By Isle of Wight Observer
While many of you were enjoying your holiday, I worked through the summer, although I did manage a four-day ski break in February. Two of those four days involved travel.
When my kids were younger, we liked to collect them from the school gate on the last day of the summer term. We’d already loaded the luggage, so once the kids were piled in the car, we set off immediately for our annual holiday. My parents did much the same thing when I was a kid, except we were squashed into the back of an Austin van. Honestly, seven kids of varying ages, a dog, and the bags, all unrestrained in the back – no seats!
Our travel experience was made bearable by anticipation and excitement. Before we set off, we kids had to remember to grab the cushions from the living room sofa. The floor and sides were just metal, so anything soft and squishy went in the back, including our bed quilts and pillows. Sometimes we went to Pembrokeshire; mostly, we came to the Island. My mother’s family are from Freshwater. They always seemed broke, so the ferries must’ve been more affordable in the ’70s.
I don’t recall anyone fretting about the peril of no seat-belt journeys, probably because everyone did it. There are no windows in vans, so our immediate concern was having no view out for hours on end. People movers didn’t really exist in those days, and in any case, the family budget wouldn’t have stretched to such luxury.
Later, my Dad bought a Peugeot 504 estate – with three rows of seats! The Catholic French must’ve had big families like ours. Later, Dad bought a nine-seat Type 1 VW minibus, the now trendy split-screen version. That came on finance, of course. Aged 12, I remember picking up on his anxiety about the HP going through. In the ’70s, the finance process was painfully slow. The lender checked borrower’s earnings with the bank manager and your employer, asking both if they thought you could manage the repayments.
It’s such a different world now; it’s all on-line, and none of us has any financial secrets. If you’re selling stuff on eBay, or working some kind of part-time side hustle, the Inland Revenue has the technology to see it. If you want to sleep well, best tell them what you’re earning before that brown envelope arrives.
Nowadays, seven kids flying around in the back of an old Austin van would earn the driver a driving ban. In the olden days, children were less precious, and certainly didn’t have Game Boys or tablets to amuse them on long journeys. I don’t recall what we did as the van rumbled towards its destination. Maybe we bickered constantly or played with our Action Men; perhaps we read Famous Five books? I don’t remember stopping on these journeys, but if we did, there’s no way they would have splashed out on food and drink. What little spare money there was would’ve been saved for the destination.
My own more fortunate offspring travelled in air-conditioned luxury, complete with Game Boys or tablets to keep them amused. En route, I fondly remember hearing the brilliant Alice Cooper track, ‘School’s Out’ as we drove. Before radio playlists were automated, the best DJs always played ‘School’s Out’ on the last day of the summer term.
Crushed in the back of that old van with my siblings in the ’70s, we’d listen out for Cliff Richard’s ‘Summer Holiday’, the anthem for every improbable getaway. Hearing it on Radio 1 seemed a good omen for glorious days ahead. Even now hearing it takes me straight back to those summer holidays, and the implausible film.
As you get older, you realise that even where there was hardship, happy memories were also made.