Warners

As a young child I can remember several holidays taken at the Warners holiday camp at Seaton. The serious business of 'motoring down to Devon' was never taken lightly, lunch was prepared the night before to be eaten at Stonehenge, where one was free to sit upon the stones then, the Consul Mk2 was serviced or at least washed and polished, suitcases on the roof were wrapped in plastic, which made a noise all the way down! and off we would go. Arriving on Saturday morning, the mass exodus of new arrivals queuing for keys stretched around the huge white-fronted building, my brother and I would be keen to explore and visit the swimming pool (whatever the weather). Upon receiving the keys, home for the next week would be a wooden chalet with a sink, basic tea-making equipment etc, meals would be served in the restaurant, this formed the basis of the holiday camp regime, where the hall would be split into 2 halves, the 'cads' and the 'colleges', points would be scored at various team events and at the end of the week the victors would be announced, this encouraged the competitive to excell at swimming, singing, running contests etc. Seaton was to me a wonderful town with lots of small gift shops, I used to spend hours as a child staring into the windows of such shops in wonderment of such gifts as letter racks adorned with seashells and dog lead hooks adorned in the same manner. I remember 'Cornish' ice cream being a favourite. Quite how we spent so much time sitting on a pebble beach I do not know, there were no fairground rides, just the sea and the beach. Sunburn would follow (no factor 40 then, or if there was we didn't have any), I can remember sleepless nights with sunburn. Evening entertainment usually started with bingo where children were constantly told to sshhh! followed by the 'bluecoats' entertaining us with singing, comedy and the like (plus announcements informing parents that a baby was crying in chalet such and such). I remember the ballroom being packed full of people seated around small round tables and the tables would be crammed with glasses and beer bottles, Double Diamond, Mackeson, Guinness, Brown and Mild. I used to get a few dregs from the bottles when no one was looking. The week soon went and before we knew it our turn to hand back our keys had arrived. I can remember thinking when I was at home late on Saturday night that some other family would now be settled into our chalet and getting settled in for a week's fun and entertainment, and feeling ever so sad!