Each year we would go to the seaside for a week. One year we would go to Bridlington on the East coast, the next we would go to New Brighton on the West coast. This must have been a New Brighton year - probably around 1951 - for that is the boarding house we stayed at in Windsor Street. My brother, Roger, and myself feature along with our mother. The three older people in the photograph are unknown: the lady on the left is possibly the lady who kept the boarding house and the other two may have been staying there the same time we were.
How well I remember those boarding houses. We were on "half board", meaning that we bought our own food and the landlady cooked it. You slept in one bedroom, sharing a bed with your mother and I slept in another bedroom, sharing a bed with father. We patronised amusement arcades that had slot machines that would take a halfpenny. At New Brighton we went for afternoon sails on the Royal Iris and at Bridlington, two hours sails on the Yorkshire Belle or the Thornwick. Both had piano accordion entertainment. We carried our suit cases from the railway station, rather than pay a shilling for the services of boys with hand carts.
ReplyDeleteOn one occasion Aunty Annie and Uncle Harry came with us. That was the time when your potty, carried in a string bag, got mislaid enroute and Gladys asked a market stall owner, Do you have a bog one mister? (The double entendre being a tin of shoe polish.) Both the string-bagged potty and the stall owner's big one became a part of Aunty Annie's comedy repertoire.