SUMMER HOLIDAYS 1967

My summer holidays in London had been interrupted by returning to the Home so I could go on a group holiday with the others. The older boys went off to scout camp so really it was not the entire family group. It was thought that a holiday by the seaside would be something I would not want to miss. Whilst for all the others a trip to the seaside was a new experience, for me, although it could be fun, it was nothing new; I had spent two years by the sea before coming to the Home.

Having to return from London was perhaps not that much fun. If the holiday was to start badly the journey was by road. Car and coach travel have never been my favourite method of travel due to travel sickness. We travelled up in a car and a small van; most of the journey for me was in the van peering out of the small back window trying not to feel sick.

Holland on Sea was our destination. By late afternoon we had arrived at the small bungalow on the top of the cliffs where we were going to stay. We were told not to wander off. There was a short trip down to the beach for a quick look around and then it was back to the bungalow to sort out everything.

Along with the Houseparent, a married couple were going to help look after us during the holiday. At this point, I was allowed to eat and generally became happier with the holiday. The sleeping arrangements for us children were on thin waste–cotton filled mattresses, placed on the floor in various parts of the bungalow. The adults had proper beds. I was going to share the room of the married couple; it was thought I would be the quietest of the group and not want to spend the night chattering. After a light supper we all went off to bed; it appeared the sooner we were asleep, the sooner the next day would start. I was quite happy sleeping in a room on my own; at some later point the married couple must have gone to bed, but I was not woken.

The following morning I did wake up quite early. It was not really dawn, but just starting to show the first stages of daylight. The curtain was partly open together with a window that was slightly ajar. My mattress had been placed under this window. It was not really raining outside, but a slight drizzle was allowing the odd drop of rain in from the open gap. I thought about closing the window, but as it was something that I had not really seen as to how it worked, I decided that I might make a noise and wake the couple up.

My other thought was on visiting the lavatory. I was not desperate to go but had I been in my own bedroom, I could have left the room without waking anyone up. With my mattress being positioned at the furthest point from the door and not knowing the layout of the room, I decided to wait until it was lighter so I could see my way out. Soon I was asleep again. When I woke up again it was still not fully light, there was the feeling of drops of rain hitting my head, but I also knew my bed was wet. The trouble I would be in for wetting the bed would be something I would find out later. I went back to sleep until it was time to get up.

I could have not have chosen a worse time to wet the bed. Unlike the Home, our mattresses here did not have a rubber sheet on top to give protection from accidents. That I had managed to soak the mattress through to the other side seemed to be a major wrongdoing. This was not the best way to start the holiday.

There was no time to punish me. I was soon in the bathroom with the bath running at full flow. In the Home, the hot water supply varied from day to day, one large boiler feeding twelve flats on one side of the grounds; it could be temperamental over its supply and on many occasions if too much hot water was used by all the flats, the temperature dropped considerably. Here the hot water came from a tank that had been heating up during the night. The bathwater was hot, although cold water was running into the bath at the same time. When I was ordered into the bath, it was far hotter than usual. Within moments I was in tears owing to its temperature, with the bath being quite full there was no room to add any extra cold water. I was told off for acting like a baby. Eventually I was allowed out of the bath, and whilst I dried myself off, the Houseparent went off to get my clothes.

During breakfast my accident was revealed to all; as I was one of the eldest here it was done to shame me. We were all reminded that before going to bed, we should make sure we visited the lavatory. If there were any more bedwetting, part of our holiday money would be used to purchase rubber sheets for those that needed them. If only I had not been made to come on this holiday, life would have been much more fun.

Another disappointment for me was later that morning. We were all bought ice creams; this was something we rarely had at the Home. The excitement did not last for me. How I bumped into one of the girls I did not know; it was a total accident, her ice cream fell onto the grass and was ruined. The worst part was that we had only just received them and had managed about two licks each. Instead of accepting my word that it was an accident, my ice cream was removed from my hand and given to the girl – life was not fair.

The Houseparent took me to an empty room. Even as this was a holiday, I was not going to be allowed to disrupt it for others. The slipper for wetting the bed was now given to me; the hits with the slipper were soon over. At least I was not receiving any extra hits for the ice cream event, but it was enough for me to hate this holiday.

Whilst the others were indoors playing games, I was now sent outside to sit by the side of the building to think about whether I wanted to improve my behaviour. Keeping out of the others’ way whilst I got over my tears was a good idea, which were more for the loss of my ice cream than the slipper for wetting my bed. It would have only taken one of them to tease me, for me to lose my temper.

That night my mattress was moved into the hall. Even with it staying out of doors for the day it had not dried out. After lying in my bed for a short while, I could feel the dampness of the mattress. With the warm weather, it was not too uncomfortable, but during the night, I could not help wetting the bed again.

Having already been told I had ruined the mattress after the first night, I knew that I could not do any more damage, so I was not worried over a second accident. I could expect that when we were back at the Home, some of my pocket money would be stopped to pay for a replacement mattress. On getting up, I was given the slipper, and told once I had finished my bath, to put the mattress and my sheets outside; it was thought pointless giving me any clean sheets.

The threat by the Houseparent of using our holiday fund to purchase rubber sheets did not happen after one of the younger boys wet his bed on the second night. For the rest of the holiday his soaked mattress was placed at the end of the hall next to mine as a punishment. Both of us wet our beds each night due to their continual dampness; each morning we dragged our mattresses outside to dry off slightly.

