Thread 9 - TalkLair: “Russell's teapot goes on being round”

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous threads (thread 8).

The new lair of JTT escapees is all cosy and homey; we have truly settled here. Outside, the garden is blooming with summer flowers - should bloody well be, what with all that rain. Inside, the hearth is glowing, pictures are up on the walls, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them).

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

I'm not a one for beach holidays either. I've been on one full on proper beach holiday and it was tedious. I like to go somewhere with museums and cathedrals and art galleries and the like so I can pretend to be cultured.

Childhood holidays when we were in England were in static caravans in Pembrokeshire, where my dad came from - great beaches, wonderful castles, and my first ever restaurant curry as my choice of meal on my 14th birthday!

My first day at school in Beirut and I’m thrilled because first up is a spelling test - hooray! My speciality subject, spelling!

First word: “Yerr.”

“Pardon, Miss?”

“YERR!”

“But I don’t speak any Arabic yet!”

“YERR! YERR! What yerr is it? 1971! YERR!!”

My new teacher was Welsh.

Knock International Airport; now there's a place! 😀I had friends who lived in Westport and Castlebar.

I was born in India and lived there until I was nearly 5. That meant when we went back to England and settled in my dad's hometown of Hull I still had an Anglo-Indian accent, which on a little white girl sounds Welsh. I never did pick up a Hull accent, which is just as well really.

I flew to Knock on my way to a wedding in Ireland. I got a hire car with a sat nav (because I didn’t really trust my mum or brother with map reading) but unfortunately the sat nav didn’t seem to know the word ‘left’ which was a bit of a limitation.

Did you check out the gift shop, @artant?

When we first flew there the airport was little more than a big shed. Slight exaggeration but it was a very tinpot airport. I've been in the gift shop and bought a poster of all the great Irish writers!

@duc748 we'd head into Castlebar sometimes for a bit more life.

My mate, whose brother (now sadly deceased) lived there, has that poster on his living room wall. I'd love to go to Ireland again.

Obv, re the airport, you're familiar with the song... 😀

Our holidays were in t' North - North Yorkshire (where we lived), Cumbria, Lancashire and I think once in Southport. We stayed either in an economy caravan, or a nightmarish B&B with a shared loo and tracing paper, cobwebs in all the corners and bed bugs in the bed, invariably run by women with blue rinses and nearing 100 years old. I absolutely hated 'holidays', and evidently so did my brother as he always went to stay with his friend instead.

Then, when I was eight, my dad announced we were going to London and that we would be staying in a HOTEL. I had never been in a hotel before. Even my brother joined us. When we arrived at Kings X it was like this alien planet. I'd never been on a train. I'd never seen so many people, so many different cultures. I'd never seen a skyscraper. We stayed in Marble Arch and my mind was blown by the view of all these things I could see from the window. I was quite a depressed child, but visiting London opened my mind to the possibility of other things... of life and people beyond my miserable hometown.

After my dad died I found out that he had actually wanted to travel to all sorts of places but my mum wasn't comfortable leaving home and her routine (I came to realise she's probably autistic). I've tried over the years to encourage her to visit me in the South East but she won't get on a train because it's not her 'norm', even if I meet her at the other end. She's coming to Eastbourne soon though, on the bus (her norm) and with a friend, so I'll go and pick her up and she might finally see where I live.

Ooh, no, I don’t believe we did @duc748 (neither my mother nor brother had travelled anywhere in decades so I didn’t get to mooch as I normally would) but I can imagine and now I wish we had!

@CyanCrystalViolet "Our holidays were in t' North - North Yorkshire (where we lived), Cumbria, Lancashire and I think once in Southport."

One of the earliest (black & white) photos of me shows a sturdy little girl aged about 3 on a deserted beach at, I think, Filey. I am wearing lace-up shoes, woollen tights and a duffel coat and look full of glee.

The first holiday I can remember going on was aged 7 (1957, fact fans!) to Butlins at Filey. My mother complained about the greasy food and when my dad had a heart attack shortly afterwards she blamed the food at Butlins.

Oh yes, we went to Butlins at Filey too!

Filey is marvellous for young children!

Ooh! It may well have been Butlins. This would Never Have Been Mentioned in later years, when my mother developed delusions of poshness.

Looking at pictures of it now, it looks a bit bleak. Reminds me of when we went on a school trip to Robin Hood’s Bay to look at fossils, and the whole time it was pouring with ice cold rain and the wind was whipping sand straight in our faces. It was probably mid June or something. We ended up aborting the beach and went to the shops instead, then got into loads of trouble for smoking those fake cigarettes you’d get in joke shops on the minibus back.

Me four at Filey Butlins. Not much fun, but we escaped to the moors and met sheep and went to other places along the coast.

I remember one of the staff (redcoat? dunno) chatting with my parents in the little cabin and telling them one of her colleagues had been sacked because she went to bed with a guest and being baffled as to why she'd wanted to do that in daytime and why it was a such bad thing that all the grownups went quiet about it.

Mid 60s I suppose. Before people started 'having sex'.

Ah, Christy Moore! Drove around Ireland with some friends in 1987 with his album Ordinary Man blaring out of the stereo, best holiday I ever had. Saw him somewhere or other another year, Galway maybe, or Cork. He doesn’t like anyone in the audience singing along.

Ooh I’ve just remembered we also went to Butlins in Ayr once. I remember this pool:

@DeanElderberry Mid 60s I suppose. Before people started 'having sex.

Perhaps a little earlier, if Philip Larkin is to be believed? https://www.wussu.com/poems/plam.htm

@MavisMcMinty Christy is a bit like that, but he's a barrel of laughs compared to Van Morrison! And he's written some lovely songs.