Post by JEM on Aug 24, 2013 8:02:24 GMT
WHAT IS A HOLIDAY AND WHY DO WE HAVE THEM?
Based on a talk to a leisure club with some reminisces of my holidays 1946 - 1964
The word holiday comes from the Latin which translated into English means holy day
The first idea of a holiday, a rest from labour, was the Jewish Sabbath from Sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday and it was ordained to provide man and beast a rest from his labours, though man still had to muck out and feed his animals
With the emergence of Christianity and by decree of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria in the 2nd century AD Sunday replaced the Jewish Sabbath, though there are those literalists who claim the Feasts, Festivals and Sabbath ordained by God, enshrined in the Bible narrative, were never changed or cancelled and that the Catholic Church disobeyed God in creating new ones namely Christmas and Easter from pagan origins.
Later the Church celebrated as Holy days the major festivals of the Church Calendar ;- Advent, Epiphany, Rogationtide. Lent, Good Friday, Pentecost, Ascension, Trinity, Michaelmas, All Hallows and All Saints, and the Saints days and in various countries including ours in pre-Protestant times these became holy days Something special and different from the humdrum of working days.
The worshippers of Wicca, or witchcraft have their Sabbats
Muslims have Friday Prayers, and various fasts and feasts, and other religions like the Hindus and Sikhs have other days of the week as holy days
So holidays began as religious days to be celebrated as different from ordinary working days at least by those who could afford them
I was reading last week Online about the years following the Black Death which decimated England. So many died that men from various parishes moved to other parishes to engage in work, but the old feudal system was still in place and many of them were serfs, which in way of life meant they were slaves. who were owned and not supposed to travel freely. And orders went out to find and bring back these bodies to their masters
They were not regarded as people, just as living bodies like cattle who once retrieved would have been severely whipped and put back to work for their masters. They would not have been allowed holidays
Holidays later tended to be local, or some times away with the extended family. Apart from the rich ex-college and ex-public school people who went on the Grand Tour of Europe.
In Trade from the late 19th century developed the idea of Early Closing Day to give workers a half day off a week, and that developed into 5 day working. When I began work workers got a week off paid holiday a year, by the time I ended my career that had developed to 5 weeks.
Then holidays developed from a day trip to the coast, to a week at the coast, and then to using local guest houses Before I was born my parents and brother went to Clacton several years running for a week. Some would go for a week at Butlins or Pontins, Holiday Camps and others to camping, caravaning, hired chalets;
I recall a few years ago going for a mid night stroll to a beach on the Isle of Wight, and warned by 2 figures retreating in the dark, “Don't go there mate, they are nudists, they'll rape yer” I ventured on as I was armed with a pretty nasty walking stick.
They were nudists, but they did not rape me. Indeed they were most cordial and pleasant and said that they had been caravaning at that place for over 20 years and always came down for a nude midnight bathe. Which was OK in the dark with only the Moon for light for a group looking out for one another.
Later there developed touring in this country and then abroad which let to package holidays to European nations. and now world wide for those who can afford it or a picnic in the back garden for those who can't. Those of us with bus passes can use them to get around widely in the UK.
In our lifetime holidays have changed out of all proportions from 120 years ago
My uncle a haulage contractor, claimed that in all his working career he never had a holiday. He was his own boss, self employed, had his own business, enjoyed his work and saw no need for a holiday
To him a change was as good as a rest,
At Breakfast last Saturday morning at the MAZE restaurant
various of my friends were talking about their holidays. One Dad had just come back from the South of France camping with 11 family members, 2 of whom had flown down from Scotland. Another after a series of holidays in Rome, Venice and Amsterdam were off last Sunday for Greece
I reflected on the big changes of holidays today compared when I was young,
My first remembrance of holiday was in time off from school and the first year that comes to mind was
1945 This was the year the War ended and we were still in holiday at home mode and I was about 6. I think that was the year my brother and I went to the Paddling Pool that then existed in the waterworks grounds off Landscape View and I fell in, into the green slimy water and my brother who was 13 had to get in and rescue me
My brother was regarded as responsible enough to look after his wayward younger brother, and he was really. that I fell in, was entirely my own fault
Anyway we both arrived home with sodden wet clothes
We were sent to bed, in effect grounded, confined to our room, which may have infringed our but as we had our books we probably coped OK.
My brother by then was in the Church Lads Brigade and with his mates used to take themselves off to the woods for the day roaming, or building hides of tree branches and leaves, and I strung along too I hope I did not cramp their style. They were very kind.
I think that too was when my Nan gave me a Redskin hat of feathers and a large brimmed Scout hat, that had probably been Uncle Tom's.
1946 was I think the year of The Big Family Picnic in the Landscape View Plantation, attended by all the family the parents, aunts, uncle, cousins and their various young men, daughters and their boy friends in army uniform, My uncle at the time hired that plantation as a summer home for his white cart horse and some one had hitched a swing to the branch of a tree that swung out over one of the dips between the hills. It was just a board on a rope and would not pass today's Health and Safely regulations.
It was a lovely sunny day, a friendly crowd and delicate harebells growing on the hillocks, which don't do so now.
