Dear LPG,    


I am making a vast assumption here but I think that I have discovered a tradition where age is more than just a number.   


I was having a chat with a friend who now is in her eighties.  We got reminiscing about those things that we used to do in the summer holidays when we were young.  We both agreed that a holiday abroad was not the norm and days out were more the thing back then.  Her family spent them doing a bit of hop picking and she described days when a particular farm would be the family destination for a day or two and a few days of hard work for all ages brought the whole family together.  


That was the 1950s but I was a child of the 60’s.  I remember those days when with perhaps a week’s notice we would organise a relatively impromptu ‘summer day out’ to get the whole family together.   We would all agree on a day and the seaside might be the main target with a focus on a bit of a dip followed by an arcade trip where we would offload all that loose change that now no longer exists in the games machines.   We would be ready for the sand enthused food that would be in the boot of the convoy of at least 3 cars that would have followed each other down the motorway and all would be good.   


I have to say that the best bit for me would be the stop on the way home when we would have supper on the grass verge of the motorway so that we could finish off all that food that would only end up in the bin if we took it home. 


Sometimes we would skip the beach altogether and find a common or park which was geographically in a spot where all the different family members would be afforded the shortest journey home, and the pick nick would be the focus of the outing. 


Assuming the weather was amenable, there would be space for the children to play without them getting on the nerves of the adults.  The balls and frisbees, tennis sets and Cricket bats would be out in force for the children while a couple of adults kept their eyes on the little ones.  There would be adequate room to allow for those factions of the family who needed to ‘kiss and make up’, after some mini feud, to do so (or not) on neutral ground.  There was something about the neutrality of the spot which, no matter how heated any discussion got, would never leave anyone with the opportunity to tell any other member to ‘Never darken my front door by visiting again’.    


If it did rain we would all find ourselves sat in one car or another, making the best of it with the sandwiches, sausage rolls, chicken drumsticks and potato salad on paper or plastic plates, balanced on our laps and (depending on age), the cans or bottles of pop or the Thermos cup of tea or  coffee precariously balanced in the hope that it will not get spilled.    


I decided to get my family to resurrect the practise last Easter Monday and we did have a good time in the end but, having done all the food preparation the mobile phone calls came thick and fast.  What time would dinner be (the children’s eating routine could not be disturbed), was there too much sugar in the snacks, what drinks had I packed, what if it rained?   


I have to admit that the weather was a bit iffy and ‘Alexa’ had warned us of the percentage-likelihood of rain on the day, but the food was all prepared so I told all the others that I would offer my home as the venue.  Once everyone had arrived and the children were preoccupied with their, or their parent’s mobile devices I took a look outside and, iffy it was, but not raining.   


I persuaded them all to take a walk to the park at the end of my road but I drove all the food and equipment needed round the block to the entrance.  It was refreshing to see the children not being entertained electronically and expending some physical energy in the swing park.  there was zero risk of a ball hitting a window although the frisbee that got stuck in an unreachable tree branch’ was inevitable.   The Easter egg hunt kit and the swing park replaced the latest computer game and, if the worst came to the worst, daisy picking facilities were only up the road.  


The afternoon consisted of lots of conversation that the television or mobile phone would have stifled had we stayed at my house all day.  When it was time to pack up and go home, my car was the last to travel the two or so hundred yards from the park gate to my personal gate but not one drop of precipitation was experienced.  When they left, the house looked as dishevelled as if they had been there for the whole day but everyone went home with a smile on their face.    


It is passé and largely unfashionable as modern bank holiday entertainment goes and I suppose it could all go wrong but having resurrected the tradition, I recommend it.   


DH, Lewisham  

 

 

 

LPG found a little bit of related internet-video nostalgia perhaps…

 

 

 

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