In an odd way, the Houseparent was kind to me over my bedwetting. Normally if I was given the slipper I would be in tears. Here, although the punishment of the slipper was still given, it was very light, not hard enough to make me cry, but loud enough to let all the others know I was punished over my actions. All seemed to take enjoyment during the holiday of peering around the corners in the bungalow and watch the Houseparent slipper me.

  At odd times the holiday was fun. When taken down to the beach there were several activities. We were told off for prodding a seal that had died quite some time ago and had turned to a hard lump of skin. A couple of donkey rides were organised for the youngest members of the group; ponies were available for anyone too large to fit on a donkey. I was the only one to take up this offer.

Nearly all my holiday pocket money went on this activity during our stay. I was a bit of a nuisance at times, when group activities or food was organised; I was at the opposite end of the beach on a pony. The owner of the ponies gave me longer rides as there was not a parent around waiting for the ride to end. It appeared if one child was already on a pony, it was a good way of drawing other children in. I was not in any hurry to get back to the rest of the group.

  During the holiday, some of our holiday fund was pooled together to buy a kite. The big black pirate kite would have been a wonderful toy to have in the grounds of the Home with its vast space. Where our holiday bungalow was, there was not enough room to run to allow the kit to be airborne easily. Eventually the kite was up in the air. Strong winds made it unmanageable, and within a short while it had tangled itself around some wires that ran high across from some wooden poles. Possibly it was luck that the string snapped as soon as the kite became tangled. It was doubtful if the wires were for telephones to the holiday bungalows. Our flat could have had one less returning depending what the voltage in the wires had been.

On the next visit my mother paid to the Home, the Houseparent wasted no time in reporting my bedwetting and all my other faults during the holiday. Any hope of my mother thinking I was old enough to go without a rubber sheet on my bed in London now vanished forever, even though I had not had any problems during my visits home.

CUBS

This type of group activity had never really been to my liking even from the start of my arrival at eight. To me there seemed little point in organised games in the hut, or demonstrations of how to tie knots. Once you had perfected the granny knot and the hangman’s knot, the need for others seemed slight in my mind.

The way badges were awarded was frustrating; most of the Sisters and Helpers seemed to provide the documentation to the Sister who ran the cub pack, for almost every badge possible. The tests you had to do for general housework and similar activities we seemed to do as normal events of the day. The Sister who would have filled in the necessary forms for me seemed to think otherwise. Whilst all my friends seemed to gain arms full of badges, other than the regular cub badges my jumper remained badge free. Eventually because of my age, I became a Seconder. Even with a new Houseparent, no badges came my way.

Discipline in our pack was quite strict; the Sister in charge would turn a blind eye when any Sixer decided to sort out a younger member. If you were a failure in some competition and had let down your Six, it was an expected matter to be hit in the form of a caning with the wooden beads. These were strung on a long shoelace and were always in the possession of each Sixer. When hit on your bare legs it did hurt. All I could look forward to was becoming a Sixer at some point and preserving the tradition.

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It was not a case of not trying to like cubs. In my first year, I had even been given a copy of the Wolf Cub Jubilee book; possibly the most interesting part was a diary section in the centre of the book. This was started at length in January, but slowly diminished in cub content as the year went on. The text in the book was informative and some of the activities I did try out. There were slight objections to my attempts at lino printing; the main drawback was the thin style of lino offcut I managed to acquire rather than the messy ink that one needed to print with.

Restrictions when I showed the content of the book to adults were placed on bow and arrows, lifesaving, making an oversize catapult, a raft (there was no water anyway). I also failed with the pop-gun and a whistle by not having the correct type of tree to supply the wood, and ink from a toadstool to write with was something I was not going to be allowed to try.

The main event of Cub Jubilee Year was to help build a racing car in the shape of a rocket. One of the adults helped us during its manufacture. With only limited resources, our effort was passable but did not have any of the luxury parts that we saw in the other challenges when the day came.

An odd item of the 7th Harpenden cub pack was our uniforms. When you joined the cubs, you would usually have a new uniform. For our pack, we started with a uniform that had seen a previous cub, with any badges that had been awarded removed. You started cubs with a rather worn jumper. We needed neater looking clothing for odd events, so the older and taller members were issued with some scouting items. It was not the current issue and appeared to have come from packs outside the area. Once our local cub badges were affixed we did look smart in our buff shirts but totally different from every other cub pack.

Whilst our uniforms during the competition fared well our rocket did not. During an early run, it failed on a downward slope and we could only watch from that point on.

I was nearing the age to join the scouts, however shortly before this I should have been promoted to a Sixer together with a friend of equal status, but we were passed over and two other members took charge of our Sixes. At this point, I wanted to have no more to do with cubs. My first requests to leave were to the Sister in charge of our pack, and when this failed it was the Houseparent that I asked to leave cubs. From that point on, all the adults questioned me as to why I wanted to leave. To me it seemed an easy thing: I would no longer attend.

Resigning from cubs was not allowed. It was similar to a television programme, where a man who had resigned from his work, was kept captive in a village. He attempted to escape but was always brought back. For us it was the same, run away from the Home you and would just be returned.

It was not that I was allowed to finish cubs instantly. For several more weeks, I was made to attend, even if I showed no real enthusiasm over any of the activities. Finally, the adults decided that my presence was no longer required and I dropped that evening activity.

Continued

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