This Easter, readers with young children or people not always wanting to admit that they are old enough to have grandchildren, will be able to recount past family trips.
Mostly the scenario will begin early in the day, as Mum (and it was usually Mum, probably still is if watching the queues outside supermarkets are anything to go by these days) roused the family early and well before the usual breakfast time. In my time, breakfast was just that, none of this three runs around the table and a cup of tea, coffee or fruit juice nonsense, but what many at that time would have considered a normal breakfast – some still do – bacon and egg maybe with toast, marmalade and real butter, ‘marg’ never being popular in our house.
Getting ready, washes or showers being taken while all this was going on. “David, just how long are you going to be in the bathroom? For gawd’s sake, get a move on. Beth, get a move on and don’t wear those pink jeans again. Told you before, they’re too short for you now anyway. Yes, I know they are your favourite, no arguments now. Breakfast is ready, Dad’s already had his, now get a move on.”
In the meanwhile, Dad would have packed the picnic hamper and (let’s imagine this is the 1960s) loaded it and the Primus stove into the boot of the cleaned-and-polished-the-day-before family car. Cars were still something be proud of in those far-off days, maybe a Ford Anglia or Austin 1000, (bestselling car of the 1960s for BMC – the British Motor Corporation) and something to be proud of and kept in shape, because, as Mum would never cease to tell you, people judge you by your appearance. That’s why you clean your shoes, including the heels if you don’t mind; the cars like that it’s part of what we are. And as Dad always said, you can always tell the cars owned by ’the firm’ because the drivers never clean under the back bumper. The back bumper of course in those days was just that, a heavyweight piece of chromed steel, not something shaped around the car body and with colour-coded paint. Hard to realise now that colour-coded bumpers were advertised as a feature to want on your latest Vauxhall in the early 1980’s, but there it is, or was to be correct.
Anyway, Mum, Dad, two kids and sometimes Major the dog eventually clambered aboard, Dad driving, Mum looking after the navigation, along with much bickering. “Where are you going? I told you take ‘next left’.” “No, you didn’t.” “What do you mean turn right at the island that’s marked Basingstoke? We want Reigate.” “Well if you can do any better, you’d better do it yourself,” and so it went on, and this in the first 30 miles.
One of the kids, despite being asked before leaving home, always wanted the lavatory. “Lavatory Beth? For God’s sake, we’re on the motorway, you will just have to manage,” and then the classic from David, eight years old, already bored with spotting cars listed in I Spy Cars or I Spy Road Signs, starts to goad Beth, now looking distinctly uncomfortable and disguising the fact by trying to look interested in last week’s copy of Diana which causes another shouting match from Dad resulting in a sulky silence from the kids until David utters the timeworn and much loved question: “Are we there yet?”
Adult replies to this, after only three quarters of an hour travelling were, and now are, I would wager, mostly unprintable even in these days of personal in-car entertainment systems which one sees children apparently glued to while belted into the back seats, younger ones in booster seats (mostly hated. “Dad, I don’t want to sit on that thing, why should I? Connor’s Dad lets him sit in the front.”)
Of all those family 4x4s and sports utility vehicles that you see belting along the motorways at weekends and holiday times, with one of those coffin things on the roof and four bicycles hanging on the rear, usually covering quite illegally the rear lights and number plates. At least they – and the rest of us – will be spared this for the corona duration, and before any of you ask, “No we are not anywhere being near the end yet.” It looks as if we are in for a long haul, at least the weather (don’t hold your breath) is at the moment set fair, which at least means ‘we can do things’ at home. Like they used to.
In the 1960s Easter, of course, was the start of all sorts of things that we did before we became so busy, trendy and travel mad. We did things mainly because we had to and in many cases, mainly because there was not much to do anywhere else and many people did not have lots of cash to spend on leisure. Films shot at the time show rows of houses on quite modest housing estates with trimmed garden hedges, tidy lawns and, as the estate agents used to describe, mature herbaceous borders. Dad can sometimes be seen cleaning the often 1940s car and, believe it or not, there were still people who took the warmer weather as an invitation to take the family car out of the garage in which it had been laid up for the winter months.
Easter
Part 2 will be published here tomorrow.
Photo by foundin_a_attic 
Dad had got rid of his Ford Prefect that had been over-used for work and pleasure. – Now we had a Hillman California convertible in blue, (not black), and with good weather the hood was down. – I was in the back seats at age 12, and no matter what was done with the odd shaped back windows, I was blown to pieces and loved it, as did our dog in the back with me ! – We were transiting from Northampton to the East coast, and I was the Navigator with an O/S map, because as a young Scout, I could read an O/S map quite well, and even got complimented by Dad ! – Despite the wind, Mum was asleep in the front as she had been busy with doing the food and drink earlier. – That day nearly killed our young dog because this was the first time he experienced the sand and sea, and kept charging the little waves, and when we went swimming with him he was overjoyed, but forgot to take a rest. – Dad had to hold him in a blanket and gave him a lot of water to drink, and he was quickly OK. ….. The simple pleasures of a family day out then, and how I wish it could be repeated now, but 1957 or 58 only happens once, and is held in the memory !
That would be the Morris/Austin 1100. Shortly to be followed by MG/Wolsely/Riley/Vanden Plas variants.
There were lots of Morris Minors about, started with an 850cc engine and ended with a 1098cc engine.
My parents bought one brand new in 1964. Dad still went to work on the bus, the car came out for a weekend run and a polish until the next weekend. As did most people. A car was a luxury not a necessity back then.
They were the most Godawful rotboxes, I marvel when I see one at the classic car rallies. I spite of my fathers loving care, it dissolved away in front of our eyes. Rust holes in two years.
Hey Norman! Great trip down memory lane! I remember it well. I was one of the kids in the back asking the “are we there yet”? Mainly because I used to get car sick and hated the smell of petrol. Sand in the jam sandwiches and warm orange squash. Delicious! Happy days!
Meanwhile others take the oportunity to ‘do a ton or do a ton and 25’ legally…….as per In The Summer Time…….what larks!
virus oaks to get 5g Boris come back