We had our first holiday while we were living in Liverpool. I was ten years old and the twins were six. Dad had hired a caravan from a customer in Towyn North Wales and we were told we were going to a foreign country. He borrowed a car from a mate and we packed everything we would need. Boxes of food went with us too so that not much money would be needed. We left the pub and drove down to the tunnel to take us across to the Wirral. The police man was in his box waving and stopping the traffic when he wanted the other roads to go. There was a green booth where Dad gave the man some money and he let us in to the tunnel. Dad said to close all the windows so the exhaust fumes didn’t come in.
I can remember it was dark and seemed to go on forever as we down and down, then it levelled out at the bottom. Then it started to go up towards the other side and my ears popped. We could see the point of light getting bigger and bigger as we got near to the other side. Suddenly we emerged in to the bright sunlight and we were on the Wirral. “See “ dad said “the river is on the other side now” as we passed Cammel Lairds ship yard on our left hand side. The Leather works were there too, they really stunk. We went down the Chester road through New ferry and to Port sunlight where all the soap was made, this had a strange chemical smell. We passed the Stork Margarine factory and headed down towards the cross roads at Two mills. Dad had served his time as a mechanic at Two mills garage before he went off to do his national service.
Further down the road we came to a steel bridge with a railway bridge running alongside, Mum said this is the bridge in to Wales. I expected to be stopped and have a border guard like they did in the spy programs but there was just a sign “ CREOSO Y CYMRU” with the English translation underneath “WELCOME TO WALES”. Soon we turned off onto what Dad called the coast road and dove down through Queensferry and Shotton. We passed loads of little village and came to a place called Mostyn. Here was a little dock and a ship was in the docks. We were all dieing for a wee so we went down to the Peddle beach and the three of us. Me, David and Colin all had a wee in the sea. We collected bright shiny shells and played throwing flat pebbles trying to get them to jump on the water. Dad could make them jump four or five times I think I managed twice.
After half an hour he went and checked the car radiator to see if it was ok. I think that was the real reason he stopped. He got some fresh water from a stream and topped it up and on we went. After Mostyn we passed Point of Ayr where the colliery was and Talacre beach. We saw loads and loads of cows and sheep, we had known lots of cows before we moved to Liverpool but had never seen sheep before with their big thick wool coats that seemed to touch the ground on some of them, it must have been June or July as some had been sheared and others hadn’t. There was the smell of the country side that I had missed too, fresh mown field for making hay, meadow sweet growing in the ditches with the sweet sickly scent. Manure everywhere, but it was not a stink, it was the smell of the country that I knew.
We drove on through Prestayn and Dad joked about press what in and we all shouted “PRESTATYN”. Giggles all round from us three in the back, Mum and Dad with big grins on their faces. We were having real fun.
We got into Rhyl and the smell was of burgers and chips frying. We drove down the promenade with the sea on our right on the left were lots of amusement arcades with neon signs and flashing lights, bells ringing and horns going off, it was really exciting. We saw the harbour with all the fishing boats and signs saying “Day fishing trips here”. I thought I saw a shark hanging up on the quay side, we later found out it was a tope, a type of large dog fish. After the harbour was another large steel bridge and this took us out of Rhyl and in to Towyn.
We found the caravan site and parked up at the entrance to book in. Dad said to stay in the car as he would not be long. He came back with direction and we drove down through rows and rows of identical caravans. Some had little fences around them and others had pots of flowers made out of old car wheels. We found the caravan and we were allowed to go off and investigate so long as we remember the row number and the van number. Last thing the Dad said was “ Don’t go over the bridge to the sea, stay this side of the railway line”.
The twins and I decided to go and have a look at the amusement arcade we had seen near the entrance to the site. It was like an Aladin’s cave to us, bright flashing lights, bells, machines whiring round, piles of pennies on moving slides behind glass screens. At the back was a man on a raised seat with about 20 women sat at screens with little plastic slides on, behind each slide was a number and the man was shouting out the numbers. “it’s the key to the door, number 10” “two fat ladies eighty eight”. This was the first time we had seen a bingo game, plenty of times we had heard Mums friends in the pub say they had won or were going to the bingo, we did not realise they had to come this far to play it though. After a while we got chased because we didn’t have any money to play in the amusement. We didn’t tell Dad and Mum that we had got chased either or we would have been in trouble. We went back to the van and Mum had cooked some tea for us.
