In 1963, when I was six, I visited Bournemouth. I vowed never to visit again. The trip from my Balham flat to the Dorset coast was a succession of disillusionment.
There’s nothing wrong with Bournemouth per se, but my multiple bad experiences there left me very biased against it – however Alan Whicker may have praised it in future programmes.
This was the first holiday I can remember. I stayed with my paternal grandmother in a rented flat by the beach. My grandmother had a food allergy – insomuch as she was a dreadful cook.
On my first visit to the seaside I was stung by a bee. This was very painful; the only way my parents would calm me down was promising me a part in the next series of Emergency – Ward 10.
In the sea there was a boy of similar age. I asked him if he knew Keith Ranger (a boy in my class)? I was amazed and hugely disappointed that he didn’t. Even his parents explaining that this random child went to school in Leeds still made the fact incomprehensible. It was only, several years later, when I purchased my first Red Rover, I realised that the morning commute from Leeds to Balham may have been tricky. Especially if you missed the connection at Nottingham Bus Garage.
During my “holiday” my maternal great grandmother died. I was told she had gone to join the angels. I was about twenty when I realised, not having seen her for a while, that “The Angels” were not a pop group who were on the road a lot.
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