The other feature of holidays then was the Annual Sunday School Outings or Treats
1946 was I think our first venture in a coach again after the war and that to Maldon.
The top came off my flat drinks bottle and wetted my satchel, I remember we went to the sloping Woolworths where I bought a red, white and blue spinning top.
During the war Woolworth's store there had been bombed and they had relocated in a former cinema.
I recall the teenagers grabbed the back seats in the coaches to play “bacon and eggs” Which apparently was what they called having sex. I was only 7 then, and learnt that later.
By 1947 Dad had a car, an old pre-war Austin 7 and he drove us out on summer Sunday evenings to places like Penny Pot, and Duddenhoe End
One Sunday we went to find his Aunt Ida at Ashwell in Hertfordshire. His Dad's sister.
They lived at Ashwell End Farm, but as all the signposts had been removed to stop the Nazi's, it stopped us too.
In those days the verges were not cut by the local authorities and in August all the weeds were growing quite high.
We met a local rustic fellow and asked him the way to the farm and he said something like this -
“Well ee takes this road to the T junction and turn left, then ee takes that road to the cross roads and ee turns left and again at the next junction ee turn left and finally at the next crossroad ee turns left again and a little way along on the left yall find ee gateway to the lane to the farm.”
We did that and arrived back where we had met him but he had gone.
It would have been a lot easier and quicker to just turn the car round, drive a few yards and turn right into the gateway which we had apparently driven passed and missed due to the high grass.
It was some farm, chickens running wild in the yard, a tractor and other rusting farm machinery parked all around surrounded by cow parsley, nettles and other weeds
But we had a warm welcome and a great tea of salad, home made cake and tarts.
I think this year too was my first trip on a main line steam train from Audley End, for we went to Nottingham for a week
Where Uncle Tom lived with his first wife Rene. The two of them worked for a charity helping rescue animals from cruelty and they looked after a warehouse stacked with all manner of goods donated for sale to raise funds. Here I saw my first orchestral harp. I recall walking over a wooden footbridge over the River Trent at the end of which was an ice cream seller and I had the first icecream of my life.
I recall being bought a bottle of Tizer at the Robin Hood Inn in Sherwood Forest where the adults went for a drink leaving me and my cousin in the car.
I remember visiting the Goose Fair with loads of rides and caravans for sale which we roamed round, sort of window shopping,
During the early 1950's we travelled by car to Clacton to a boarding house recommended by Aunt Jane who went there with Uncle Joe. There I had my first encounter with 3 dimensional spectacles
In those years I saw a lot of London as Dad drove a lorry for Acrow's Engineers and for several years my school summer holidays were spent with him in the cab of his lorry.
We often visited their other main factory at Harefield in Middlesex where the boss Mr De Vigier lived locally. I used to have to sit on the cab floor when we went through the security gates.
We visited a depot in Tooting rather a lot, a subsidiary of their's. And I recall one day when we wasted a lot of time trying to find a customers address in Greenwich. 10 mins
I recall seeing a lot of the bombed sites of London and many visits to a huge sprawling site of hills of mud and holes and trenches where a big airport was being built .
I remember seeing Harlow New Town being built and of many trips past De Havilands Aircraft Factory and tours around central London, in Hyde Park, and on Hampstead Heath and Highgate Hill near where my parents had lived for several years. Lots of visits to Whitechapel where my great great grandfather had been an apprentice, and to the market at Stratford. I remember the peculiar smell too of some food factory at Bow.
We often had a meal at a small transport café in Woodford Green where there was a juke box where you stuck your penny in and chose a record to play, they did some marvellous bread rolls packed with grated cheese.
Sometimes we parked in Epping Forest to have our sandwiches , or parked in the pub car park at one of the roundabouts where there was also a transport café
I recall a front garden at Sawbridgeworth that was full of pixies, fairies, gnomes, animals, engines, and working model windmills.
I recall seeing the Festival of Britain Exhibition being built and we drove past the Battersea Park Pleasure Gardens a lot so I could see what was going on from the cab of the lorry, but I never got to visit either site.
I spent many hours in the London Docks. I did not like it that much when we had to drive up close to a ship with about 6 inches to the watery edge of the dock, but Dad was an expert driver.
On some occasions for security reasons I was dumped off just inside the outer gates that were not manned, to play by myself drawing in the dust with a stick until he could pick me up on the way out.
I always assumed he would pick me up, but had he abandoned me I could have walked back to Walden as I knew the routes so well even at night. I might have taken a few days, unless I hitch hiked, which then a boy could do with safety.
I recall going to his Uncle Charlie's depot at Islington where I first saw a TV set, a pre-war one just after transmissions began again from Alexandria Palace. Charlie was depot transport manager and lived above his work for he had a first floor flat there and a roof garden using soil brought up from his native Bedfordshire. Charlie ran an ARP Post and Casualty Clearing Station during the Blitz.
Some weeks ago a friend told me of a lorry that got stuck under the rail bridge at Great Chesterford which reminded me of when that happened to Dad. We had to drive empty to Leicester and pick up a new piece of machinery for the factory at Walden. We went under the bridge going but coming back he was not sure whether to risk it or not but decided to do so
We got stuck as a nut on the top of the machine was just that too much high.