After tea we all went for a walk down to the railway over the bridge and onto the beach. We had been to the beach at New Brighton but this endless in comparison. There were post running in rows from the shore down to the sea and round each post was a deep hole where the tide had washed away the sand. This was full of water and there were shrimps swimming around in it. Later in the week Dad took us down with nets and buckets he took a plank of wood and we wondered what he was going to do. He told us to take the nets and catch as many shrimps as we could, put them into a bucket of water and we would take them back to the van for tea. He went a little way down the beach and laid the plank on the sand, he knelt down behind the plank and started to rock it on the sand. I wondered what he was doing and went to watch, as the plank rocked the sand started to get wet. Little bubbles started to appear in the wet sand, and then shells started to appear from under the sand. He took the plank way and picked the shells up and placed them into his bucket. He did this for about fifteen minutes and his bucket was full, I asked what they were and he said those are cockles. I had seen jars of pickled cockles and the man on a Saturday night used to come to the pub to sell cockles and prawns in little wax paper bags. This was the first time I had seen the live animals. He then helped me and the twins fill our buckets with the shrimps from the post holes. We carried them back to the van and he put the cockles in a bucket of clean water with some porridge oats. This was to get them to clean the sand out of themselves. The shrimps were dropped into a pan of boiling water and boiled for a few minutes, they went in green and came out bright orange. We sat and peeled them all at the caravan table, Mum made fresh brown bread and butter and we had shrimps with it. They were lovely. Never have I been able to get shrimps that tasted the same. Next morning the cockles were washed in fresh water and given the same treatment as the shrimps. They were dropped in to boiling water and then the shells opened to reveal the meat inside. This meat had a wonderful creamy salty flavour and was not chewy like the pickled ones. I really enjoyed getting our own food from the wild.
In the evenings we went down to the club on the caravan site where there was entertainment and Dad could have a pint or two. We would stay until the twins started to fall asleep which wasn’t too late because all the sea air really tired them out. I wasn’t far behind them. Mum didn’t play the bingo she liked to sing along with the entertainers, she had sung with Liverpool operatics as a young girl and had a really good voice. She sometime got up to sing in the pub too.
One day while on holiday we went into Rhyl for a meal and we went to a Chinese restaurant. I still remember red and gold flock wallpaper, carved cork figures in glass boxes, dragons made from mother of pearl and feather in frames on the wall. It was the height of luxury with leather seats, crisp white table clothes, place mats made from split bamboo and on each table was a wine bottle in a raffia basket with a candle in it. The wax from dozens of candles was piled up on the side of the bottles, they must have used different coloured candles because it was like a rainbow of frozen drips. There was the scent of the cooking as you walked in the door, it wafted across and made your mouth water. The sounds coming from the kitchen door that swung both ways as the waiter went through were fantastic. Pans banging, ladles or spoons on the steel woks, sizzling as the meats were thrown into hot fat and the shouting in Chinese between the staff, it was amazing to hear. I thought it was really sophisticated when we were allowed to have chicken fried rice with harbeng. Dad asked for harbeng because that’s what the Chinese customers from our pub told him to ask for with his meal. Turned out they were only prawn crackers. I was allowed to have real coca cola in the special bottles, not the cheap copy yor cola that was sold in the pub. For a sweet we got these round white things in a sugar syrup and vanilla ice cream. I did not know it but these were lychees and they were straight out of a tin. I have loved tinned lychees ever since. It was the experience of a life time for a 10 year old from the country side to be sitting in a Chinese restaurant in Wales eating real Chinese fruit.
We went for walks in the welsh mountains, we saw hills and lakes like I had never seen before, hills covered in thousand of sheep it seemed. I saw a lamb bouncing about like it was so glad to be alive. We went to Llandudno and saw the rock pools below the Great Orme, I saw a sea anenome and little blennies. We went fishing off the quay side in Carnarvon and caught eels which Dad cooked for us. This holiday was everything it should have been, it was an exciting adventure for me and I will never forget it. Wales will always hold a special place in my heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment