Holidays in Caravans

Like most people my age, holidays as a youngster didn't feature aeroplanes flying off to foreign parts. More often than not they included a tent, or if you were really posh, a caravan.

Some of my earliest recollections are of holidays in a static caravan at a windswept site in Hunstanton on the Norfolk coast. I can still smell the smell of the gas lamps been lit. Generally these holidays would have been me, my sister Heather, our mum and her mum. That was it at the time.

So, here we have just a few pictures of caravans and cars. I haven't been through mum and dads entire photo archive yet and if any more pics turn up I'll include them later. So for now this is your lot.

Me in specs, my mum and my sister Heather, Hunstanton circa 1965 . The car is mums district nurse company car, an Anglia. At the time it was one of only two cars in our street. The other was a Vauxhall Cresta

After decades of mostly rubbish British cars Mum and Dad swapped to Datsuns. This was one of the first - a 5-door Stanza. I used to regularly borrow this one and drove it like I had stolen it. Not with the caravan on the back though obviously.

This Cortina was the first car I drove solo after I passed my test. I'd driven it with a (visibly shaking) mum in the passenger seat a few times - but the moment I came home waving my pass certificate I was, remarkably, allowed to take it out for a spin. Not literally. Far too sensible for that. I went to the pub instead, The Bantam in Northampton. The Cortina was a 1.6 L in a sort of mid 70's sandy beige colour. I actually remember it being a very nice car to drive though.

This was a Marina 1.8. I say 'was' because unlike most Marinas it didn't have the opportunity to rust itself to death. Heather wrote it off on the way back from the Bold Dragoon one night. She hadn't been drinking though. This was the second of our family Marinas. The first was a 1.3 saloon in red. It wasn't really up to the job of towing though, so this 1.8 replaced it.