Tower and Town, October 2025

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Family Adventure By The Sea

Now, one of the holidays that is most memorable to me is when we went down to Ilfracombe in about 1950. All the family went together in an old Hillman Estate.

Mum had two long boxes; she put all the food in one and the clothes in the other. She put cushions on the top and two of the older boys would sit in the back. The three younger boys would sit in the middle seats and the youngest would sit in the middle at the front between mum and dad on the bench seat.

We had ex-army tents with proper beds like an army camp. We slept in these beds and also had a washroom where we could go and have a wash and freshen up when we got up in the morning,

Anyway, we went rock climbing one day. We all started clambering over these rocks and trying to see if we could outdo each other. They were slippery and we pulled on the grass. We were climbing up because right at the top there was something flapping in the wind. We thought it was a kite and maybe we could free it as it was stuck in the bushes.

So, we climbed up and I'm racing Bobby. Three quarters of the way up I pulled on this grass and it came away in my hand. Bobby was just below climbing up. He tried to catch me as I went by; he could have been killed trying to save me.

I must have spun round and finished up halfway down the rock on a ledge with my feet hanging over. My shoe went on down and hit the rocks at the bottom. I was just sat there and had a couple of grazes. Bobby came down and got me and everybody helped me down. So anyway, we had had a sort of rescue, and we all met at the bottom after that and told our stories that Colin had been rescued.

When we were much older and able to drive, we would go in convoy in our cars or on motorbikes down to Highcliffe for the day. This also included other members of the wider family. Our mother always took a proper dinner for everyone. She would put the kettle on and make cups of tea when we arrived.

We spent most of the day at the coast then, at about 3 or 4 o'clock, we'd head back to Nomansland in the New Forest, stop by the pond, have our tea and a game of cricket. We then all headed back with a stop-off at the Dog and Gun in Netheravon for a pint and a packet of crisps. Even as the years pass, we still share holidays together, this time with our wives and children alongside us.

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