So today we can blame http://www.frugalqueen.co.uk/2014/05/how-do-families-afford-holiday.html for this post .
Now i really agree with Froogs about the cost of amusing the kids during the holidays , I nearly fainted when i found out the cost of a family membership to the National Trust £98 , when the kids were small we did alternate years of English Heritage and National Trust. English Heritage is £86 but you can take up to 6 kids . Add the cost of fuel to this and you need to be somewhere most weekends just to get your moneys worth .
All the free play schemes seem to be dying a death due to cutbacks.
Lincoln itself has a couple of notable freebies The Museum of Lincolnshire Life where the parkings pretty sparse and The Collection which is another museum but more hands on , just dont try parking in the NCP carparks nearby or you need a bank loan , plus Lincoln is infested with Traffic Wardens during the summer months .
So what did we do in the holidays when we were children..lol I can remember age 5 or 6 being rammed on a potato lorry with some strange man travelling from Cheshire to Lincolnshire to stay with my gran for the 6 week duration , nobody thought anything of it back then . I was the rarity my mother worked as a nurse and back in the 60s children didnt expect to be entertained every day . So for the short holidays i would be farmed out to various households more hard up than us who needed to earn a copper . I had some strange experiences.
There was a dutch lady with 2 children , they were so dirt poor but in a proud way that lunch varied between sugar butties and a biscuit sandwich , I never once saw the mother have more than a cup of tea in the 2 years she minded me .
Then there was a policemans wife , her husband was the most horrible bully , he had her in tears whenever he was home , nothing was ever good enough for him , he was pretty physically abusive as well , but back then it was accepted that what went on between a man and wife was theyre business .
In all my childhood we had only two holidays , a week in a hotel in Torquay that was very Faulty Towers and a week at Butlins Filey
Butlins was a scary place , i,ve never been a joiner in and back in 1970 you had to join in it was compulsory , there was no escape . From morning till night we were hounded by Redcoats with fixed smiles they were sort of holiday robots "you will enjoy yourself" seemed to be the motto . As a child who preferred curling up with a good book , having to perform on stage in a talent show when you have no talents was exquisite torture that only my mother could devise .
I found the postcards recently and it didnt bring back fond memories , Mr Bah Humbug suggested we went to an 80s weekend there and I broke out in a sweat , so even in my 50s im scared for life of Butlins!!
