Post by Brian M on Feb 1, 2009 10:01:49 GMT
Message 1 of 11 in Discussion
From: Brian (Original Message) Sent: 11/06/2006 19:40
ColinCLee is a rather special new member. He is Karen's (kplee) father who has been caravanning for over 50 years and has owned Safaris for 38 years.
I have offered to post his emails on the group, and I hope that this is the first of a series of fascinating reminiscences.
Hi Brian
Thank you for your welcome note.
Karen has gone back to London now but we have had much pleasure reminiscing our caravan days. We have been preparing the van to sell, with a great deal of nostalgia, perhaps also with some regret.
We, that is my wife Joyce and I, started caravaning in the early 50's with a small two berth (the make I can't recall). Karen was weened in a van. the sink doubling as a baby bath. We progressed on to a Cresta, fifteen foot as I recall, but it had a toilet room and a drop down double bed, much more civilised.
By now we were four as Nick had arrived (Karen's brother) and we had many happy holidays in the UK.
Returning from a holiday in Scotland about 1960 we stayed on a site on Lake Ulswater and fell in love with a Thompson Glen Rosa that was for sale. It was an eighteen footer and we still wonder about its accommodation. Two doors, two double wardrobes, a sideboard, two dinettes, a toilet room, no end of roof lockers and all the amenities we could desire.
So we purchased it and for eight years, every Friday evening, from March to November we travelled to The Lakes. We bought a Ski Boat and a Sailing Dinghy, negotiated a private beach on Ulswater and for a decade as they say "we lived the life of O'Rielly".
By then we were five as Wendy had arrived (Karen's sister) and we had purchased another van, a twenty five foot Pemberton.
In 67 the picture was changing, they imposed a speed restriction on the lake and the site was bought by a money orientated company.
We exchanged our vans for a 17/4 Safari and in 68 bid farewell to the lakes and started Rallying.
Knowing your interest in cars, I towed the Cresta with an Austin 95, but didn't need a big car when we were Static, so changed to MG Magnetes, that I exchanged each year for £200 (honest).
The other feature (on finance) I love to regale. The Sharrow Bay Hotel, which is still one of the renowned eating houses in this part of UK, was one of our pleasures. Dinner in those days was 19/6, yes Nineteen Shillings and Six pence. Now I believe it's in the £30 bracket.
However, in 68 we started Rallying with the North York's Centre and also joined the Safari Owner's Club. We stayed a member until I suppose the 21st Anniversary Rally in 1980 (have to dig out my Rally Plaques). We changed the van for a 17/S and later in 78 for a 15/4.
The Safari Club has many happy memories and anecdotes, that I could tell you, if interested, but not today.
We continued rallying until I suppose 96ish but regretably Joyce developed Parkinson's Decease some fourteen years ago, that put an end to another phase of life.
Karen said you were interested in the vehicles I towed with. Well, an Austin 95. an Austin 110, an Austin 1800, a Wolsley 110, occasionally a Land Rover, a 4.2 Daimler, a 3lt Rover Saloon, a Range Rover and more recently 3ltr Mercedes Estates.
I have many memories, some good and others not so good, of towing incidents, rigging the van for stability. experimenting with towing aids,
etc, etc, etc.
Again another story.
To summarise, as a family we have derived immense pleasure from caravaning, it is a way of life we would recommend to everyone, the younger the better. It teaches self reliance and discipline.
Regards.
Colin
Message 2 of 11 in Discussion
From: OliverShaw1 Sent: 12/06/2006 00:00
Ullswater, a site there, site later changed hands, private beach, Sharrow Bay Hotel ...
I just wonder whether we (i.e. my family) might have been on the same site, during the previous decade.
In I think 1953, in my boyhood, we moved from being static on Anglesey to a different static pitch in a new area, at Seat Farm on Ullswater. It wasn't at that time an official caravan site, but that was in the days when one often made private arrangements with any willing farmer. We had a lakeside pitch, a few tens of yards from the lake, and right adjacent to the woodland grounds of the Sharrow Bay Hotel and to the small stream that separates the woods from the farm field.
