Family HolidaysBack in the 80s when my Dad got made redundant (hello Dad!), he spent all the redundancy money on one of those big motor caravans.
Us kids loved it, apart from when my sister threw up on my sleeping bag, but looking back I'm not so sure my mum did. There was a certain tension every time the big van was even mentioned, let alone driven around France for weeks on end with her still having to cook and do all the washing.
What went wrong, what went right, and how did you survive the shame of having your family with you as a teenager?
(
chthonic, Thu 2 Aug 2007, 14:33)
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Uncle RichardMy parents used to to on two week jaunts to Spain and Greece when I was young, but they left me with my uncle Richard because they didn't want me to ruin their holiday with my whining and irritating paranoias.
Uncle Richard was a retired schoolteacher of the old school (corduroy jackets with leather patches) and always insisted that I wear a pair of denim shorts much too small for me. "It's good for a young man to expose his legs to the sun!" he'd say, as his hands fluttered beneath an out-folded newspaper in his lap. We did all sorts of fun things. For example, he'd throw my shoes in his ornamental lake and tell me to get them. "Take off those shorts, first, lad!" he'd say. "The water will make them even smaller." Any smaller and I'd be chewing them.
Of course, now I realise that he was a paedophile. Not the nasty kind who download pictures and rape children, but the old fashioned kind who became scout masters and teachers so they could ogle kids and have a tug later. He never touched me inappropriately , even if he did spend about 40 minutes each morning rubbing me down with sun cream.
"We don't want you to burn do we, Frank?"
"It's raining, Uncle."
"Well, you never know, do you?"
"It's been raining for a week."
"Put your shorts on, I'm going to sit and read my paper while you do some yoga in front of the fire."
(, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 16:44, Reply)
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