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Young Martin Skeffington, who lived with his parents at Station Road, Earl Shilton, remembers the traditional annual holidays to various coastal resorts in the 1950s:
As the decade progressed, one resort we went to was Scarborough, where we stayed with our neighbours Doris and Arthur Hampson. We travelled to Scarborough by train, which meant getting to Leicester by bus, then to the Great Central Station to catch the train north. Scarborough was different. It had the beaches, the funicular railways and Peasholme Park where the firework display took place. All exciting stuff for a young boy and for someone frightened at that time by fireworks, terrifying to the extent that I had to be taken back to the guest house.
I remember the huge waves crashing over the North Parade Promenade that my mother had experienced before the war on a visit. We always had to bring presents back and I insisted on buying a small container planted with cacti, which I dropped in Scarborough Station waiting for the train home. This was a present for Aunt Frances and I was broken hearted. However we managed to salvage one of the cacti and that particular cactus flourished on her windowsill for many years to follow.
As I grew older we started to go on holiday with Aunt Frances and Uncle Les again. By this time he had changed his car for a Ford Consul. He bought this at Measham and I remember going with him to collect it. Now we could go other places we had not dreamed of before. Llandudno and North Wales, Bettws y Coed and the Swallow Falls, all strange and exciting places.
All those Welsh names - How were they pronounced?? Grown ups always seemed to know but to the Welsh speaker how they would have cringed. It was like travelling to a foreign land and we had the added advantage we lived near the Watling Street that the Romans had kindly built direct to Wales.
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