I think he tried easing it with oil but I think in the end we had to let the tyres down and reverse out and then pump the tyres up and go over the level crossing which would have been better in the first place.
When I began work in 1954 workers got a week off paid holiday a year, by the time I ended my career that had developed to 5 weeks.
1958 We went to a guest house at Felixstowe and I being 19 was allowed to wander where I liked. I came across at St Georges Presbyterian Church the Eastern Area Keswick Convention which I then went to most of the week
Along the road from the Church to the Front where I had to go to reach the Guest house was a wild area at the top of the cliff overlooking the Front and there I discovered an isolated cliff ledge where I went daily for private prayer. I went there about 9.30 one evening and scrambled through the brambles and sat down in the dark with the lights below of the pleasure gardens, promenade Illuminations and began to pray. It was a hot humid evening and I had left my jacket at the guest house and it began to rain, and then some lightning lighted up the sea, the whole bay, and there was a great roll of thunder.
I thought I had better seek shelter lower down the cliff Just in time I came across a large building in darkness but the entrance had a large concrete awning over the doorway and I sheltered there from torrential rain,
As I stood there thankful to God for this shelter I noticed that it was a Hostel or Home for Deaf People and the thought was implanted in my mind “Could I do anything to help them”
After the holiday I inquired and as a result of that was led to provide a Bible for each of their bedrooms, in the New
English Bible version, translated during the War Years.
Gideon's were placing Bibles into hotels and guest houses but they only used the so called Authorised Version translated in around 1530 by William Tyndale in Tudor English but the deaf people could not hear it being read nor could they understand it's antiquated language. So they asked for a modern English translation.
This became the first of many Bible placements made with the organisation I was Administrator of and still am, which has just begun it's 60th year of operations
In 1960 Our Baptist Minister Horace Webb at the time went with his wife Lilian and his son Philip to a BMS Summer School at Seaford in Sussex that I too had booked in to. They went by car and I went by train. I missed a stop off and arrived by mistake at Eastbourne So I reached the school 2 hours late and after evening meal.
Carrying my 2 suitcases I wandered around the school corridors until I heard voices and came up to the door of the Gym where I could just see all the teenagers and staff sitting in a semi circle and introducing themselves beginning with 3 missionaries from overseas on leave from Congo, India and Brazil.
When they had finished, Horace Webb rose to say that he with his wife and son were missionaries in Northwest Essex at a place called Saffron Walden which I took as a cue to burst into the gym saying “ and I am one of the natives”.
This caused much merriment.
There I met Reg, and we remained close friends until he died in 2003, and I spent many happy holidays walking in Derbyshire and Yorkshire with him and his wife who I had the privilege of introducing him to. His Mum had been Jewish and his father the younger and poorer son
of a man who owned most of the buildings around Covent Garden.
Reg was a descendant of 2 Lord Mayors of London, and an Earl of Ulster, and we had a shared passion in that we were both Lay Preachers.
The summer of 1961 I went with Reg and a load of teenagers from his Church to Boscombe then in Hampshire.
That too was when I first went to the Isle of Wight by ferry to Yarmouth and then on foot, to Alum Bay,and the Needles, as we could not afford the bus fare.
During that holiday a lot of the teenagers absconded at night down the fire escape for pleasures on the darkened beach. This after all was the beginning of the swinging 60's and the sexual revolution, when the old bad moral behaviour became the new modern cool good behaviour. But maybe it did not actually start then
My brother , and sister in law had concluded that given Dad's age, Gran and Granddad must be about due their Diamond Jubilee Wedding Anniversary and someone had better start organising it and as I was close to Dorset could I nip down to Wareham to visit Gran's sisters. We had not met them before but when we were kids, Aunt Bess always sent us 5 shilling postal orders at Christmas and 2/6 for birthdays. [ today that would be 25p and 12½p.]
Arriving in Wareham my first task was to find a street Map, and I must have appeared a bit lost when an elderly lady inquired as to whether I was lost and I told her I had come to visit someone but did not know how to find them. Who? Mrs Bess Pritchard at 15 West Walls. She replied “That's Me”.
A God-incidence to be sure. Bess took me home and we had refreshment and then she took me over town to sister Grace to a bungalow I had only seen in faded pre-war photographs. A lot of people were gathered there so it may have been a birthday or something more maybe, as it was about then a baby boy arrived, who contacted me earlier this year, now with his own Company in Australia.
During the conversation I mentioned my quest. Everyone fell silent, As if time had frozen. It seemed like minutes but was probably only seconds. They all resumed their conversations and someone engaged me in one. I never got an answer to my question. .
A few months later with the help of Somerset House, we discovered why. Gran was 5 months pregnant when their families told them they must get married. So you see the sexual revolution had begun in 1902, and indeed earlier than that. It was a great shock to Dad who had always wondered why he had felt so unwanted as a child, and until he left home.
