The Rock House Hotel & The Huts

A Memory of Thurlestone.

My memory of the Rock House Hotel is very particular and rooted in the period 1973-1980
My stepfather's family owned the White House across the paddock field from the Rock House Hotel. The gate from The Huts & Boat Shed nearest the road to the beach opened almost directly onto the side entrance to the hotel, then run by the terribly tall and rather Fawlty like Trevor.
As a teenage boy 'camping' in the Huts, the RHH was a magnet and a beacon. Populated as it was by exotic young women from all parts of the UK and abroad who went there to work the season as effectively chalet girls of sorts - the beautiful Kate from London, and Marita from the Antipodes are two that spring to mind.
Rob, the handy man, or Lad, with his Morris Minor who used to travel down from Banbury and work the season as well was a firm favourite of ours in the drinks department.
Also the Sweet Folk All evenings of music [the band] and underage drinking [my brother and I!]
It was a golden time; as all formative ones and the indelible memories they create always are.
One such memory: Sitting on the edge of the beach listening to Judy Tzuke's 'Stay with me till Dawn' booming out of the 'disco' night in the hotel having seen one girl I rather liked talking intently to someone else.
Oh the tortured pain of unrequited love.
I still visit Thurlestone most every other year though I have not been for some three years now.
In many ways it has changed but in some ways it is still locked in time. Which I adore.
In fact this picture has ignited a need for the byways and the lanes that cut across and up to the Sloop are calling me.