Summer Holidays in the 1970s may have made me what I am today!

 

August is the time for family holidays in this and other countries. France has a public holiday period of about two weeks, where most of the country shuts down en masse. 

When I was school-age, I lived in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. It was Berkshire when I was born, and it wasn't until the boundary changes of 1974 that it became part of Oxfordshire. I digress; many children my age at school had a Father who worked in the local car factories, MG in Abingdon or British Leyland in Oxford. The factories used to have an annual summer shut-down which happened to be the last week of the school term and the first week of the school holidays. Only a few were in the class for the last week of the term.

In the late 60s and early 70s, we had many happy holidays in Weymouth and just up

the road from us here in East Devon at Charmouth. We stayed in static Caravans, and the one in Weymouth, if I remember correctly, was owned by one of Dad's Post Office colleagues. I remember being fascinated by the gas lamps. I'm sure that the safety inspector would have something to say about them today.

The first time I went to Dartmouth was on a Summer tour organised by the Brass Band I was playing with. My family arrived for the second week of the tour as our Father was a Postman and therefore didn't get the same holidays as the factories. Conveniently, the first week of the tour was the last week of the school term. We holidayed in a chalet park in Dawlish Warren, which is a place that my wife and myself visit quite regularly as her brother lives there these days.

On the first evening of our holiday, we travelled from Dawlish Warren to Dartmouth, and the first view of the town that we saw was as we crossed over on the Lower Ferry. We played on the Bandstand; it was 1973, and little did I know that in less than ten years, I would be back in Dartmouth, living and serving in the Royal Marines Band at Britannia Royal Naval College, and forty years later that I would meet and marry Kathy, who lived in Kingswear.

I spent most of my adult lifetime and Royal Marines career living in Dartmouth. Despite drafts to Plymouth, Northolt ( only for two days) and Portsmouth, I still used my base as Dartmouth. Not the wisest of ideas, but all came good when I met Kathy. By then, I was working for BAe Systems Surface Ships, running a yard for them, maintaining Sea Boats and Crafts to 20m, including the boats for the Naval College. That all ended when they couldn't secure an extension to the lease of the yard, and the workforce was made redundant, bar a few who stayed behind to maintain the college fleet without supervision.

There was not much meaningful work in South Devon then; the country had just battled out of a recession and a banking crash (sound familiar). I found a job in East Devon, and we boldly decided to move up to East Devon. I was never convinced that the job would work, and nine months later, I was jobless again. Brief dabble with a yacht company in Plymouth followed, another horrible experience, before I started with a company in Newton Abbot. I was with this company for three years before looking for more money. I started with a Nutrients company. That lasted only three months, and Brexit or the lack thereof finished that position.

It took one more job before, at last, I settled with the NHS, and there I will be until I'm able to retire, but it will take a General Election to be able to even think about retirement.

I started this piece to write about holidays and quickly ended up writing about my holidays. It shows you that you can very easily get distracted whilst writing and go off on a completely different track from the one you started on. The next piece may be a holiday success.