In 1963 I visited Paignton in Devon staying at a Christian Guest House where It was there we were introduced to a new Song, largely unknown in Britain then, which was issued on typewritten sheets of paper that we were allowed to keep to take back to our home churches. The writer of the last verse who promoted it in Britain lived nearby just along the coast The song has now been at the top of our Nation's Best Loved Hymns for several years, appears in many hymn books, and is widely sung in many churches and at both weddings and funerals with the chorus “How great thou art”
It was there I met Ralph Shallis a faith missionary in Algeria. This was about the time that Algeria won independence from France and Ralph had felt a call from God to go and tell the Muslims there, about Jesus Christ. He went, on his own, with no missionary society or church providing for him, and without any money or means of support.
He depended solely on God to provide in answer to prayer.
He went to make friends and influence people, to serve them through acts of kindness, and it worked
He told us of many occasions when he was provided with hospitality, with gifts of food or clothing, of healing in times of illness, and direction when lost. Of friends made. Converts won. Young converts trained as disciples and evangelists to continue the work begun and the churches planted.
Later he returned to France and worked as a Chaplain in a University where he met over time, hundreds of students, sharing his experience with them and encouraging them to go out and serve the LORD. He wrote several books on how to do it, how to pray effectively, and how to serve. These have since been translated into several other languages by his friends after his death. He made a big impression on me.
In 1964 I toured the West Country for a fortnight , by train, buses and coaches, staying first at a hotel in Bristol near the Avon Suspension Bridge and the Camera Observer tower where you could enter and see a panoramic view of the city projected on the inside walls,and visited the Zoo and saw it's White Tigers and had a fine meal at the Zoo Restaurant where according to my diary, I tipped the waiter a shilling. (I understand tips have gone up since then]
From there I had come to visit a family at Hawkesbury Common in a remote part of rural Gloucestershire, and to reach them I had to take a bus 5 miles from the city to a lonely country bus stop with no sign of habitation and then walk a winding lane a mile from the bus stop to a wild and windy place with a load of long grass on the edge of open heath land.
I chatted with the head of the household who ran a small dairy herd of 5 cows on the free pasture of the common That summer in 2 months they yielded 1,100 gallons sold at 2 shillings a gallon or £110 less wages, feeding, overheads so there was not much profit left to feed the family from a 7 day week of 13 hour days. It was as well they had allotments.
Today milk costs 73p nearly 15 shillings a bottle delivered from the Dairy a mere 120 shillings a gallon.
Next day back in Bristol and up early, I visited the Lord Mayor's chapel, Bristol Cathedral, then took train to Gloucester for a tour of the Cathedral the and on to visit Wookey Hole, source of the river Ax, 15 caves in all, 12 under water, but we accessed 3. Then on to Wells Cathedral, and through the Cheddar Gorge where I lunched on Ham and Chips and strawberries and cream just for 6 shillings. Later I returned to Bristol for evening Dinner.
Next day I went off to Bath Spa and to Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths. The mineral water supplied the local hospital, the schools, the baths, 500,000 gallons a day from 400 feet below at a temperature of 120 degrees F. The water contained 55 minerals including gold and was 3.5% radio active.
The Romans use to begin in the Dry Heat Room standing naked perspiring and as the pores of their skin were thus forced open they were anointed with oil and then scraped by slaves which dragged the dirt out of the pores far better than soap can do. Then they had their hairs plucked from their chests as they were not considered manly, a painful experience.
Then they indulged themselves in 3 baths of varying temperature.
I returned to Bristol for bacon and chips and icecream for 3 shillings and one penny.
Next day was off to Tewkesbury where I attended Choral Evensong in their beautiful Cathedral and observed the fun-fair with the rides and sideshows down the main street and where I bought a cloth cap for 5 shillings. I went into Palmer's for another several years later. Richard wanted £5, I said that seemed a bit steep even if I did buy the first in a Sale
Next day a Saturday I visited Gloucester with its black cathedral which has since been cleaned and shines brightly again and after a brief break there on to Worcester for my second week. at a hotel there, and to visit friends over the weekend. There on Monday morning I attended a Co-operative Women's Guild Service at the Cathedral and the Royal Worcester China works from there
Next day I visited Evesham with it's beautiful parish church and separate bell tower, and then to Ledbury where it poured with rain and was Half day closing,but I managed to find one Tea Room open
Wednesday I walked in the Malvern Hills and up the top of the Worcestershire Beacon where there is a monument and called at Matlock with its Spa Water Baths
Thursday found me at Warwick visiting the Castle and Birmingham where I visited the TV Gardening Club garden at the Royal Botanical Gardens
Finally came Friday and off to Coventry, with it's famous old bombed Cathedral ruins the work of Hitler's mob,and next door overlooking the ruins, the then newest modern Cathedral in Britain.
We approached passing a metal statue on the entrance wall of St Michael killing the Devil at the Day of Judgement,
Then we passed through transparent glass entrance doors engraved with angels
Once inside we were transfixed with the modern design including the controversial Sutherland Tapestry of Christ the King
The font was made from a huge bolder and was bathed by coloured sunlight from the floor to roof high baptismal window of brilliant colours of modern design,
In the old cathedral ruins was a cross of charred wood set up on the day of the bombing as a sign of hope and intent to rebuild and fixed to it a cross of nails
Many similar crosses of nails had been sent out all over the world as a Sign of Reconciliation from the Chapel of Reconciliation in the new modern Cathedral a ministry which continues today so important in this broken world.
