Estcourt Road Summer Holidays

While Gill's family lived in Estcourt Road most of their summer holidays were caravan holidays.  They went for a fortnight each August and her mother Bea spent hours preparing. Sleeping bags were made out of sheets and blankets pinned together with blanket pins and she made fruit cakes, sponges and biscuits. Gill and her sister used to look forward to tinned stewed steak and tinned steak and kidney puddings as the holidays were the only time they had these.

Her father hired the caravan and then towed it to Cornwall and later to Wales. Don collected the caravan and brought it to the house the day before departure and the family would load it ready for a very early start the next day. The journey took all day particularly to get to Cornwall, when they had to pass through the notorious bottleneck at Exeter in the early afternoon - this was one reason why they changed to South Wales.

The family didn't use 'proper' caravan sites, preferring to stop at a farm and ask if they could use a field. At Prussia Cove in Cornwall they stayed at the same farm every year but by the time they went to Pembrokeshire the famers had to be registered to take caravans and had to provide toilet facilities.

In Cornwall Don's first job was to set up a small tent - to the right in this picture - which housed a chemical toilet called an Elsan, so the last job he did when they left was to dig a hole into which he poured the contents.

Because they stayed on working farms the two girls would 'help' the farmer, for example by piling the  stooks into structures which they could crawl inside. This picture is probably Wales, where they often stayed near Newgale Sands.

Most of the day was spent on the beach, even if the weather wasn't too kind. In those days, girls wore elasticated costumes and swimming caps. One of the things they most enjoyed was surfing on the wooden body boards seen in the picture - but these could be very painful if they mis-timed a wave and the board caught them in the stomach.

Gill's father had this picture framed and kept it on the desk in his office.