Unofficially the hotel woodlands were a great play area for us boys...
Four years previously we had bought a little 9-foot rowing boat, a folding boat - and a very good one - produced by Prouts of Canvey Island, who later went on to much greater things as the boating market rapidly expanded; first Shearwater catamarans, at the time one of the fastest dinghy-type sailing craft afloat and with a claimed speed of 20 knots in a fair wind; and then later a succession of luxurious (and seriously expensive) cruising catamarans.
Needless to say we took boat as well as caravan up to Ullswater. Those were the days when wives and mothers did not normally go out to work; the social climate was very different, mortgages were smaller, the so-called "essential" consumer goods and services such as televisions and new(-ish) cars and second cars and expensive foreign holidays were very rare luxuries that ordinary people didn't aspire to, and people put family life before consumer spending. So mothers tended to have time available to spend with their children whenever the kids were not in school. The upshot of this was that as a family, for many years we were out at the caravan - both boating and enjoying the countryside - throughout the whole of every school holiday except Christmas. Father took his annual fortnight's holiday with the rest of us (that is all he was allowed, and in those days that was regarded as quite normal entitlement for a man of his age), but otherwise he had to return to work during the week, and he then commuted out to join us at weekends.
And the caravan paid for itself, because during the school term we managed to let it for just enough holiday lets to repay my grandparents their loan which had enabled us to buy it, and to meet the site fees and the costs of upkeep.
Eventually we shared this idyllic spot with two other permanent caravans, and very occasional tenters. One of the other caravanning families had a sailing dinghy, which was a very considerable upgrade from our own rowing boat, and they were kind enough to take me sailing with them on several occasions, thus starting what has become a lifelong major recreation.
I also remember one visit by a tenting couple there, for two reasons. Their visit was abruptly curtailed when they were cooking inside the tent, a little too close to the tent wall, and the tent caught fire; it was horrifying to see how very quickly the whole tent was engulfed. That is an incident that one never forgets in a lifetime; having seen that happen I cannot imagine that I would ever dream of making the same mistake. Fortunately they both got out unhurt, but there was little left of their camp.
The other thing for which remember them was that they had a sailing canoe, which they named the Chankley Bore, after Edward Lear; "They went to sea in a sieve, they did, // In a sieve they went to sea ... // //... to the hills of the Chankley Bore ..." They also were kind enough to take me sailing in her.
As well as walking in the area we often rowed across the Lake, or round the point (the grounds of Sharrow Bay Hotel) to Howtown, or down to Pooley Bridge. I say "we"; sometimes it was the whole family, sometimes Mother and my younger brother and myself, or sometimes just myself.
Our preferred method of doing our shopping, which entailed going down to Pooley Bridge, was to row there. It was probably less laborious anyway than walking, and I don't remember there being a bus service. Much more recently, when I was up there a few years ago, I noticed that there is actually a bus service to Howtown; it runs twice a week (or it did then), on Thursdays - a morning run to take people into Penrith, and an afternoon one to bring them home again. If you miss that run, that's it for the week. Just too bad if you want to travel on a different day; Shanks' Pony.
Had we been nearer Howtown there was of course a much more attractive means of transport available than the local bus, the Ullswater "steamers", the Lady Of The Lake and nominally also the Raven. (And now, I understand, also the Lady Dorothy.) We used them and enjoyed them many times for excursions for their own sake, and for trips up to Glenridding, but where we were sited it would have been pointless to have used them for shopping trips to Pooley Bridge since it would have been almost as far to walk to Howtown in one direction as it was to Pooley Bridge in the other direction.
While we were there there was another caravan and camping site, rather larger, perhaps mid-way between us and Pooley Bridge. And either adjacent to this (or perhaps even on the same land) there was a slipway for at least one of the Ullswater steamers when out of commission, on a trolley running on a railway track into the lake. Throughout the time we were there the Raven was in fact ashore on this slip, possibly for overhaul, or perhaps at that time there wasn't enough trade to justify keeping both of them in commission.