Next day I came home for a rest.
Holidays can be really exhausting.
Based on a talk to a leisure club with some reminisces of my holidays 1946 - 1964
The word holiday comes from the Latin which translated into English means holy day
The first idea of a holiday, a rest from labour, was the Jewish Sabbath from Sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday and it was ordained to provide man and beast a rest from his labours, though man still had to muck out and feed his animals
With the emergence of Christianity and by decree of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria in the 2nd century AD Sunday replaced the Jewish Sabbath, though there are those literalists who claim the Feasts, Festivals and Sabbath ordained by God, enshrined in the Bible narrative, were never changed or cancelled and that the Catholic Church disobeyed God in creating new ones namely Christmas and Easter from pagan origins.
Later the Church celebrated as Holy days the major festivals of the Church Calendar ;- Advent, Epiphany, Rogationtide. Lent, Good Friday, Pentecost, Ascension, Trinity, Michaelmas, All Hallows and All Saints, and the Saints days and in various countries including ours in pre-Protestant times these became holy days Something special and different from the humdrum of working days.
The worshippers of Wicca, or witchcraft have their Sabbats
Muslims have Friday Prayers, and various fasts and feasts, and other religions like the Hindus and Sikhs have other days of the week as holy days
So holidays began as religious days to be celebrated as different from ordinary working days at least by those who could afford them
I was reading last week Online about the years following the Black Death which decimated England. So many died that men from various parishes moved to other parishes to engage in work, but the old feudal system was still in place and many of them were serfs, which in way of life meant they were slaves. who were owned and not supposed to travel freely. And orders went out to find and bring back these bodies to their masters
They were not regarded as people, just as living bodies like cattle who once retrieved would have been severely whipped and put back to work for their masters. They would not have been allowed holidays
Holidays later tended to be local, or some times away with the extended family. Apart from the rich ex-college and ex-public school people who went on the Grand Tour of Europe.
In Trade from the late 19th century developed the idea of Early Closing Day to give workers a half day off a week, and that developed into 5 day working. When I began work workers got a week off paid holiday a year, by the time I ended my career that had developed to 5 weeks.
Then holidays developed from a day trip to the coast, to a week at the coast, and then to using local guest houses Before I was born my parents and brother went to Clacton several years running for a week. Some would go for a week at Butlins or Pontins, Holiday Camps and others to camping, caravaning, hired chalets;
I recall a few years ago going for a mid night stroll to a beach on the Isle of Wight, and warned by 2 figures retreating in the dark, “Don't go there mate, they are nudists, they'll rape yer” I ventured on as I was armed with a pretty nasty walking stick.
They were nudists, but they did not rape me. Indeed they were most cordial and pleasant and said that they had been caravaning at that place for over 20 years and always came down for a nude midnight bathe. Which was OK in the dark with only the Moon for light for a group looking out for one another.
Later there developed touring in this country and then abroad which let to package holidays to European nations. and now world wide for those who can afford it or a picnic in the back garden for those who can't. Those of us with bus passes can use them to get around widely in the UK.
In our lifetime holidays have changed out of all proportions from 120 years ago
My uncle a haulage contractor, claimed that in all his working career he never had a holiday. He was his own boss, self employed, had his own business, enjoyed his work and saw no need for a holiday
To him a change was as good as a rest,
At Breakfast last Saturday morning at the MAZE restaurant
various of my friends were talking about their holidays. One Dad had just come back from the South of France camping with 11 family members, 2 of whom had flown down from Scotland. Another after a series of holidays in Rome, Venice and Amsterdam were off last Sunday for Greece
I reflected on the big changes of holidays today compared when I was young,
My first remembrance of holiday was in time off from school and the first year that comes to mind was
1945 This was the year the War ended and we were still in holiday at home mode and I was about 6. I think that was the year my brother and I went to the Paddling Pool that then existed in the waterworks grounds off Landscape View and I fell in, into the green slimy water and my brother who was 13 had to get in and rescue me
My brother was regarded as responsible enough to look after his wayward younger brother, and he was really. that I fell in, was entirely my own fault
Anyway we both arrived home with sodden wet clothes
We were sent to bed, in effect grounded, confined to our room, which may have infringed our but as we had our books we probably coped OK.
My brother by then was in the Church Lads Brigade and with his mates used to take themselves off to the woods for the day roaming, or building hides of tree branches and leaves, and I strung along too I hope I did not cramp their style. They were very kind.
I think that too was when my Nan gave me a Redskin hat of feathers and a large brimmed Scout hat, that had probably been Uncle Tom's.
1946 was I think the year of The Big Family Picnic in the Landscape View Plantation, attended by all the family the parents, aunts, uncle, cousins and their various young men, daughters and their boy friends in army uniform, My uncle at the time hired that plantation as a summer home for his white cart horse and some one had hitched a swing to the branch of a tree that swung out over one of the dips between the hills. It was just a board on a rope and would not pass today's Health and Safely regulations.
It was a lovely sunny day, a friendly crowd and delicate harebells growing on the hillocks, which don't do so now.
The other feature of holidays then was the Annual Sunday School Outings or Treats
1946 was I think our first venture in a coach again after the war and that to Maldon.
