What was your first big trip?

When we were small, living in Scotland, we travelled on holidays from Glasgow to Perthshire to stay with my Granny & Grandpa Walker, Mum's parents. That was quite a big trip that involved trams and buses and the big old steam train.... but the biggest trip I remember as a child was when we left Scotland in January of 1952 and moved to Whitley Bay in Northumberland, because Dad had had a promotion to Manager for North Eastern England for Marine Lubricant sales, for the Mobil Oil Company, based in Newcastle upon Tyne.

I was nearly six, Sheila would be nine and David was almost one. I don't remember the packing up in our flat, tho' that must have been quite an undertaking. All our household belongings were taken in a moving van and would all have had to have been carried down the four floors from our flat. I do remember the night we spent in a bed and breakfast in Langside and looking out of the window on a cold wintry night and being able to see the gas street lamps burning.

Having lived four floors up in a flat, I don't suppose I had ever really seen the street lights before. We went to Glasgow Central station in the mmorning, and Uncle Joe, Dad's brother came on the train to say goodbye. I remember hearing the guard's whisle blowing and there being a great caffufle as Uncle Joe raced down the corridor to jump off the already moving train before it left! I have clear memories of two things on the train.

The first was being served lunch in the restaurant car which seemed very exciting, and then my disgust at the meal, it was boiled white fish and boiled potatoes and I can taste it's steamed fishy bland flavour still! The second thing was of looking out the window as we passed the coastline, probably just south of Berwick on Tweed and seeing tall cliffs and a ship wrecked on the rocks below. I think we may have stayed with friends in Jesmond that first night, the Clarkes.

Memories are hazy as to how we got to Whitley Bay but I think that Dad may have taken possession of our first car by then, a Vauxhall. He had to go to Leeds to pick up the car as they were very limited in number after the war and you had to wait for the one you had ordered to arrive at a dealer. I do remember arriving at our new house. It was dark and VERY cold and starting to snow heavily.

Mum went around the house lighting coal fires in the front room and the living room and in two bedrooms upstairs. We also found the the toilet was frozen, so kettles of water were boiled and poured into the loo! The removal van had been delayed by snow storms while travelling over Soutra, a high point between Scotland & England so it was dark & very late before it arrived and they unloaded our things. At that time when you moved house, you took EVERYTHING with you, down to the light bulbs, because so many things were hard to come by.

Mum was puzzled when all the things were unloaded and the van had left,as to just where her curtain rods were, as we needed to hang drapes. Drapes were essential in the winter as the windows were all single pane glass and froze in beautiful jack frost patterns on the inside! They didn't turn up until March when the snows melted and there they were all rusted on the sidewalk by the house, having been unloaded and promptly covered by the snow fall!

The trips from the North of England to visit grandparents in Scotland then became some epic adventures in the car.It was precisely 208.6 miles ( I remember!) from our house in Whitley Bay to Alyth... and there are more stories about those trips...leaving the dog behind on the sidewalk in Coldstream after we stopped for ice cream. Scotch pies for lunch when we parked at the Castle Esplanade in Edinburgh, visits to the Camera Obscura... and a very full car with Mum & Dad and the three of us plus the dog and all our luggage...

Sheila quite often having to stop because she was car sick........ How's that???? xxxxx