Many years later I heard the story of her building; Raven bad been built as a set of prefabricated parts in a shipyard, the parts had then been transported to Ullswater by road, and she had then been assembled at the lakeside. I now learn from an internet search that these were originally working boats, transporting goods and workers to and from the Greenside lead mine at Glenridding, which closed in 1962, and I also learn that the Raven has been plying the lake since 1899.
We remained static at Seat Farm for a few years, and then my parents wisely decided that although we children would have our main annual holiday in the summer as a static holiday somewhere where we could enjoy the boat, we would share their holiday as a touring holiday at Easter. A very wise combination.
I just wonder whether the site that Colin used may have been either Seat Farm or this other site near the Raven slipway.
Many years later I was interested to see that the field where we used to caravan in the fifties is now the site of the headquarters of the Ullswater Yacht Club.
But even that was some decades ago, and I am fairly sure that the caravan and camping site near the Raven slip was still in operation then, but I have no information on whether it is still open.
Regards,
Oliver
Message 3 of 11 in Discussion
From: ColinCLee Sent: 12/06/2006 17:38
Hi Oliver
What do you want to know, re your headings.
Ullswater. a site there. site later changed hands. private beach. Sharrow Bay Hotel
Colin
Message 4 of 11 in Discussion
From: OliverShaw1 Sent: 12/06/2006 18:28
Sorry; that was not intended as a set of headings, but as a group of pointers picked out from your own previous message.
I was wondering whether the site you were on was the either of the two that I described, and I was sharing reminiscences of caravanning in that immediate area.
Oliver
Message 5 of 11 in Discussion
From: ColinCLee Sent: 12/06/2006 21:03
Hi Oliver
My original message was by way of presenting my credentials, where I came from and what we had done as a family, with regard to caravaning.
I'm happy to reminice, but fail to see the interest to other members.
However, re your original response, you were on the wrong side of the lake.
We had a pitch on the Waterfoot Hotel site, near Pooley Bridge, on the junction of the back road to Penrith. The site is still there, but now obscured by trees and without the views, would not be as attractive.
The private beach was a section of foreshore between the lake and the road (A592) on the junction previously described. It was owned by two ladies who lived in Penrith. I obtained permission to fence off the section and provide a gated access. It's still there.
The site was purchased by the Wakefield Company, who owned the pleasure boats you mentioned.
The Sharrow Bay Hotel, well it was a one off, we have eaten in many establishments, in many countries in the world and nothing could match it. There was a turreted section in the dining room, which from an elevated position looked down the lake, towards Glennridding into the setting sun. The atmosphere was fantastic (romantic)the food, well, perhaps it is unbelievable but there were up to thirty different items on the main course plate. The main course was served on an individual prepared plate with perhaps three sorts of potatoes, four or more portions of diferrent vegetables, three sorts of peppers, a sprig of lettuce with an onion ring encasing a cherry and so on. The sweet trolley was out of this world and then you retired to the lounge for coffee.
The hotel was owned by two gentleman friends, one the chef and the other the manager, the bedrooms didn't have numbers, only girls names, all very gracious and genteel.
Your reminicinces of the lake and your shopping trips to Pooley Bridge, put me in mind of The Amazons, a television series you may recall.
Happy days.
Regards
Colin
PS. This response screen without a spellcheck and save, is a bit tedious. I'm only a simple engineer.
Message 6 of 11 in Discussion
From: Brian Sent: 12/06/2006 22:31
Colin
I type all my longer messages in MSWord so I can save and come back to it later as well as running a spellcheck before cutting and posting!
Brian Miller
Message 7 of 11 in Discussion
From: ColinCLee Sent: 12/06/2006 22:50
Good thinking Brian
Colin
Message 8 of 11 in Discussion
From: kerryseacadets Sent: 13/06/2006 09:42
I certainly find Colin's article interesting, it made me start to think about our 'caravanning history' and the varied cars that i have towed with over last twenty years. My Safari (1981 12/2) is probably most modern caravan we have owned
Towcars ranging from a Hillman Hunter GT, a Wolsey 6, several fords and a couple of Citreons
Thanks for bringing back 'times past'
Kerry
From: Brian (Original Message) Sent: 11/06/2006 19:40
ColinCLee is a rather special new member. He is Karen's (kplee) father who has been caravanning for over 50 years and has owned Safaris for 38 years.
