February is Fun is the theme for this month's Sepia Saturday posts, with the prompt image showing a group of girls having great fun in water. In Scotland there is not too much opportunity for it to be warm enough for that, so I have gone for the next best aspect - Fun BY Water i.e. at the seaside.
On
the left, wearing the cloche hat is my husband's Great Aunt Pat, beside
her daughter Annette - with unknown friends. Judging by the fashions
and the age of Annette, it was most likely taken in the late 1920's
on the beach at Margate in Kent, where the family lived. 
I was born in Blackpool, Lancashire on the north west coast of England, Here - the earliest picture of me enjoying the beach. I reckon this was taken June 1945, as my father here was in uniform. I know that he had leave between marking VE Day in Germany and then being posted to the Far East where the war with Japan was ongoing.
Toddling along with Daddy - on an unusually quiet beach.
Our
own family holidays were taken in Bournemouth on the south coast of
England, where a great friend of my mother ran a small hotel. All the
ingredients of traditional 1950's seaside fun were there - setting up
deckchairs, playing on the beach, making sandcastles, eating icecreams taking donkey
rides, exploring rock pools.
With
my mother. Every summer she made me a new sun dress and I remember
this one in green & white p'polka dots with the bolero.
It must be a
photographic quirk that Dad appears so sunburnt in the photograph above, because he did not lead a particularly outdoor life to get that brown.
More fun on the beach - my brother in that fetching knitted playsuit - and myself
Digging
holes with my brother. You can tell this must be the 1950’s - those were the days before the anti-smoking campaigns and my father is happy to enjoy his cigarette, long before he ditched the habit. Goodness knows why I was I wearing a
hated rubber swimming cap, as I could barely swim at this stage? I suppose to keep dry my long hair which was usually in plaits.
I can remember when the weather was miserable, and Dad took us onto the
beach where we had fun making shelters out of the deckchairs. Or we took
a walk along the cliff tops - the Chimes, and collected pine cones to
take home and decorate for Christmas.
On
duller days too, we walked along the promenade for an ice cream or went into
the park and played in the stream that ran through it - the usual
result was my brother fell in the water and my mother knew always to
take spare clothing. At night the trees in the park were decorated with
fairy lights that made it magical. My abiding memory was of one of a happy family time.
Fast forward tot he 1960s when I spent a year working in the USA at Cambridge, Mass., with time to relax on Nantucket Island - this was the life!
In September 1966, returned home from a year's working in the
USA, travelling aboard the Cunard liner "Sylvania" from New York,
calling at Boston and Cobh, Ireland, before reaching Liverpool. The ship, small
by today's cruise ship standards, was very quiet and I was lucky to get a
cramped 4 berth cabin all to myself. Goodness knows how four of us could manage in the space short of perching on our bunk bed. Commercial jet planes services were hitting
the transatlantic scheduled shipping and the Liverpool-New York sailings were
axed in November after my return. But I enjoyed this experience and
had my first glimpse of Ireland with dawn over Cobh.
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My
daughter (in the middle) enjoying a donkey ride on Blackpool beach.
This was taken in Blackpool in the school October half term holiday, so
not exactly summery.
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Husband with our second cocker spaniel, Coleen on the beach at Beadnell, in Northumberland.
We are still
laughing, despite a gale blowing as we shelter from the sea on the
Atlantic coast on the Isle of Iona of the west coast of Scotland with our last pet Casmir.
Here is my daughter on a beach which we had to ourselves
on the Isle of Iona July 2016.
Our dog enjoying the water on Mull, with the ferry to Iona in the background.
All Happy Memories of Having Fun!
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Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity to share their family history and memories through photographs
Click HERE to see how othe Sepia Saturday bloggers
have taken up this week's theme.
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A wonderful post with so many wonderful pictures of, obviously, wonderful memories! :)
ReplyDeleteSo many great beach photos. I think the one with the donkeys is my favorite. I've never seen donkeys at the beach.
ReplyDeleteSusan
Beautiful. I can't decided which is my favourite photos. I love the one of your father in uniform but I think that the one of you both running along the beach is precious. The way that you are looking at each other is priceless xo
ReplyDeleteGreat memories are often stored in little snapshots. My first encounter with Britain's "beaches" was along a shingle seashore of the Channel. I'd never seen that kind of stony beach before and it was a struggle to walk any distance. I've since become very fond of the variety of coastlines in the British Isles, from black mud to white sands and every kind of gravely material in between. I always bring back souvenir stones, especially the ones worn spherical or with holes drilled through by tiny pebbles.
ReplyDeleteSuch amazing photos I hardly know where to begin -- not to mention your beach adventures narrative. I was surprised to see the photo of your dad in uniform. How fortunate he was to get home on leave, unlike the U.S. service members who were away from home for the duration. And I laughed out loud of your comment about the rubber swim cap! How I remember the pain of getting one's hair stuck in those :-)
ReplyDelete