Holidays

Helen Edwards interviewing Sandy Coleman for Highfields Remembered.
Extract
Well, I was lucky with my holidays because I had an aunt (who I don't really think is a blood relation), another one that lived in Great Yarmouth, South Beach Bridge. She still lives there now, opposite the Big Dipper. Every holiday was spent there, our annual holiday which used to be in August , two weeks in August. Every holiday we used to go to Great Yarmouth.

Read the full interview
Listen to the full interview

Marjorie Marston was born in Highfields in 1942.
Extract
We used to do quite a lot really. We didn't go on holidays very often because obviously we couldn't afford it and if I did go away I used to go to Yorkshire with my mum to visit my grandad, that's about all really. We used to have day trips out to Skegness mainly because that's where everybody from Leicester went to Skegness. But that wasn't until later but just the countryside round about really Bradgate Park and places like that. I mean, people in those days just didn't travel the way they do today, they couldn't afford it anyway, but obviously there were not the planes to take them to places and everywhere you wanted to go took a little bit longer than it does today.

Read the full interview
Listen to the full interview

Brett Pruce was born in Highfields in 1955.
Extract
when we were younger, my mum and dad didn't have a lot of money, so we did camping holidays for several years. Mainly caravan holidays. They hated the east coast so we always tended to go down to either Wales or Devon or Cornwall. They really loved the Torquay area, and we tended to go to Paignton or Brixham for a week or two weeks whatever.

Did you go on the train?

Yeah most of the time. A couple of times we went by car. My dad never had a car, or not until- Oh, I think they were both over fifty when they passed their tests. So my dad had a motorbike and sidecar. I remember going all the way to Torquay in my dad's sidecar once. We had a lot of fun. Took a couple of weeks to get over it. They were firm believers in holidays and tried to get us a holiday a year. I know they scrimped and saved to make it a bit of a special event for us. We did go to the east coast a couple of times. A friend of my dad had a caravan in Hunstanton, and he let us use that two years running. It's not the same atmosphere or, it's just not as nice as going down to Devon or wherever.

Extract
You'd decide to go somewhere for the day?

Yeah, and that would be it. We just got up and went with them and that was it. Wicksteed Park was the odd trip, but they were only odd trips but they were special treats. You know I got quite a lot out of the Cubs and Scouts. I remember going to Dover with them and to Scarborough, and also to Conway in North Wales, which was a bit of a Godsend for my mum and dad. If in a year they hadn't got a lot of money, at least, you know, I got a holiday.

Read the full interview

Mr Eric Tolton was born in Highfields in 1916.
Extract
Lets go back to Wesley Hall and the Boys Brigade. Did you go away on camp?

Oh yes, I went to camp every year. Skegness as a rule.

Did you go under canvas?

Oh yes.

The first camp I went to was a joint camp with Newby Street and they set about twelve to the tent there, oh it was ever so crowded and I got cramp in my leg and Id never had cramp before. It set hard you know, I thought my leg had broken, but one of the boys said to rub it. He got up and rubbed my leg and course the feeling came back. I still get cramp now.

Extract
Did you go away on holiday much?

Well when the children were younger, prior to that, going back to the beginning before I was married, I had got an aunt at Southampton and an aunt at Oswestry, and they were the two places we used to go on holiday. I do remember going with my mother to Yarmouth or was it Lowestoft? No, Lowestoft for a fortnight. That was a big thing in those days but when I had got the family we used to go to Mablethorpe and this sort of thing then we went to the Isle of Man. The most holidays we had were in the last ten years of my wifes life. We used to go abroad a lot, she loved travelling and I was only too grateful that we were able to do this in our later years, but prior to that with the children, it was just ordinary seaside holidays, it was nothing special. Scarborough, Yarmouth, Torquay, Paignton I think we went to Llandudno.

Read the full interview
Listen to the full interview

Mrs Muriel Wilmot came to live in Highfields in 1927.
Extract
So you left school when you were 14?

14. We went for a holiday at Blackpool. We always did, every year. Leicester had the first two weeks in August as holiday, it was a regular thing, nobody had any other holiday but the first two weeks in August.

Extract
we always had a holiday. My father always insisted on a weeks holiday at Blackpool and we used to go to Bagworth frequently. We used to walk to Bagworth from here across the fields to Anstey and we used to think it was marvellous. We would take a picnic lunch and probably have an ice-cream, that was a luxury.

Read the full interview

.Mrs Dorothy Woodford was born in Highfields in 1921.
Extract
Somehow, my parents always managed to take us to the east coast for a weeks holiday. As funds were low, mother and we girls travelled by either coach or train. Father would set off in the early hours of the morning on his bike- he was always there to meet us on arrival. In Gorleston-on-Sea we had rooms with a Mrs Watson. Mother would take quite a lot of provisions from home (having accrued a 'store' in the preceding weeks) and Mrs Watson would do the cooking for us all. Father, being a Norfolk man, always insisted on Yarmouth bloaters for breakfast. On the last night of the holiday we would be treated by our parents to a sit down fish and chip supper in a sea-front cafe – joy indeed!

Read the full interview