Holidays

Childhood holidays

My childhood memories of school holidays are mainly of playing with friends outside in Ibrox in endless sunny days. I’m sure the actual weather was not great but unless it was pouring rain we were outside all the time.

As a child, most holidays away from home were spent in Broxburn at my grandmother’s house.

One year we spent several weeks at Lamlash, Arran, and I have good memories of that time – I think I was about 6. We played on the beach every day. My only bad memory was being asked to feed the hens and being terrified when they all flew up at me!

Gourock

We often went to Gourock for the day. We once stayed in a B&B for an actual holiday. This is James, Ann and me in Gourock. Our summer jackets were our school blazers!

We went to Denmark when I was 8, 14 and 16 where we spent time with family.

When I was 18 Beatrice and I went to Schloss Klaus in Austria which was run by Capernwray Bible College. It was a holiday/Bible conference for young people, and there were about 120 of us – 12 from Scotland, 50 from England and the rest from Germany. It was my first holiday with friends and was the start of my love for Austria as a country. I didn’t return to Austria until 2001 but all these years in between I had always wanted to return.

Holidays after marriage

We spent our honeymoon in Majorca in October 1976. That was our last holiday abroad until 20 years later in 1996.

When our children were young our holidays were all self-catering, either in caravans or holiday homes – all around the UK. Sometimes we stayed with family.

When David and Richard were small we spent three weeks in a caravan in South Uist. We soon discovered it was infested with earwigs! They only appeared at night so we managed by going to bed early and hiding under the covers. The area was beautiful and the boys loved it.

Our only holiday abroad with all the children was with KeyCamp – a tent in Brittany in 1996. The children enjoyed it but it put me off ever camping again!

For our silver anniversary in 2001 we decided to go to Austria that summer. David and Richard were grown up so we were able to leave them and take Colin. It was the wonderful country that I remembered and Gordon and Colin loved it too. We returned many times and I can’t wait to go back when the pandemic is over. Our last holiday was in 2018 in St. Johann, Tyrol.