Our Caravan Holidays In The Sixties

A Memory of East Runton.

I was born in Leicester in 1958 and shortly afterwards my dad and nana bought a caravan that was sited at Mr Metcalfe's site on Brick Lane. Our caravan was called Niaroo and was sited next to an apple tree.
We had to fetch water from a tap and empty the buckets daily. We had to walk across the site to use the toilets. I can remember tucking my nighty up inside my coat and donning my wellies for the journey.
The caravan was lit by gas mantles and a replacement had to be bought from Mr Metcalfe for one shilling.
The kitchen consisted of a cooker and a sink and a cupboard for the broom and mops.
The dining area had a bed that came out of the wall!
We had a partition area to the seating area which would be converted into a double bed. My grandad made a set of bunk beds for the use of the children.
The milk and anything else that needed to be kept cool was put under the van.
As toddlers my brother and I had had a puschchair that was kept under the caravan. As we grew older we used to play with it. He would push me to the top of the site where we would swap over and I would run as fast as I could pushing him back down the slopes. We also used to push each other down to feed the ducks or to look at the pigs in the field at the top of the site.
There was a grocery shop at the top of Brick Lane.
We would open and close the caravan at the beginning and end of each season. In the autumn our visit would include a morning's blackberry picking.
During the summer holidays my nana would often take me by coach to stay at the caravan. We would go to the beach or to Cromer Zoo during the day and spend many hours playing cards in the evenings whilst listening to programmes like Friday Night is Music Night.
We would also visit the Amusement Arcade in the village and have chips on our way back to the caravan on our last night.
In 1970 we moved from Leicester to live on the Isle of Wight. The caravan was kept for a few more years for friends and my cousins to use but it was a sad day when my dad, grandad and I went to close it up for the very last time.

---

---