Sunshine And Showers

A Memory of Porthtowan.

From Bury to Porthtowan in those days was a long hard drive, especially with three screaming kids in the back. To make it easier we would set off at 2am and drive through the night... in those days less than half the distance was motorway and with breaks we would be pulling on to Porthtowan car park,bleary eyed at around 10-30 am.
Usually on arrival it was raining cats and dogs but we didn't care, the beach, sea and cliffs was there, and for two weeks we were kings of our Luxury Studio Apartment at...."Seaspray Leisure".
The first two weeks in July and the second week in September every year for six years we travelled down to our holiday haven, sometimes the weather was kind to us.... as in 1975 and 1976, and sometimes not, but come rain or shine we never tired of our Holidays in Cornwall.
"Seaspray Leisure" were in their day newly built ultra modern apartments, directly facing and overlooking the beach and sea, rumour had it some very famous A list celeb's such as "The Three Degrees" and Cliff Richard stayed there while appearing at a club somewhere up in the hills, but the only celebrity we saw was Alan Minter the boxer.
On occasions in July we would travel down with a neighbour and his kids, one year we managed to talk nearly half the town into coming with us but no one ever had the same attraction to the place as we did.
What brought me back twice a year from 1973 was the quietness of the place, and the fantastic cliff runs as opposed to pounding the streets of Bury, also you could let your kids run free there was no traffic and mostly only surfers on the beach.
There was all you needed in a holiday in those days two good pubs one called "The Commodore" the other I forget and a great restaurant called"The Mexicano".
Porthtowan in the 1970s was a great base to visit all of the southwest and grew slightly in size, till I along with the masses deserted it for sunnier far-off places.
Been back recently but the place is not the same, but then nothing ever is, we let Porthtowan down.....I find most hot foreign holidays mostly all roll into one. But I will never forget the good times in Cornwall.