Campsite

A Memory of Laleham.

As a family we used to go camping at Laleham every weekend, spring to autumn. This was from about 1950 until the mid 1960s. It was an amazing time, like most childhood memories. My nan and grandad were the Greenland family and they had their own tent. My two aunts both had tents, plus a cousin and my mum and dad and 4 kids. The riverside was much more open then and you could ride along the banks as we used to on the way back from I think it was called the Three Horseshoes pub in Laleham village. As kids we sat outside with our wagon wheels and bottle of fizzy drinks while the adults enjoyed their brown and mild or port and lemon. I remember every year there was a feast on Lantern Night where every tent would be decorated with some theme or another and prizes were awarded for the best turned out tent. These tents were not of the modern variety with built-in ground sheets and gas cookers, it was a case of pumping up an oil burner and coping with earwigs and beetles crawling over you at night ...oh happy days!
Every year we went to a regatta in Chertsey where people did strange things like climbing along greasy poles over the river and having pillow fights or having a duel in the river on hand-made boats to see who could sink the opponents. I am not sure what all that was about but it was always fun.
I remember the abbey, that was always a scary looking place as a child, and the playground nearby. Also the nearby reservoir where my dad occasionaly went fishing. I have lots of good memories of an age that no longer exists... no radio, no TV, no computers, lots of tree climbing, run outs and picnics after swimmingin the Thames.
It would be nice to hear from anyone else who used that campsite all those years ago.

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