Betty's Utility Room

It's with great sadness (ahem) that I have to note that Weston Super Mare Grand Pier has been *engulfed by flames* as the tabloids would have it.

GMTV this morning encouraged viewers to send in their "memories" of the pier. I mean - who the fuck has memories of a seaside pier? They're much of a muchness and you'd have to be really easily pleased to think of them with any fondness.

I do have (not particularly fond) memories of Weston though, because we used to take our annual week's holiday there during my childhood.

As I've said before, if you grew up in the 1960's or '70's, and you were of 'umble origin, chances were that you went to the same holiday destination every bloody year. No one ever questioned why they had to go to the same place year in year out - they just did. One of my uncles and his family went all the way to Swanage in Dorset, which was a bloody long way from Staffordshire. They didn't moan about the long journey or the dreariness of the caravan park they stayed in - they just rolled up their sleeves and got on with it.

Holidays weren't to be enjoyed really, once you'd got past the age of about five. They were an endurance test from which you emerged tired, depressed and malnourished, but eager to get back to home comforts.

When I was eight, my parents took a controversial decision - THEY DECIDED TO CHANGE THEIR HOLIDAY DESTINATION.

In previous years, we'd gone to Colwyn Bay in North Wales ... but the landlady of the guesthouse we always stayed in had decided to retire.

My dad decided that we were going to a place he had fond memories of ("????") It was the place where he convalesced after breaking his leg in a mining accident.

I just put that bit in so that I can score a few salt of the earth prole points over you middle class ponces.

Anyway, that place was Weston Super Mare.

Here are some happy memories of Weston. Do you think I should e-mail them to GMTV, and would the lovely Kate Garroway read them out tomorrow morning?

1. I can remember us finding a nice, quiet spot on the beach which was warmer, more sheltered and less blustery than anywhere else on the seafront. We put down our deckchairs and relaxed. About two minutes later, a donkey being ridden by a small child walked past, stopped and dropped a stinking heap of dung a few feet away from us, so we had to move.

2. Once we went on a coach mystery tour around Chew Valley Lake, stopping off at a few pubs on the way. The journey back around The Mendip Hills was particularly memorable. As the coach screeched around winding hidden bends are great speed, and veered bumpily across the country lanes, it became apparent that the driver had partaken of a lot of beer in each of the pubs. "The driver is completely drunk," my mum whispered "but don't say anything about it because his bloody wife is sitting in front of us".

3. On another coach tour, this time to Bath, in 1974, I time travelled back to 1971. That's all I'm going to say. It wasn't a very pleasant experience, I felt very nauseous afterwards and it involved people in tank tops.

4. The dodgy guesthouse we stayed at was run by one of those women in their fifties who has a very dark suntan, long, dyed black hair and always wears carmen red lipstick. The sort of woman who says "people always say to me that I look a bit Italian or Spanish and a man who chatted me up once told me that I look like Gina Lollobrigida". When we were sat down for breakfast once she leaned over my dad and said "you've got lovely eyes".

5. One year, in a Fawlty Towersesque way, a bloke died during the first night in the room next to us.

6. On another night it was raining heavily and I awoke to find that my bed was soaked from water that had leaked through the ceiling. We weren't even on the top floor.

7. Once I dry heaved all the way through the dinner. The salad was covered in living, moving aphids.

8. I was nearly run over by a motor bike in the town centre.

9. We used to go to the Golden Egg eaterie in Weston once every holiday for an omelette and chips. The seats were big, puffy, mustard coloured things and the backs of your legs used to stick to them so that when you stood up you had wheals all over your thighs.

10. Most of the West Midlands population decided to take their annual holiday in Weston the same week as us, for reasons unknown. We bumped into one bloke who my dad knew and his family. Later, my dad informed me that this bloke was the real dad of one of my friends, and she was the result of a one night stand.

11. For many years afterwards, I used to have regular dreams about drowning at Weston, even though the sea was usually about twenty miles out at any given time.

Will that do?

Labels: drunken coach drivers, GMTV, mud, mystery tours, piers, the lovely Kate Garroway, Weston Super Mare