The top came off my flat drinks bottle and wetted my satchel, I remember we went to the sloping Woolworths where I bought a red, white and blue spinning top.
During the war Woolworth's store there had been bombed and they had relocated in a former cinema.
I recall the teenagers grabbed the back seats in the coaches to play “bacon and eggs” Which apparently was what they called having sex. I was only 7 then, and learnt that later.
By 1947 Dad had a car, an old pre-war Austin 7 and he drove us out on summer Sunday evenings to places like Penny Pot, and Duddenhoe End
One Sunday we went to find his Aunt Ida at Ashwell in Hertfordshire. His Dad's sister.
They lived at Ashwell End Farm, but as all the signposts had been removed to stop the Nazi's, it stopped us too.
In those days the verges were not cut by the local authorities and in August all the weeds were growing quite high.
We met a local rustic fellow and asked him the way to the farm and he said something like this -
“Well ee takes this road to the T junction and turn left, then ee takes that road to the cross roads and ee turns left and again at the next junction ee turn left and finally at the next crossroad ee turns left again and a little way along on the left yall find ee gateway to the lane to the farm.”
We did that and arrived back where we had met him but he had gone.
It would have been a lot easier and quicker to just turn the car round, drive a few yards and turn right into the gateway which we had apparently driven passed and missed due to the high grass.
It was some farm, chickens running wild in the yard, a tractor and other rusting farm machinery parked all around surrounded by cow parsley, nettles and other weeds
But we had a warm welcome and a great tea of salad, home made cake and tarts.
I think this year too was my first trip on a main line steam train from Audley End, for we went to Nottingham for a week
Where Uncle Tom lived with his first wife Rene. The two of them worked for a charity helping rescue animals from cruelty and they looked after a warehouse stacked with all manner of goods donated for sale to raise funds. Here I saw my first orchestral harp. I recall walking over a wooden footbridge over the River Trent at the end of which was an ice cream seller and I had the first icecream of my life.
I recall being bought a bottle of Tizer at the Robin Hood Inn in Sherwood Forest where the adults went for a drink leaving me and my cousin in the car.
I remember visiting the Goose Fair with loads of rides and caravans for sale which we roamed round, sort of window shopping,
During the early 1950's we travelled by car to Clacton to a boarding house recommended by Aunt Jane who went there with Uncle Joe. There I had my first encounter with 3 dimensional spectacles
In those years I saw a lot of London as Dad drove a lorry for Acrow's Engineers and for several years my school summer holidays were spent with him in the cab of his lorry.
We often visited their other main factory at Harefield in Middlesex where the boss Mr De Vigier lived locally. I used to have to sit on the cab floor when we went through the security gates.
We visited a depot in Tooting rather a lot, a subsidiary of their's. And I recall one day when we wasted a lot of time trying to find a customers address in Greenwich. 10 mins
I recall seeing a lot of the bombed sites of London and many visits to a huge sprawling site of hills of mud and holes and trenches where a big airport was being built .
I remember seeing Harlow New Town being built and of many trips past De Havilands Aircraft Factory and tours around central London, in Hyde Park, and on Hampstead Heath and Highgate Hill near where my parents had lived for several years. Lots of visits to Whitechapel where my great great grandfather had been an apprentice, and to the market at Stratford. I remember the peculiar smell too of some food factory at Bow.
We often had a meal at a small transport café in Woodford Green where there was a juke box where you stuck your penny in and chose a record to play, they did some marvellous bread rolls packed with grated cheese.
Sometimes we parked in Epping Forest to have our sandwiches , or parked in the pub car park at one of the roundabouts where there was also a transport café
I recall a front garden at Sawbridgeworth that was full of pixies, fairies, gnomes, animals, engines, and working model windmills.
I recall seeing the Festival of Britain Exhibition being built and we drove past the Battersea Park Pleasure Gardens a lot so I could see what was going on from the cab of the lorry, but I never got to visit either site.
I spent many hours in the London Docks. I did not like it that much when we had to drive up close to a ship with about 6 inches to the watery edge of the dock, but Dad was an expert driver.
On some occasions for security reasons I was dumped off just inside the outer gates that were not manned, to play by myself drawing in the dust with a stick until he could pick me up on the way out.
I always assumed he would pick me up, but had he abandoned me I could have walked back to Walden as I knew the routes so well even at night. I might have taken a few days, unless I hitch hiked, which then a boy could do with safety.
I recall going to his Uncle Charlie's depot at Islington where I first saw a TV set, a pre-war one just after transmissions began again from Alexandria Palace. Charlie was depot transport manager and lived above his work for he had a first floor flat there and a roof garden using soil brought up from his native Bedfordshire. Charlie ran an ARP Post and Casualty Clearing Station during the Blitz.
Some weeks ago a friend told me of a lorry that got stuck under the rail bridge at Great Chesterford which reminded me of when that happened to Dad. We had to drive empty to Leicester and pick up a new piece of machinery for the factory at Walden. We went under the bridge going but coming back he was not sure whether to risk it or not but decided to do so
We got stuck as a nut on the top of the machine was just that too much high.