I have offered to post his emails on the group, and I hope that this is the first of a series of fascinating reminiscences.
Hi Brian
Thank you for your welcome note.
Karen has gone back to London now but we have had much pleasure reminiscing our caravan days. We have been preparing the van to sell, with a great deal of nostalgia, perhaps also with some regret.
We, that is my wife Joyce and I, started caravaning in the early 50's with a small two berth (the make I can't recall). Karen was weened in a van. the sink doubling as a baby bath. We progressed on to a Cresta, fifteen foot as I recall, but it had a toilet room and a drop down double bed, much more civilised.
By now we were four as Nick had arrived (Karen's brother) and we had many happy holidays in the UK.
Returning from a holiday in Scotland about 1960 we stayed on a site on Lake Ulswater and fell in love with a Thompson Glen Rosa that was for sale. It was an eighteen footer and we still wonder about its accommodation. Two doors, two double wardrobes, a sideboard, two dinettes, a toilet room, no end of roof lockers and all the amenities we could desire.
So we purchased it and for eight years, every Friday evening, from March to November we travelled to The Lakes. We bought a Ski Boat and a Sailing Dinghy, negotiated a private beach on Ulswater and for a decade as they say "we lived the life of O'Rielly".
By then we were five as Wendy had arrived (Karen's sister) and we had purchased another van, a twenty five foot Pemberton.
In 67 the picture was changing, they imposed a speed restriction on the lake and the site was bought by a money orientated company.
We exchanged our vans for a 17/4 Safari and in 68 bid farewell to the lakes and started Rallying.
Knowing your interest in cars, I towed the Cresta with an Austin 95, but didn't need a big car when we were Static, so changed to MG Magnetes, that I exchanged each year for £200 (honest).
The other feature (on finance) I love to regale. The Sharrow Bay Hotel, which is still one of the renowned eating houses in this part of UK, was one of our pleasures. Dinner in those days was 19/6, yes Nineteen Shillings and Six pence. Now I believe it's in the £30 bracket.
However, in 68 we started Rallying with the North York's Centre and also joined the Safari Owner's Club. We stayed a member until I suppose the 21st Anniversary Rally in 1980 (have to dig out my Rally Plaques). We changed the van for a 17/S and later in 78 for a 15/4.
The Safari Club has many happy memories and anecdotes, that I could tell you, if interested, but not today.
We continued rallying until I suppose 96ish but regretably Joyce developed Parkinson's Decease some fourteen years ago, that put an end to another phase of life.
Karen said you were interested in the vehicles I towed with. Well, an Austin 95. an Austin 110, an Austin 1800, a Wolsley 110, occasionally a Land Rover, a 4.2 Daimler, a 3lt Rover Saloon, a Range Rover and more recently 3ltr Mercedes Estates.
I have many memories, some good and others not so good, of towing incidents, rigging the van for stability. experimenting with towing aids,
etc, etc, etc.
Again another story.
To summarise, as a family we have derived immense pleasure from caravaning, it is a way of life we would recommend to everyone, the younger the better. It teaches self reliance and discipline.
Regards.
Colin
Message 2 of 11 in Discussion
From: OliverShaw1 Sent: 12/06/2006 00:00
Ullswater, a site there, site later changed hands, private beach, Sharrow Bay Hotel ...
I just wonder whether we (i.e. my family) might have been on the same site, during the previous decade.
In I think 1953, in my boyhood, we moved from being static on Anglesey to a different static pitch in a new area, at Seat Farm on Ullswater. It wasn't at that time an official caravan site, but that was in the days when one often made private arrangements with any willing farmer. We had a lakeside pitch, a few tens of yards from the lake, and right adjacent to the woodland grounds of the Sharrow Bay Hotel and to the small stream that separates the woods from the farm field.
