the cups with children hands. The windows would always be steamed up with condensation, the tables white plastic with a huge aluminium sugar shaker, but always clean and the ladies wore white lab coats and matching hats.

On the way back my Nan would often stop in the pub on Bent Hill and I would sit in the children’s bar - I don’t recall ever going into the pub - it just wasn’t done. I’d always have the same Coke and Bovril crips.