I think he tried easing it with oil but I think in the end we had to let the tyres down and reverse out and then pump the tyres up and go over the level crossing which would have been better in the first place.
When I began work in 1954 workers got a week off paid holiday a year, by the time I ended my career that had developed to 5 weeks.
1958 We went to a guest house at Felixstowe and I being 19 was allowed to wander where I liked. I came across at St Georges Presbyterian Church the Eastern Area Keswick Convention which I then went to most of the week
Along the road from the Church to the Front where I had to go to reach the Guest house was a wild area at the top of the cliff overlooking the Front and there I discovered an isolated cliff ledge where I went daily for private prayer. I went there about 9.30 one evening and scrambled through the brambles and sat down in the dark with the lights below of the pleasure gardens, promenade Illuminations and began to pray. It was a hot humid evening and I had left my jacket at the guest house and it began to rain, and then some lightning lighted up the sea, the whole bay, and there was a great roll of thunder.
I thought I had better seek shelter lower down the cliff Just in time I came across a large building in darkness but the entrance had a large concrete awning over the doorway and I sheltered there from torrential rain,
As I stood there thankful to God for this shelter I noticed that it was a Hostel or Home for Deaf People and the thought was implanted in my mind “Could I do anything to help them”
After the holiday I inquired and as a result of that was led to provide a Bible for each of their bedrooms, in the New
English Bible version, translated during the War Years.
Gideon's were placing Bibles into hotels and guest houses but they only used the so called Authorised Version translated in around 1530 by William Tyndale in Tudor English but the deaf people could not hear it being read nor could they understand it's antiquated language. So they asked for a modern English translation.
This became the first of many Bible placements made with the organisation I was Administrator of and still am, which has just begun it's 60th year of operations
In 1960 Our Baptist Minister Horace Webb at the time went with his wife Lilian and his son Philip to a BMS Summer School at Seaford in Sussex that I too had booked in to. They went by car and I went by train. I missed a stop off and arrived by mistake at Eastbourne So I reached the school 2 hours late and after evening meal.
Carrying my 2 suitcases I wandered around the school corridors until I heard voices and came up to the door of the Gym where I could just see all the teenagers and staff sitting in a semi circle and introducing themselves beginning with 3 missionaries from overseas on leave from Congo, India and Brazil.
When they had finished, Horace Webb rose to say that he with his wife and son were missionaries in Northwest Essex at a place called Saffron Walden which I took as a cue to burst into the gym saying “ and I am one of the natives”.
This caused much merriment.
There I met Reg, and we remained close friends until he died in 2003, and I spent many happy holidays walking in Derbyshire and Yorkshire with him and his wife who I had the privilege of introducing him to. His Mum had been Jewish and his father the younger and poorer son
of a man who owned most of the buildings around Covent Garden.
Reg was a descendant of 2 Lord Mayors of London, and an Earl of Ulster, and we had a shared passion in that we were both Lay Preachers.
The summer of 1961 I went with Reg and a load of teenagers from his Church to Boscombe then in Hampshire.
That too was when I first went to the Isle of Wight by ferry to Yarmouth and then on foot, to Alum Bay,and the Needles, as we could not afford the bus fare.
During that holiday a lot of the teenagers absconded at night down the fire escape for pleasures on the darkened beach. This after all was the beginning of the swinging 60's and the sexual revolution, when the old bad moral behaviour became the new modern cool good behaviour. But maybe it did not actually start then
My brother , and sister in law had concluded that given Dad's age, Gran and Granddad must be about due their Diamond Jubilee Wedding Anniversary and someone had better start organising it and as I was close to Dorset could I nip down to Wareham to visit Gran's sisters. We had not met them before but when we were kids, Aunt Bess always sent us 5 shilling postal orders at Christmas and 2/6 for birthdays. [ today that would be 25p and 12½p.]
Arriving in Wareham my first task was to find a street Map, and I must have appeared a bit lost when an elderly lady inquired as to whether I was lost and I told her I had come to visit someone but did not know how to find them. Who? Mrs Bess Pritchard at 15 West Walls. She replied “That's Me”.
A God-incidence to be sure. Bess took me home and we had refreshment and then she took me over town to sister Grace to a bungalow I had only seen in faded pre-war photographs. A lot of people were gathered there so it may have been a birthday or something more maybe, as it was about then a baby boy arrived, who contacted me earlier this year, now with his own Company in Australia.
During the conversation I mentioned my quest. Everyone fell silent, As if time had frozen. It seemed like minutes but was probably only seconds. They all resumed their conversations and someone engaged me in one. I never got an answer to my question. .
A few months later with the help of Somerset House, we discovered why. Gran was 5 months pregnant when their families told them they must get married. So you see the sexual revolution had begun in 1902, and indeed earlier than that. It was a great shock to Dad who had always wondered why he had felt so unwanted as a child, and until he left home.
In 1963 I visited Paignton in Devon staying at a Christian Guest House where It was there we were introduced to a new Song, largely unknown in Britain then, which was issued on typewritten sheets of paper that we were allowed to keep to take back to our home churches. The writer of the last verse who promoted it in Britain lived nearby just along the coast The song has now been at the top of our Nation's Best Loved Hymns for several years, appears in many hymn books, and is widely sung in many churches and at both weddings and funerals with the chorus “How great thou art”
It was there I met Ralph Shallis a faith missionary in Algeria. This was about the time that Algeria won independence from France and Ralph had felt a call from God to go and tell the Muslims there, about Jesus Christ. He went, on his own, with no missionary society or church providing for him, and without any money or means of support.