Unofficially the hotel woodlands were a great play area for us boys...
Four years previously we had bought a little 9-foot rowing boat, a folding boat - and a very good one - produced by Prouts of Canvey Island, who later went on to much greater things as the boating market rapidly expanded; first Shearwater catamarans, at the time one of the fastest dinghy-type sailing craft afloat and with a claimed speed of 20 knots in a fair wind; and then later a succession of luxurious (and seriously expensive) cruising catamarans.
Needless to say we took boat as well as caravan up to Ullswater. Those were the days when wives and mothers did not normally go out to work; the social climate was very different, mortgages were smaller, the so-called "essential" consumer goods and services such as televisions and new(-ish) cars and second cars and expensive foreign holidays were very rare luxuries that ordinary people didn't aspire to, and people put family life before consumer spending. So mothers tended to have time available to spend with their children whenever the kids were not in school. The upshot of this was that as a family, for many years we were out at the caravan - both boating and enjoying the countryside - throughout the whole of every school holiday except Christmas. Father took his annual fortnight's holiday with the rest of us (that is all he was allowed, and in those days that was regarded as quite normal entitlement for a man of his age), but otherwise he had to return to work during the week, and he then commuted out to join us at weekends.
And the caravan paid for itself, because during the school term we managed to let it for just enough holiday lets to repay my grandparents their loan which had enabled us to buy it, and to meet the site fees and the costs of upkeep.
Eventually we shared this idyllic spot with two other permanent caravans, and very occasional tenters. One of the other caravanning families had a sailing dinghy, which was a very considerable upgrade from our own rowing boat, and they were kind enough to take me sailing with them on several occasions, thus starting what has become a lifelong major recreation.
I also remember one visit by a tenting couple there, for two reasons. Their visit was abruptly curtailed when they were cooking inside the tent, a little too close to the tent wall, and the tent caught fire; it was horrifying to see how very quickly the whole tent was engulfed. That is an incident that one never forgets in a lifetime; having seen that happen I cannot imagine that I would ever dream of making the same mistake. Fortunately they both got out unhurt, but there was little left of their camp.
The other thing for which remember them was that they had a sailing canoe, which they named the Chankley Bore, after Edward Lear; "They went to sea in a sieve, they did, // In a sieve they went to sea ... // //... to the hills of the Chankley Bore ..." They also were kind enough to take me sailing in her.
As well as walking in the area we often rowed across the Lake, or round the point (the grounds of Sharrow Bay Hotel) to Howtown, or down to Pooley Bridge. I say "we"; sometimes it was the whole family, sometimes Mother and my younger brother and myself, or sometimes just myself.
Our preferred method of doing our shopping, which entailed going down to Pooley Bridge, was to row there. It was probably less laborious anyway than walking, and I don't remember there being a bus service. Much more recently, when I was up there a few years ago, I noticed that there is actually a bus service to Howtown; it runs twice a week (or it did then), on Thursdays - a morning run to take people into Penrith, and an afternoon one to bring them home again. If you miss that run, that's it for the week. Just too bad if you want to travel on a different day; Shanks' Pony.
Had we been nearer Howtown there was of course a much more attractive means of transport available than the local bus, the Ullswater "steamers", the Lady Of The Lake and nominally also the Raven. (And now, I understand, also the Lady Dorothy.) We used them and enjoyed them many times for excursions for their own sake, and for trips up to Glenridding, but where we were sited it would have been pointless to have used them for shopping trips to Pooley Bridge since it would have been almost as far to walk to Howtown in one direction as it was to Pooley Bridge in the other direction.
While we were there there was another caravan and camping site, rather larger, perhaps mid-way between us and Pooley Bridge. And either adjacent to this (or perhaps even on the same land) there was a slipway for at least one of the Ullswater steamers when out of commission, on a trolley running on a railway track into the lake. Throughout the time we were there the Raven was in fact ashore on this slip, possibly for overhaul, or perhaps at that time there wasn't enough trade to justify keeping both of them in commission.
