I thought that I would give Australia a rest this week and tell you instead about a holiday that we took in Newquay 40 years ago. The holiday was nice enough but was memorable to us for the journey home and the kindness shown to us by a Midlands family.
The year was 1968; Sue and I were both 18 and recently married. We were living with my parents and had managed to save up a few pounds, out of my apprentices pay, for a holiday in Newquay in Cornwall. We were going down by train, as I got free rail travel, and I decided to take my motorbike, a 250 Ariel Arrow, with us so that we could do some touring up and down the coast.
The journey down was long because you couldn’t go direct to Newquay, we went through Bristol, down to Exeter then on to Par then a local train to Newquay. Each change of train meant getting the bike out of one guards van and into another.
Eventually we arrived at our destination and went on to have a great week.
Newquay was like the surfing capital of England back then, we had never seen anywhere like it before, a guy came down the main street on a skate board, the first one we had ever seen.
We had great weather all week and got badly sunburned, but we made good use of the motor bike and had several trips up the coast, stopping off for a pint or two in some of the pubs that we encountered along the way.
One of the pubs that we went to for lunch had local kids in it, about the same age as us and I remember feeling jealous that we had to go home at the end of the week whereas they could stay in this beautiful place. On reflection I think it was these experiences that sowed the seeds of my desire to emigrate many years later.
All too soon the week came to an end and on the Saturday afternoon we boarded the train for home. It would have been about 10 o’clock at night when we pulled into Bristol where we were told we had to get off the train because there was a rail strike on and there would be no further trains leaving Bristol that weekend. We were all stunned, some passengers went off to find a coach others to find a hotel, we could do neither as we had very little money and were stuck with the bike.
We came to the conclusion that the only option open to us was to ride home, so using what little money we had, we filled the petrol tank and set off through Bristol to find the M5.
It was bitterly cold and we had no riding gear and no crash helmets, so we went through the suitcase, which we had fitted on the rear carrier of the bike, and put on any jumpers and jackets we could find, I even put some socks on my hands.
Eventually we joined the M6 and headed north; we were about a mile from the Bromsgrove junction when I realised that we had a puncture in the back tyre, having a puncture outfit but no tools, we were forced to get off the bike and start pushing it up the motorway towards the off ramp. It was heavy going, the bike was hard to push with a flat tyre and we were exhausted.
When we got to the roundabout at the top of the slip road it was about midnight and we could just make out some houses a short way off and one of them had a light on. We headed for the house and shyly knocked at the front door.
The door was answered by a man who was about 50, he was up having a late night drink with his wife and his son who was about our age. I explained our situation and asked if he had a few spanners we could use to get the wheel off and fix the puncture.
Well we were overwhelmed by the generosity shown to us by this family, the father and son wouldn’t let me near the bike and insisted on fixing the puncture themselves while his wife fed us tea and biscuits and sat us in front of the fire.
When the bike was fixed they said we were welcome to stay the night but we felt that we couldn’t impose on them any further and said we would get moving, so the man gave us his telephone number and said if we had any more problems to ring him and he would come and get us.
We had no more problems that night and, after stopping at Keele services to spend our last pound on 2 bowls of tomato soup, we thankfully arrived home about 5 o’clock in the morning, frozen and tired.
We have been on many holidays since the summer of 68 but that one holiday remains firm in my memory because of the unconditional kindness shown to us by that Bromsgrove family.
Does that brand of helpfulness still exist in England today? I don’t know, I’m a stranger there now, I hope it does but maybe you can tell me.
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