SANDCASTLES?

SANDCASTLES

By Barbara Thomas 

 When I was around nine years old, my younger sister and I were lucky enough to go to the seaside quite often, mainly because my Dad owned a little black four seater Ford. How many readers can remember back in the days when Henry Ford’s proudly said these famous words, “you can choose any colour as long as it’s black”. I digress. 

As a family of four we would travel as far as Margate or Ramsgate in a day. My sister and I would go to bed early for an early start the next morning usually five am As we slept mum would compile everything needed for a good day out. Kettle, primus stove, cutlery, real plates, none of the paper kind, real cups and even saucers, no mugs for mum!! Then came the frying pan followed by the food, which would be taken out of the cool larder first thing in the morning. Margarine, and lard. Vegetable oil was never on the menu. Followed by eggs, bread and bacon and of course not forgetting the tea leaves and sugar. All ready for our adventure Dad would start packing everything in the back of Little Joey, as us girls had named him. Everything but the kitchen sink, oh hold on!! I forgot the picnic table, small fold up seats and of course the washing up bowl, drying cloths and not forgetting bicarbonate of soda, no such thing as washing up liquid. Dad would crank the starting handle, check the orange indicator lights like tongues, were working. We were off, so early it was still dark outside. Old Joey chugged along, no Motorways then. Around 10am dad drew up on a grass verge away from the road. Then the fun started we all had our jobs to do even my little sister. Last out the table would be erected. Table laid, plates crockery put into place, milk emptied in small jug sugar in a bowl salt and pepper, then my sister and I could relax and go and discover our surroundings. Dad then opened the bonnet, there would be a loud hiss, he would then check the water. Job done. Now for the important part of the ritual, lighting the primus stove, and kettle on for the first cup of tea of the day. Then frying pan followed, lard placed in first, then eggs and bacon. We would be called to come and sit down and hungrily eat our Sunday morning fry-up.

 Meal over, kettle put back on, bowl filled with washing up, then my most hated job, drying up. Everything carefully stacked away, off again to our destination, Margate seafront. Several hours later we arrived, Dad made sure we were settled on the sea-front then kissed my Mum goodbye, as he made his way to the greyhound stadium, promising he wouldn’t be longer than need be? Mum positioned herself on the sand half way down near the waters edge but not that far from the road. It didn’t matter how many bucket and spades we had our parents always bought us new ones. “It wasn’t until later years that I realized how lucky both my sister and I had been” So armed with our new buckets and spades we started to build our sandcastles, we would spend our time trying to outdo each other. Then we needed water for our moats, off we trotted across the sand. If you have never been to Margate beach you are missing a beautiful stretch of golden sands. Which is still looks the same now as it did when I was nine, (except now the sand is imported). Mum had sat down on the sand with her knitting, listening to an old portable wireless she had brought with her. She checked the time and called us back for tea. Out came the flask and orange juice, plus cakes she had cooked the day before. We shared an apple, no such thing as a whole apple or orange to ourselves, everything was quartered. When we had finished and asked to go and play, mum said dad would be back soon and she was just going to pop over the road to get a fresh jug of tea for dad, and we were not to wonder off, stay together and if we were really lucky we might just might pop into Dreamland before we made for home after picking up some fish and chips. We watched mum go then made our way to the water front, then we heard people pointing and shouting, something was in the water that was attracting a lot of attention. So both of us looked, we were terrified and dropped our buckets and ran up the beach to be met by mum, we were crying she calmed us down then asked me what had happened? I said there were Sharks in the sea. Mum kept a straight face and sat us down, drying our eyes, and explained that they weren’t Sharks but Porpoises. When Dad came back mum retold the story, they both laughed. He came with us to collect our toys then packed everything up and took it to the car then took us to Dreamland, our worries soon forgotten, on the way home we eat fish and chips out of newspaper. At home we fell into bed, knowing we had school in the morning. What a story to tell the teacher. The end B.Thomas (This actually happened, my parents were not rich, but hard working. Dad was a window cleaner, self employed and Mum worked on the tills in Victor Values (now Tesco’s).

 Copyright Barbara Thomas