It was 1967 and Sandie Shaw had just won the Eurovision Song Contest with Pupper on a String. The other big event for me that year was going ‘abroad’ for the first time. My Dad had taken out a bank loan to pay for our family of five to go on a package holiday. I can still remember that it cost £32 per person, all meals included! My mum spent weeks saving up to buy holiday clothes for us, things that could only be tried on and then put away until the great event. Passports were applied for and us children were added on to them – in those days you didn’t need your own. Tickets were posted out the the travel agents (remember then?!) and duly had to be collected and kept safe.
Eventually the day of departure arrived, well actually the day before the flight! My dad was wearing a suit my mum, sister and me all wore new summer dresses and cardigans and my little brother had short trousers and a shirt. You didn’t travel casually in those days, it was a hugely important event and one to get dressed up for. We were the first family in our cul-de-sac to take on such a daring, or foolish, expedition.
We walked to our local raillway station, Dad carrying the heaviest case, Mum with a smaller one. It was late afternoon and warm. I remember my dad looking hot in his shirt and tie, waiting to catch the train to Crewe. After the short journey to Crewe we found the train to London Euston, Dad catching his jacket on the door handle and ripping it in the process. We then had to endure what seemed like hours of sitting on itchy seats, sucking barley sugars until we arrived. Then it was a taxi to Victoria coach station, from where we would travel to Manston in Kent to catch our flight. This was the first time we had travelled by any of these means, we had never even been to London before, it was all lnew and strange and the plane at the end was just the icing on the cake.
We boarded the plane and on looking out of the window, noticed, much to my mum’s consternation, that the wings were made up of lots of little square of metal riveted together. She was convinced that the plane would have been moulded from one smooth piece of metal! I thought it was magical, we landed at dawn, the sky still pink at the edges but already I could fee the promise of heat to come and it smelled foreign too.
I had enjoyed the meal on the plane, it felt so grown up to have a tray of little packets and dishes just for me and not to have to give any to my younger sister and brother. The food in the small hotel in Blanes was interesting too. I can remember the first breakfast, there were huge brown glass cups of milky coffee, crusty rolls and peach jam, no butter (I could see my mother making a mental note to pack tea and butter for next time) I loved it, the jam soft and sweet and tasted of musky sunshine, and even though you can now get it here, it ‘s not the same. My brother, being only 6, wanted what he was used to at home. Have you ever tried to mime ‘cornflakes’?! Eventually a packet was produced, along with a jug of milk and a plate. The staff gathered round to witness this breakfast phenomenon and gasped as they were sprinkled onto the plate and then had milk poured over them. They had obviously put some thought into the evening meal, each night was a dish from a different cuisne, intending, I suppose to cater for the different nationalities there. I don’t recall every one, but one night we we re served with a plate of plain spaghetti and a separate bowl of thin, tomato flavoured water – Italian evening! Paella was on the menu one night, yellow and garlicky and laced with oil. But the highlight of the week was when they did ‘English’ food. As the plates were brought out, a buzz went round the dining room, what was it going to be? Then the serving platters arrived and a huge cheer went up from the British contingent – EGG & CHIPS!! It was the first time that week that most of them recognised what they were eating. Though they had been fried in olive oil and tasted completely different, it was still egg and chips!
Of course we didn’t speak a word of Spanish, no-one did in those days (well the Spaish people did obviously!) so miming, accompanied by talking VERY LOUDLY, was the order of the day. Fortunately for us children it didn’t matter much. We just played and taught each other how to count up to ten and everyone knew the words to ‘Puppet on a String’!
Other memories of that holiday for me, going to a bullfight and sitting baking in the afteroon heat, watching the gaudy, macbre procedure .The black bull becoming redder & stickier with blood, until, almost too weak to stand, was finally put out of his misery. Then, still twitching, and minus its ears and tail was dragged round by horses, the dust and sand now coating the bloody wounds. Drinking ice cold Coca Cola and Pepsi for the first time, its sharp, caramelly fizz tickling my tongue. A Dutch couple throwing sweets into our balcony from theirs. Going to a shop to and buy some cotton to mend my dad’s suit jacket. The old lady, dressed in traditional black, didn’t have any in that colour, so she took us through her shop and kitchen, across an alleyway to a neighbour who did.
And then there was the group of four ‘lads’ the leader nicknamed Romeo. They never came on any of the organised day trips, preferring to sleep all day, having been out all night, and went home as white as when they arrived – some things don’t changed do they?!
My lot 