2016-08-01
Tom Memories, Chapter 19, Holidays, 1948- 1950
So this is meant to be a section on my holidays whilst at Storey House. In fact, I’ve already covered the summer holidays in 1948 when we, my mother and I, had a week, I think, on a farm in Goosnargh, see Starting secondary school – what else? Part III. In 1949 it was just my mother and me again, because my parents also went on a holiday on the continent during the Darwen holiday week/fortnight. Nowadays people talk about the “wakes week”, the week when all the factories in each mill town shut down in turn for the holidays. We only began to call the holiday week the wakes week much more recently I think. Anyway, LRGS broke up for the summer hols during the last week of July, and the Darwen holiday week – later a fortnight – was in the middle of July. My dad had to take his main summer holiday – always two weeks from 1946 on – when his factory was on holiday of course, so I couldn’t go on holiday with my parents. 1951 was the year when my parents sent me the Peruwelz in Belgium, staying with a Belgian family; more about that later, probably much more, even miles too much more if I’m not careful. And from 1952 onwards, my parents persuaded the headmaster to let me go on holiday with them during the Darwen holiday fortnight, because by then the school exams had finished and we were really not doing any school work at all. So this is really about the summer holidays in 1949 and 1950.
In 1949 we went to the Lake District, to a village called Stair, not far from Derwentwater. In fact I must have also gone on my first scout camp in the Lake District just a few weeks before. That was the scout camp, I think the first of two that I went to in successive years, near a village called Ulpha. (The scout camps should be in the section on scouting). Anyway we stayed in a boarding house in Stair that had been recommended to us by a neighbour. It was run, and owned no doubt, by a Mrs Robinson, a very warm, friendly, kind woman, who really ran a super guest/boarding house, and produced the most marvellous meals. I can’t remember how we travelled, certainly not by car, I suppose by train/bus/taxi. I don’t remember how long we went for, I would guess a week, that was still normal in those days. I remember that I was very happy with everything we did. It was a good walk to the lake, I would guess half an hour or 40 minutes. We did that walk most days and I remember swimming in the lake and going out in a rowing boat. We also did some quite energetic walking. We did a walk along a ridge of hills called the Cat Bells, and we went up a mountain called Causey Pike. It’s all on Google, not very different from 67 years ago I would say; we had a day, or two, in Keswick, walked to a promontory called Friar’s Crag. John Ruskin considered the view from there to be one of the three loveliest in Europe according to what I’ve just read via Google.
So in summary, it was a super, peaceful holiday, my mum and I got on very well together, discovering and exploring the region, walking, rowing, swimming, picnicking…
I can’t remember the summer holidays in 1950 at all; and I have no photos. I tend to think that my mum and I went to Stair again. Anyway, I think it’s very probable that my mother took me on holiday again, just the two of us, because she would have had a holiday earlier with my dad and perhaps Jimmy who would have been three.
Greenwood family history 