It all began with a copy of the Radio Times. Harry Mottram saw an advert for a cheap week in a hotel in West Wales and it led to a 40 year love affair
The rain came down and another Sunday afternoon was drifting away towards the dreaded Monday morning and work. We needed a holiday. It was October 1986. My mum had died, I hated my job, the bills were piling up, the house was falling apart, Linda and I were both stressed out with life in general with a one-year-old baby Giles.
A tiny advert in The Radio Times advertised the charms of a seaside town in Wales with sandy beaches, old fashioned shops and a medieval castle overlooking a bay. And even more enticing an advert next to it for a hotel offering a half price stay for families in mid-October – out of season.
I showed the cutting to Linda and we agreed a holiday was what we needed and Tenby sounded about right and it would mostly be a motorway drive without twists and turns as Giles was acutely car sick. I rang the hotel and booked a week despite the protestations of my unhelpful employer who seemed to think someone booking a holiday was some sort of traitor to his advertising agency in Clifton.
Tenby, or in Welsh, Dinbych-y-pysgod, meaning the Little Fort of the Fishes, a reference to its sheltered harbour protected by a fort was as picturesque back in 1986 as it is now. It’s one of its charms, the fact it doesn’t seem to change much – which of course is deceptive as the cinema has gone, St Catherine’s Island has been turned into an ‘attraction’ and the joke shop has closed.
From that first visit we were to return to the town many times along with its close neighbour Saundersfoot with its harbour and sandy beach. That first time was with Giles as a toddler but then as the family grew there was Ashley, Lawrence and Milena – and later with various boy and girl friends, Ashley’s wife Jenny and our grandchildren Ellie and Jake it became something of a tradition to go there. In between the years we tried Cornwall, North Wales, Weymouth and the Lake District but the pull to return to Pembrokeshire was too strong
For children it’s the appeal of small shops selling toys, sweets and all things seaside, plus the narrow streets, long walks along the coast, the sandy beaches and the Beaney Baby store and of course The Rock. There’s one on Tenby’s North Beach and one midway along the seafront at Saundersfoot – rocks just large enough to seem like a mini mountain to a child but small enough to know they are safe in scrambling up its sides.
As the family got older the attraction of the town’s pubs became a new attraction along with late night beach walks – with or without beer – leading to high jinks and midnight dips in the surf – is one way of putting it.
The one reoccurring part of a trip to Pembrokeshire along the M4 and A roads after the service station at Pont Abraham is the number of times our car conked out or limped home. The first time was an altimeter in my old VW Golf. Then there was the broken spark plug leading to a tortuous journey in another old banger – a VW Passat – with only three cylinders working – and my Citroen (or was it a Vauxhall) overheating which needed frequent stops as smoke poured out of the bonnet.
We’ve known the town in June drizzle, October heat, July storms and September rain – and weeks when it was almost too hot. We’ve stayed in flats, holiday lets, terraced houses, caravan and camping parks and even a guest house (now a retirement home). We’ve stayed there during family arguments and tragedies, grizzly toddlers and grumpy teenagers and through so many happy times which is why we’ve kept taking the road west ever since that tiny advert in the Radio Times caught my attention.
The walled town is compact with much of its old world charm in the centre but like all places it has spread out draining marshland nearby and rising up the surrounding hills. Even so with a population of fewer thatn 5,000 it is small as a centre by the standards of the 21st century.
Pembrokeshire is at the western end of West Wales and with its moors, rugged coast and small towns to my mind is similar to the far end of Cornwall. But unlike the surfing centres of Bude and Newquay it remains less popular and even unfashionable. I recall one of Lawrence’s teachers at school asking why he was going on holiday in Wales, saying, ‘don’t your parents have any money?’ Various friends and relatives have suggested Wales is ‘rubbish’ and ‘common’ and even ‘anti-English’ which of course is nonsense filled with snobbishness.
At a dinner party a friend once told me with a straight face that it would be cheaper to take the family to southern Spain, Greece or Turkey for two weeks rather than a week in Tenby. Such is the ignorance of some – for us the short drive (we could be there before lunch) plus the magnificent coastline was more than enough of an incentive.
The family don’t share my interest in town’s history (but never mind) as revealed by the museum, the church and Tudor House. This last one is owned by The National Trust and gives a flavour of what life was like in the 14th and 15th cenuries with its built-in rather smelly toliet, bed bugs and lice – and lack of hygiene – but a varied diet – richer in many ways than ours – even it they were riddled with worms.
The museum with its permanent collection of Augustus John paintings and sketches and work by his sister are another pull for me. Then there are all those photos and film footage of how Tenby became a holiday distinationj in edwardian England up to the early 1950s when thousands descended by train for beach running races and to watch amaeurteur dramaticals in the local theatre. It’s a revelation how good life was before air travel and package holidays.
St Mary’s Church is not just a place worship but a testament to the lives of those who lived and died in the pairsh over the centuries. Dating in part from the 13th century it’s a piece of living history with the past carved into its interior. The barrel roof, the memorials to mathmetician Robert Recorde, and Thomas White who helped to hide Henry Tudor from the Lancastrians and its two fonts.
And apart from these sentinels to the past there’s the town wall with one entrance at Five Arches, St Catherine’s Island accessible at low tide with its Victorian fort and the distant Caldey Island (Comedy Island to my daughter in law Jenny) home to a monastery and seals who slosh around its shoreline.
Yes, that advert in The Radio Times back in 1986 has led to so many good memories ever since.
Rapscallion Magazine is an online publication and is edited by Harry Mottram and is published for his own interest.
Harry is a freelance journalist. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube etc
Email:harryfmottram@gmail.com
Website:www.harrymottram.co.uk
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