Ambrose Bierce, a man whose cynicism outweighs even my own, defined nostalgia as "fond remembrance of imaginary times past". By that definition this entry fails twice. It isn't really fond and the times weren't imaginary. I'd like to consider Rhyll.
Rhyll was a very popular seaside destination for the Midland working classes going on holiday and my family was keener on it than most. Of course when I say "my family" what I really mean is "my parents". No one ever asked either my opinion or my brother's opinion. With or without our approval we went year after year to the same holiday camp - in Rhyll - at the same time of year - in September - and had what amounted to the same holiday.
So what were those holidays like?
First of all you need to know something about the place and, for those who live in warmer climes, something about September. Rhyll is a seaside town in North Wales. It's not a big place - though it is bigger than my family's second choice, Borth - and although it was once a popular and elegant Victorian resort it was pretty shabby by the 1960s when we were going. I can't vouch for what it's like now, I haven't been back since I was about twelve. Post-traumatic stress, probably.
Of course September might have something to do with my lifelong antipathy. In September the weather is already turning cold and the Irish Sea is not something you want to be swimming in. We went at that time of year, as did many others, because it was cheaper.
It was also cheaper, and the done thing, to go self-catering. This meant spending the week in a caravan or, when we went to Rhyll, a chalet. The chalets were two-roomed wooden buildings: a bedroom for the parents and a room with a table and a couple of bench seats that metemorphosised into beds for the kids at night. They were draughty, cold and very basic.
Our holiday camp, which may well still be there so I won't name it, was at the cheaper end even of the holiday camp spectrum. There was an open air swimming pool that was, to be kind, of a dubious hygiene standard and that somehow managed to maintain a temperature even lower than that of the sea. There was a scrubby beach that was reached by walking through a row of rusty and disused caravans. There was a club where entertainers who would be rejected nowadays before the televised stages of Britain's Got Talent entertained inebriated adults while the kids sat in a wooden hut watching cartoon films that were so old that the least discerning five-year-old would be bored after two minutes. The same set of cartoons every year in fact.
Our holiday camp, which may well still be there so I won't name it, was at the cheaper end even of the holiday camp spectrum. There was an open air swimming pool that was, to be kind, of a dubious hygiene standard and that somehow managed to maintain a temperature even lower than that of the sea. There was a scrubby beach that was reached by walking through a row of rusty and disused caravans. There was a club where entertainers who would be rejected nowadays before the televised stages of Britain's Got Talent entertained inebriated adults while the kids sat in a wooden hut watching cartoon films that were so old that the least discerning five-year-old would be bored after two minutes. The same set of cartoons every year in fact.
What else was there in Rhyll at the time?
Well there was the fairground. This consisted of half a dozen dilapidated attractions and a bingo hall where a bored caller shouted out numbers and a lot of equally bored punters slid little plastic covers over the numbers in front of them for hours at a time.
There was the model village were we had an annual visit. Every year it got a little more run down and a few more of the unconvincing model villagers fell over as if some ghastly creeping sleeping sickness was gradually overcoming toytown.
There was a news stand on the camp which had a rack improbably stocked with American DC comics - Superman, the Flash, Justice League and so on.
There was the model village were we had an annual visit. Every year it got a little more run down and a few more of the unconvincing model villagers fell over as if some ghastly creeping sleeping sickness was gradually overcoming toytown.
There was a news stand on the camp which had a rack improbably stocked with American DC comics - Superman, the Flash, Justice League and so on.
And there was the rain- and wind-swept promenade where the endless (and I mean that in the eternal damnation sense) days were spent walking from one end of the town to the other and back.
And the only other significant entertainment I remember was Woolworths, where I bought the cheap sci-fi paperbacks that, along with a selection of those comics, kept me occupied during the tedious hours of the holiday.
When my brother returns from his current holiday in Borneo (he too has never returned to Rhyll) I shall consult him and ask him for further reminiscences and, if I can find them, I shall also post here a remarkable pair of photographs taken on one of those holidays - me and my brother each posing with a parrot on our shoulder. In Ray's, he is leaning away from the parrot looking very wary of the creature. In mine the parrot is leaning away from me.
I'm not sure what that means but it must mean something.
I'm not sure what that means but it must mean something.
2 comments:
This is a brilliant description of what sounds to me a bit like the holiday from hell.
Here in Victoria, Australia the equivalent 'cheap' holiday could and still can be had in tents along the foreshore of a small seaside resort called Rosebud.
It too boasts a carnival, but at least people go there over the summer months and even our winters are not as cold as the tail end of your summers.
I think every country probably has its equivalent - holidays that appeal to working class parents because they are cheap but don't appeal to kids at all.
Later on I'll post a reminiscence of the year we didn't go to Rhyll but chose Borth instead - still in September. That really was a nightmare.
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