Many years later I heard the story of her building; Raven bad been built as a set of prefabricated parts in a shipyard, the parts had then been transported to Ullswater by road, and she had then been assembled at the lakeside. I now learn from an internet search that these were originally working boats, transporting goods and workers to and from the Greenside lead mine at Glenridding, which closed in 1962, and I also learn that the Raven has been plying the lake since 1899.
We remained static at Seat Farm for a few years, and then my parents wisely decided that although we children would have our main annual holiday in the summer as a static holiday somewhere where we could enjoy the boat, we would share their holiday as a touring holiday at Easter. A very wise combination.
I just wonder whether the site that Colin used may have been either Seat Farm or this other site near the Raven slipway.
Many years later I was interested to see that the field where we used to caravan in the fifties is now the site of the headquarters of the Ullswater Yacht Club.
But even that was some decades ago, and I am fairly sure that the caravan and camping site near the Raven slip was still in operation then, but I have no information on whether it is still open.
Regards,
Oliver
Message 3 of 11 in Discussion
From: ColinCLee Sent: 12/06/2006 17:38
Hi Oliver
What do you want to know, re your headings.
Ullswater. a site there. site later changed hands. private beach. Sharrow Bay Hotel
Colin
Message 4 of 11 in Discussion
From: OliverShaw1 Sent: 12/06/2006 18:28
Sorry; that was not intended as a set of headings, but as a group of pointers picked out from your own previous message.
I was wondering whether the site you were on was the either of the two that I described, and I was sharing reminiscences of caravanning in that immediate area.
Oliver
Message 5 of 11 in Discussion
From: ColinCLee Sent: 12/06/2006 21:03
Hi Oliver
My original message was by way of presenting my credentials, where I came from and what we had done as a family, with regard to caravaning.
I'm happy to reminice, but fail to see the interest to other members.
However, re your original response, you were on the wrong side of the lake.
We had a pitch on the Waterfoot Hotel site, near Pooley Bridge, on the junction of the back road to Penrith. The site is still there, but now obscured by trees and without the views, would not be as attractive.
The private beach was a section of foreshore between the lake and the road (A592) on the junction previously described. It was owned by two ladies who lived in Penrith. I obtained permission to fence off the section and provide a gated access. It's still there.
The site was purchased by the Wakefield Company, who owned the pleasure boats you mentioned.
The Sharrow Bay Hotel, well it was a one off, we have eaten in many establishments, in many countries in the world and nothing could match it. There was a turreted section in the dining room, which from an elevated position looked down the lake, towards Glennridding into the setting sun. The atmosphere was fantastic (romantic)the food, well, perhaps it is unbelievable but there were up to thirty different items on the main course plate. The main course was served on an individual prepared plate with perhaps three sorts of potatoes, four or more portions of diferrent vegetables, three sorts of peppers, a sprig of lettuce with an onion ring encasing a cherry and so on. The sweet trolley was out of this world and then you retired to the lounge for coffee.
The hotel was owned by two gentleman friends, one the chef and the other the manager, the bedrooms didn't have numbers, only girls names, all very gracious and genteel.
Your reminicinces of the lake and your shopping trips to Pooley Bridge, put me in mind of The Amazons, a television series you may recall.
Happy days.
Regards
Colin
PS. This response screen without a spellcheck and save, is a bit tedious. I'm only a simple engineer.
Message 6 of 11 in Discussion
From: Brian Sent: 12/06/2006 22:31
Colin
I type all my longer messages in MSWord so I can save and come back to it later as well as running a spellcheck before cutting and posting!
Brian Miller
Message 7 of 11 in Discussion
From: ColinCLee Sent: 12/06/2006 22:50
Good thinking Brian
Colin
Message 8 of 11 in Discussion
From: kerryseacadets Sent: 13/06/2006 09:42
I certainly find Colin's article interesting, it made me start to think about our 'caravanning history' and the varied cars that i have towed with over last twenty years. My Safari (1981 12/2) is probably most modern caravan we have owned
Towcars ranging from a Hillman Hunter GT, a Wolsey 6, several fords and a couple of Citreons
Thanks for bringing back 'times past'
Kerry