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AT THE SEASIDE
As far as I can recall I don't think the workers had a mandatory annual holiday in the 30s. I know my dad never had a weeks holiday, he seemed to always be at work 52 weeks of the year except for the odd day off at Easter, Christmas etc. but one Whit-Sunday, grandad hired a charabanc and took the whole family on a day trip to Southsea. With my Aunts & Uncles, cousins,
mum and dad and grandma and grandad we were about twenty-five in all. Mr
Vickers who ran a bus service from the Dean in Alresford, provided the
charabanc. Gran, mum and aunts provided a picnic lunch and dad put a
hat-pin in his jacket lapel. Finally we pulled up by Clarence pier and disembarked all agog and anxious to get on the beach but had to be restrained till deck-chairs had been sorted for the ladies and Dad and uncles had called at the shell-fish stall for a pint of whelks or winkles and we kids had persuaded parents to buy us a bucket and spade. Eventually we got to take off our
clothes and into our bathers and were able to run down the beach and
into the sea with constant warnings of 'don't go in too far' and 'watch
that big wave'. The beach at Southsea is mainly pebbles and shingle so
to make sand-castles we had to go right down to the waters edge to find
any sand which meant as fast as we made castles a wave came in and
washed them away, but we enjoyed ourselves, mum and aunts relaxed in
their deck chairs and Dad and uncles used their hat-pins to prise the
winkles from their shells, the sun shone and we all suffered from
sunburn and all too soon it was five o'clock and Mr Vickers was calling,
"time to go". |
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