Childhood of Dreams

In 1978 and 1979 we hired a motorhome and visited Northumberland the first year and Cornwall the second. The success of these holidays encouraged my parents to buy a motorhome for early 1980, a Bedford Buccaneer with a lift-up roof. Our first outings were days out, which I recorded in a homework diary, and in April 1980 we went on our first holiday, to South Wales, soon followed by ones to Derbyshire, Spalding Flower Parade, and to North Wales. We had become a motorhome family and during the next 5 years the Buccaneer did us well, with epic holidays to Scotland in 1981, Paris in 1983, and North Wales in the Summer of 1985, mixed in with frequent shorter ones. In the Autumn of 1985 we bought a larger motorhome, a Bedford Advantura, more suited to my and my sister's growing teenage bodies, and during early 1986 had days out, and short holidays, the latter including to Ironbridge, Chertsey and Freston, near to Ipswich. In July and August 1986 we went on an epic 3-week holiday to France and Andorra during which I had my 16th birthday. These eight years form the story of this book, from being a child of 7 going on 8, to having my 16th birthday. We were four on the road - Dad, who worked for Thomas Cook, Mum, who was a teacher on supply or on short-term placements, me, born in 1970, and my sister Beth born in 1972. At home we had a fifth, the family cat Tandy, born 1978, and whilst she never went on any holidays with us, we always said goodbye to her and she was always there to welcome us back home.