At New Year 2004 I found these photographs in an album in my parents' loft.
It now seems that it was almost inevitable I ended up with my own VW camper,
even though it was 40 years before that happened.
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August Bank Holiday, 1959, Cynnant Valley, Mid Wales. Above: the webweaver, fast approaching the age of 3, and his mother. Notice the bench seat removed and used as camping furniture. People who know about such things have determined that the Kombi was, or perhaps still is, a 1954 or '55 model. |
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The aluminium bodied camping trailer was immensely basic, but very useful, I'm told, though its only real facility was the removable tailboard. Despite appearances the webweaver (right), has never played golf. |
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Richard & Daphne, maternal grandparents, mother (carrying my sister) & Captain Wingnut at Two Bridges, Dartmoor in September 1959. |
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Easter, 1960: Gwenlas, Mid Wales, (sleeping bags airing on the van roof). |
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Summer, 1960: At Sanna on the
Ardnamurchan peninsula, furthest west point on the British mainland.
Can you imagine undertaking a journey like that nowadays? Very nearly 600 miles, probably more allowing for finding two campsites en route. We'd have set off from Gloucester, no motorways, towing a lightweight but large trailer and with only an 1100 and something cc engine, heavy queuing through Warrington, Preston, Kendal, Carlisle, Glasgow......... |
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August 1961 in the Black Mountains. The caption reads "Camp Site at Hay Bluff". It's not a campsite, of course, just the entrance to a Forestry Commission plantation. Note the ubiquitous milk churn used as a water tank. |
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Mother, "Archbishop Makarios", who was much in the news at the time, (he wore a hat not dissimilar to our canvas water bucket), and my sister. |
