My best holiday ever

The holiday that I remember as being my 'best ever' was when I was about 8 years old in the 1960's and my family stayed in a caravan for 2 weeks at Tenby in Wales.

The caravan had no water. I presume it didn't have a toilet or shower either but I don't remember that. My job was to get the water from a communal tap which was shared by about 8 caravans. I had some sort of water container to carry it in. Bigger than a bucket but I can't remember exactly what. It couldn't have been that big? I was only young. I remember feeling very mature because I had been given the responsibility of getting the water for two weeks - my two younger sisters didn't have jobs. I assume we had some sort of cooking facilities - maybe a couple of gas rings? We certainly didn't eat out. Families in the 1960's didn't. At least ours didn't.

I can't remember what we did in the evenings - probably played board games I guess. There was no TV, no radio and I don't think we were hooked up to electricity. As far as I can remember the caravan site didn't have any entertainment. All it had was a 'games room' which consisted of a table tennis table. I was desperate to go there and was really excited when my mum said we could go there on the Saturday during the middle of our stay. Her reasoning being that it would be quiet then. It was - but it was still exciting to have a game of table tennis with my mum in a 'proper games room'.

The only downside to my 'best holiday ever' was when I ended up with very bad sun stroke. I'd been playing down by the edge of the water all afternoon with no sunscreen on. Well actually I don't think sunscreen has been invented then - we used to get smothered in some type of oil that all the sand stuck to. But that afternoon my back ended up more sunburnt than I've ever been at any other time in my life. I still remember how much pain I was in. I was awake all night because of the pain and I know that my mum felt very guilty about that.

I don't remember much about the practical stuff about our caravan holiday in Tenby - where we slept, how we washed, what we ate? What I do remember is - the sun shone every day, we played on the beach every day and made friends with the other kids who were staying on the caravan site. At the end of our holiday we exchanged addresses, promised to write and said we'd be 'best friends forever'.

Of course we never were.

.......But I have such happy memories.