Aunt Doris' Bus

A Memory of Walcott.

I suppose I was ten or younger when we first stayed on the Cliffside Caravan Park. Aunt Doris had a single decker bus that she converted to a caravan. Her son, my cousin Michael, slept in the cabin - the rest of us only allowed there by invitation. The entire place was curtained and complete. Beds packed one end, to be seats by day, curtained-off across the adult's area. They made their beds later after an evening of chatter and cards. There were washing bowls for washing, bowls for washing-up - and never the twain crossed. Organisation was my Aunt's forte. At tea time she would make huge chunks of fresh bread soaked with evaporated milk - my personal memory of ecstasy from childhood.
Perhaps I remember most the freedom. We children were allowed to out alone for hours, got cut off by tides, got terrified, got exhilarated. We swam in what we called the lows. When the tide went out at Walcot, a huge sand bank retained a lagoon of sea water in which we could swim.. but the tide sometimes caught out the adults who sat on the sand bank chatting. I recall one day when Nanny Turner, deeply involved in knitting, suddenly found herself on an island from which she had to be rescued by my father. He carried her on his shoulders shouting, 'you silly old cuckoo' as her knitting wool floated out to sea.
We collected carnelian - I still have it - prowling the gravels hopefully. Amonites, too, usually split into worm sections which we pieced together.
Walcot was a dream holiday for us. When the groins were put in, we balanced the walk along them and sitting on the cliff edge we terrified ourselves as the sea sent waves high up to us.
Under the bus there were sloworms - a terrifying feature. My cousin would drape himself in these creatures and once, when cold, I borrowed his jacket, only to run screaming around the field as my hand touched pockets full of them and I was too terrified to take off the jacket.
Wet days meant a trip to the site shop and a 6d purchase of a magic colouring book or a cut out doll. Hours of decision went into the spending, the shop keeper ever tolerant.
Memories flow back looking at the pictures here. I have photographs, but not on the computer. When the flood came, we stood in horror, seeing the cliff face shattered, furniture - and a piano - floating like flotsam in the cruel sea. I was 11 then, but I cried. A deep and aching sadness.
Soon there was no bus. The proprietors wanted only real caravans. I can't recall what happened to it, but know that the magic was never in the chalet bungalow my parents built years later - though holidays there were still good --- just never magic.