Childhood Memories by Deborah Taylor, Nee Barraclough

As a child I spent all my summers in Pickmere at my nana's caravan on a camp site just across from the entrance to Pickmere Lake. My nana worked in the Happy Hour Club, and also in Happy Hour kitchen serving breakfast to holiday-makers. We used to paddle in the lake, go out in the blue and white boats and sunbathe on the hill,with a picnic . I remember the small fairground, and the arcades where you could win tubes of sweets and chocolate bars for old pennies, fantastic old ball-bearing machines, with tubes of old fashioned spangles, wow what memories. My grandad had a small jetty he fished off into the lake, we were told never to paddle past the rushes because there was an underwater currant that could suck you under, and also a ledge where the lake became deeper. Oh such happy long warm summers we spent there. Coaches used to park at the top of the hill, I can still remember scrambling under the old turnstile into the ladies' toilet to spend a penny and avoid paying to do so! I last visited in the early1980s with my own children but much had changed, no fairground and gone were the arcades, just a few boats left. We rowed across the lake to give my children the same thrill I myself had experienced as a young child, and a good day was had. I think maybe it's time to visit again perhaps and share the view with my grandaughter and note the changes to memory.