Digging for Australia on a Morecambe beach... just one memory of happy childhood holidays in the UK | Tracey Smith

And, as we head out of lockdown and holidays abroad aren’t looking like they will happen this year, I really hope we make the most of what our beautiful country has to offer.

I’ve got to say I was very lucky as a child to have the holidays we did. They were cheap and cheerful and very eclectic, and I loved every second of them. They were always eventful and not without mishap, but they are the things that make me smile when I look back.

When we finished for the school holidays at summer my mum, dad and brother and I would head over to Bolton-Le-Sands for a week in our huge canvas tent. My dad had to work so would set the tent up then travel back and forth between the campsite and Nelson for the week.

Mum would take us to Morecambe for the day and we would spend it on the beach digging for Australia while burying each other till the tide came in while brushing sand off our butties. It was only last year that mum told me she knew I used to hide the crust off my butties under the picnic rug!!

We would head down to Cornwall. I loved being woken up in the middle of the night to be bundled into the back of the car to make the long journey down. And, having to turn back again at Preston because mum had forgotten her slippers and hot water bottle!

We always stayed at a place called Perranuthnoe which was the next village up from Penzance. We could never pronounce the name but in good old Lancashire style we said “Perrinuffnoo”

The campsite was a two minute walk from the beach. There was a village shop, pub and a church. End of!! Nothing else.

And they were the best holidays ever. Not so fond of the memories of the tiny shower portacabin in the corner of the field that we used each day. You wacked 50p in the meter and off you went......if you were quick enough you could get the shampoo out of your hair before it switched off. If not, you left it in!

I really don’t miss the camp beds with the springs that fold in three because you could guarantee you would end up folded into three if you move ever so slightly in the middle of the night!!

We ventured to Anglesey a few times and it is still my favourite place to go and I have revisited with my own children. I laugh so hard still at the time when we took the big canvas tent and we had a major mole problem!

They had dug holes under the ground sheet. We then had to empty the tent to move it to the other side of the field. All the other campers were howling with laughter as they watched the tent move with just four pairs of feet scuttling underneath!!

I can safely say there was never a boring holiday when I was a child!!