what were the summer holidays like when you were a child ?

[Baconface7]

holiday every summer

Mine were long, hot, sunny. Out on my bike with friends, playing in woods, making dens. I'm sure my parents had no idea where we were, but we were happy and safe.
Great memories!

My parents owned narrow boats so rarely went abroad. Maybe twice before I was sixteen.

Spent a lot of time on the good old British inland waterways.

When my parents were working during the summer I was shipped off to various aunts who were SAHM (only child)

Very different to my own DC who have a holiday every year and days out and never need to be shipped off due to childcare as DH and I both WFH.

Pretty much the same as now weather wise in the UK. Rain, rain and more rain.
Barmouth Bay sitting in our Peugeot 505 next to the beach eating picnics in the rain. 🙂

Lived in South France for 4 years as a teenager and we had lots of forest fires and similar temperatures. Nothing new on that front.

Caravan holidays in Scotland. Lots of rain with occasional heatwaves.

Playing out with friends on my street, roller skating, 40/40, lido (with no sun cream 😳), park with friends, mostly hanging out our street with friends and only knocking on my door for food / drinks / ice cream man money and a day out at Southend or clacton if I was lucky.

Work, work, work, and more work. All unpaid and in the family of course.

Oh and loving Sundays to listen to the charts with smash hits 🥲, finding out most of the words I thought were right, were wrong as well as recording songs from the radio 🤣

Every year our parents took us on holiday for a week to the south coast.

And every year it rained all the week we were there.

Not much changes,

Mine were water fights with the other kids where we lived . Going to park , riding my bike , sleepovers , going to my friends houses . Going to Norfolk to visit family for 2 weeks . Going to chessington and Thorpe park every year

Exactly this

Boring. No holidays. A handful of days out - often to large gardens rather than anywhere that was specifically aimed at children. Trips to the seaside, home made sandwiches and no amusements, crammed in our 5 seater car (we were a family of six). Playing with my 3 siblings and other kids from the estate, in the playground that was part of the estate. Occasionally a free holiday play scheme at the local school. Making crafts on my own from scrap cardboard (never got given craft materials). Going to the library on my own. Helping out with family chores. Not much attention from parents as they wfh.

I lived in a cul de sac and my main memory is playing out the front with neighbour children in the sun. Cycling, badminton, chatting. We'd sometimes walk to local shops or walk round the block. Another good memory is brownie holidays which were fun.
Family holidays were less good as my family were dysfunctional!

Dull. Living in a small town with no facilities, big age gaps between siblings and no money to do anything anyway.
Hung out with friends at their houses, or at home where we picked fights with each other for entertainment. Occasionally we went camping in the rain.

My parents were teachers and we lived in a seaside town so lots of beach time. Holidays in the U.K., mostly either b&bs or staying with relatives, by train to cities like Oxford or bath until they got a car and learned to drive when I was 12 and then we could go to cornwall, Scotland etc. I feel like we were usually lucky with the weather but that may have been positive attitude and raincoats.

Up to age eight I went camping in Wales for the whole summer. One year it rained non-stop so the year after we went to France.

From 11/12 I flew alone at the start of every summer holiday to stay with my grandmother for about six weeks; I hardly knew her.

Got to meet cousins which was fun, play tennis, spoke another language, sunburn, ate great food and wore lovely clothing.

I could have been really lonely, but it wasn’t. My grandmother never hugged, but she had a wicked sense of humour and was formidable.

Caravan holidays on Bennllech Anglesey just the best ! With gas lights and had to collect water !

Like my children's today. One holiday, if we were lucky, in a caravan on the Yorkshire coast. The rest of it was just playing out with my friend and walking to the park and back most days, and the rest were spent in front of the TV. The only difference is that I'm off work and my mother wasn't.

I remember holidays to Kent, lugging suitcases onto coaches, in the days before they had wheels! Listening to my Walkman on the journey there.

Hosepipes in the garden, hanging it from Mum's Laburnum tree to run under the water. Deckchairs in the garden. Home made ice lollies- that never were very good! Bumper years on the cooking apple trees, having apple crumble for weeks on end.
The strawberry man coming round in his van ringing his bell, yelling 'fresh strawberries'

As I got older going into the Town Centre to go to Andy's records, or wading across the local river with rolled up trousers.

First few weeks of the holidays were spent at my grandparents, I remember sitting on the kitchen worktop drinking coffee while Grandpa peeled the spuds for dinner, then we went to collect Gran from work stopping to count the swans on the pond or a few goes on the swing park.

Then 1st August Dad would be off for the trades and it was two weeks in Blackpool until I was 11 then we went abroad for a week.

My parents worked full time so we did a mixture of sports camps, being looked after by a local teenager when we usually just watched a vhs and then usually we'd go eurocamping in France for a couple of weeks at the end of the summer.

Sunshine filled days playing out with friends, going on caravan holidays, visiting family on the South coast for a good few weeks… joyous!

In France. Camping on a very low budget in a tent, from the minute school kicked out, to a day before we went back. Ferries at ridiculous times to guarantee the roughest crossing for the longest periods - Olau line anyone ?

I was extremely fortunate to go on a 2 week hol in the mess. For the remaining 4 weeks I’d attend a mixture of clubs, stay with grandparents and play with cousins. My mum wasn’t overly concerned with ensuring I had something to do every waking second which is quite typical in todays society (which I too am guilty of by the way so not judging).

Fab. Out first thing in the morning and not due home until 6pm. Mostly spent helping out on farms, pinching food, picking blackberries, mucking about in the stream.

The freedom to do whatever we wanted. 😊