He depended solely on God to provide in answer to prayer.
He went to make friends and influence people, to serve them through acts of kindness, and it worked
He told us of many occasions when he was provided with hospitality, with gifts of food or clothing, of healing in times of illness, and direction when lost. Of friends made. Converts won. Young converts trained as disciples and evangelists to continue the work begun and the churches planted.
Later he returned to France and worked as a Chaplain in a University where he met over time, hundreds of students, sharing his experience with them and encouraging them to go out and serve the LORD. He wrote several books on how to do it, how to pray effectively, and how to serve. These have since been translated into several other languages by his friends after his death. He made a big impression on me.
In 1964 I toured the West Country for a fortnight , by train, buses and coaches, staying first at a hotel in Bristol near the Avon Suspension Bridge and the Camera Observer tower where you could enter and see a panoramic view of the city projected on the inside walls,and visited the Zoo and saw it's White Tigers and had a fine meal at the Zoo Restaurant where according to my diary, I tipped the waiter a shilling. (I understand tips have gone up since then]
From there I had come to visit a family at Hawkesbury Common in a remote part of rural Gloucestershire, and to reach them I had to take a bus 5 miles from the city to a lonely country bus stop with no sign of habitation and then walk a winding lane a mile from the bus stop to a wild and windy place with a load of long grass on the edge of open heath land.
I chatted with the head of the household who ran a small dairy herd of 5 cows on the free pasture of the common That summer in 2 months they yielded 1,100 gallons sold at 2 shillings a gallon or £110 less wages, feeding, overheads so there was not much profit left to feed the family from a 7 day week of 13 hour days. It was as well they had allotments.
Today milk costs 73p nearly 15 shillings a bottle delivered from the Dairy a mere 120 shillings a gallon.
Next day back in Bristol and up early, I visited the Lord Mayor's chapel, Bristol Cathedral, then took train to Gloucester for a tour of the Cathedral the and on to visit Wookey Hole, source of the river Ax, 15 caves in all, 12 under water, but we accessed 3. Then on to Wells Cathedral, and through the Cheddar Gorge where I lunched on Ham and Chips and strawberries and cream just for 6 shillings. Later I returned to Bristol for evening Dinner.
Next day I went off to Bath Spa and to Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths. The mineral water supplied the local hospital, the schools, the baths, 500,000 gallons a day from 400 feet below at a temperature of 120 degrees F. The water contained 55 minerals including gold and was 3.5% radio active.
The Romans use to begin in the Dry Heat Room standing naked perspiring and as the pores of their skin were thus forced open they were anointed with oil and then scraped by slaves which dragged the dirt out of the pores far better than soap can do. Then they had their hairs plucked from their chests as they were not considered manly, a painful experience.
Then they indulged themselves in 3 baths of varying temperature.
I returned to Bristol for bacon and chips and icecream for 3 shillings and one penny.
Next day was off to Tewkesbury where I attended Choral Evensong in their beautiful Cathedral and observed the fun-fair with the rides and sideshows down the main street and where I bought a cloth cap for 5 shillings. I went into Palmer's for another several years later. Richard wanted £5, I said that seemed a bit steep even if I did buy the first in a Sale
Next day a Saturday I visited Gloucester with its black cathedral which has since been cleaned and shines brightly again and after a brief break there on to Worcester for my second week. at a hotel there, and to visit friends over the weekend. There on Monday morning I attended a Co-operative Women's Guild Service at the Cathedral and the Royal Worcester China works from there
Next day I visited Evesham with it's beautiful parish church and separate bell tower, and then to Ledbury where it poured with rain and was Half day closing,but I managed to find one Tea Room open
Wednesday I walked in the Malvern Hills and up the top of the Worcestershire Beacon where there is a monument and called at Matlock with its Spa Water Baths
Thursday found me at Warwick visiting the Castle and Birmingham where I visited the TV Gardening Club garden at the Royal Botanical Gardens
Finally came Friday and off to Coventry, with it's famous old bombed Cathedral ruins the work of Hitler's mob,and next door overlooking the ruins, the then newest modern Cathedral in Britain.
We approached passing a metal statue on the entrance wall of St Michael killing the Devil at the Day of Judgement,
Then we passed through transparent glass entrance doors engraved with angels
Once inside we were transfixed with the modern design including the controversial Sutherland Tapestry of Christ the King
The font was made from a huge bolder and was bathed by coloured sunlight from the floor to roof high baptismal window of brilliant colours of modern design,
In the old cathedral ruins was a cross of charred wood set up on the day of the bombing as a sign of hope and intent to rebuild and fixed to it a cross of nails
Many similar crosses of nails had been sent out all over the world as a Sign of Reconciliation from the Chapel of Reconciliation in the new modern Cathedral a ministry which continues today so important in this broken world.
Next day I came home for a rest.
Holidays can be really exhausting.