Holidays Fast and Present.

I used to go caravanning as a kid quite a few years ago now; we'd drive up from home to the Lincolnshire coast and I'd be as excited as Larry Hagman on ice.  We'd stay in a huge caravan complex in one of those static caravans, which at the time I guess, was fairly glamorous.  

On the site lay a huge entertainment building (the building itself wasn't entertaining as such but often it's contents were) which sprouted talents such as local comedians (who always resembled members of the pop combo 'Black Lace' for some reason); cabaret acts (the boom of the waltz I could hear from my bedroom in the caravan whilst I tried to sleep) and once or twice a week they'd show British wrestling bouts (unfortunately the likes of 'Big Puff Daddy' and 'Giant 50cents' never made it to this neck of the woods.

I remember they had a lilo in the grounds; bloody cold and concretey...I can't actually remember swimming in it rather just playing around the edges.  

We went here quite a few times over the years, and so I visited at different stages of my life.  Clearly one year I wasn't so interested in the Butlins style talent shows and magic performances and progressed to shyly looking at girls in the disco.  I distinctly recall one particular girl I 'fancied' and she said 'Hi' to me – it was the first time I'd heard somebody say 'Hi' outside of US telly...it was one of the best moments of my life up to that point.  Being a particularly shy young lad I, of course, never followed it up.  I wonder what became of her.

The year before I hooked up with some cooler older kids (they, gasp, smoked for gods sake) and felt like the bee knees, until one female slot machine attendant thought I was a girl.  

I often became lost in the world of the flight simulator arcade game 'Star Wars'.  I was Luke Skywalker, albeit living in a caravan with the face of a girl.  It's around this time I was 'taught' how to wet a 1p piece and spin it so some of the older arcade machines thought it to be 10p.  That, thankfully, was about the time me and 'life of crime' said our goodbyes...aside from perhaps one or two things later in life...nothing bad mind.

Jumping a few years into the future I started 'tarting' myself up a little - the girl face slowly morphing into a more appropriate masculine appearance – and I armed myself with a bottle of Denim.  This is the year that 'White Lines' appeared on the scene and instead of learning break dancing and 'Body Wapping' in the streets of the inner city, I was taught it in the foyer of a caravan park disco.  Passing bingo traffic must have thought they'd supped one too many pipes of advocat on sight of the crazy gymnastics going on under their 'legs eleven'.

It was many years (15 as a hunch) before I revisited this place – but I've taken my own children there to share my memories whilst forging their own.  There is a touch of faded seaside glamour about the place now, things have moved on in the world but it still has it's moments of joy.