C is for Caravan
Around about 1960 my mum's parents acquired a touring caravan. After several years of annual trips to a Blackpool boarding house they could instead explore Scotland and the Lake District, going where they pleased and making their own eating arrangements. Which they did for a few years until apparently they found a place they particularly liked and by the time I came along in the late 70s, the family had a second-hand static caravan alongside about a dozen other static caravans in a farmer's field in Cumbria. Throughout my childhood we went as often as we could afford the petrol.
It's been said many times that there's something peculiarly pointless about a static caravan. All the flimsy construction and inconvenience of the touring kind without the freedom and variety of the open road. My dad's parents had their own static caravan near Morecambe until they gave it up in the early 80s to spend the money on a self-catering holiday in Spain for the coldest couple of months each year. Aunty D lived permanently in one at a windswept location above Huddersfield. Her daughter's now retired to one near Hull. Oh the glamour of our metal and fibreglass boxes on their wedged-in-place wheels. And yet we loved it.
Until my mum got a mobile phone for work in the mid-90s, there was no phone and no TV. We went for walks up fells and round lakes, where my dad pointed out wildflowers and birds, and once in a while we'd see deer or red squirrels. We had picnics - usually the traditional British sort where you park in a layby and eat hard boiled eggs in the car. In the evenings we read books, listened to the radio or Hancock's Half Hour tapes, did jigsaws or crafts, played Scrabble - or Monopoly if Big Brother was around. In short it felt like an escape from real life where we did wholesome, boring, old-fashioned things together. I wavered for a while in my teens, but once it had gone I missed those excursions into a quieter existence, and even now I find the sound of rain on a metal roof surprisingly soothing.
C could also have been for cardigan, continental quilt, chip shop, or custard. If you enjoyed this one, you can always buy me a cuppa…
