Granparents abroad

My maternal grandparents – especially my grandad, Daddy Mick – loved travelling. They were among the first generation to enjoy relatively cheap European holidays.

I have fond memories of excitedly going to the airport with my parents to collect Nan and Daddy Mick (He didn’t want us to call him grandad as he said it made him feel old) from their two-week trips to Italy, Spain or Morocco.

Daddy Mick would always be super tanned – ‘black as the ace of spades’ in Nan’s words – while she would be lightly sun-kissed.

I was excited to see them – we spent a lot of time with them when we were kids – and also excited at what they had brought us back.

Two holiday gifts that stick in my mind are a pencil case in the shape of a guitar with coloured pencils for strings, and a ring with a trigger and a little bulb on top that opened when you squeezed it, revealing a tiny male figure. I can’t remember whether it was a cowboy or a bullfighter, but either would have thrilled me.

Daddy Mick was a gadget lover and had a cine camera that he always took away with him, which meant that a few weeks after they returned, the family would sit down after Sunday tea and vicariously enjoy their Mediterranean adventures.

It was a running family joke that Nan was always clinging on to her handbag for dear life in every shot (even on the beach), while Daddy Mick visibly changed from white to red to swarthy over the course of the holiday.

Nan giving Madonna’s arms a run for their money. Note closely guarded handbag.

Nan and Daddy Mick loved taking us on holiday with them sometimes, too. One year my older sister Tracy was taken to Sorrento, returning, oddly, with a gift set of local rocks and a shell that smelled of animal poo.

I was taken to Torremolinos one year, and up to Blackpool and Hartlepool another time.

My grandparents’ trips felt impossibly exciting and glamorous to us then – two weeks in the Mediterranean, captured on film and replayed on Sunday evenings after tea.

It’s only as an adult that I appreciate how much being able to go abroad meant to Nan and Daddy Mick – an escape from hard work and a chance to properly relax. No sooner were they be back from one trip than a pile of travel brochures would arrive, ready for Daddy Mick to decide where they were going next.

I’ll share my own memories of travelling with them next time.