Armthorpe, where I grew up, was a small mining village of overwhelming familiarity where it was virtually impossible to walk down any street without running into someone you knew. A major part of village life were the ‘working men’s clubs’ that smelled heavily of tobacco and mucky beer. Nearly everyone in the village frequented one or more of these clubs and diligently paid their dues (membership fees), which would be used to support local causes. The money collected also went towards one of the major highlights of my tween years – The Club Trip. An annual outing to some seaside resort on the east coast - we didn’t really care where - it was an adventure!
It all began with a ritual, early rise and breakfast while my mum packed sandwiches, biscuits and other assorted goodies into her vast array of Tupperware. The house would be bedlam as me and my sisters stuffed a giant bag with towels, swimming costumes, water wings, buckets, spades and any other beach paraphernalia we could find. The youngest of our clan, was just a toddler and her stroller would act as the luggage trolley as we headed out to the club, where the buses were waiting.
Once we had all piled on to our assigned bus all of the kids were given a little brown envelope filled with pocket money, usually about a fiver (five pounds), which was pretty good going back then. However, this reward did not come without a price, because we were also given what looked like a luggage tag to attach somewhere about our person in case we got lost, which is pretty embarrassing for a ten year old.
Eventually the buses would roll out and the raucous singing would begin –my favourites were Alice The Camel and One Man Went To Mow. We always took the same route out of the village and when we passed Larch Drive my Dad would shout “wave to your great-grandad”. I never met my great-granddad, he died before I was born, but every year my Dad would tell us how his grandad used to stand on the corner and wave off the club trip and the tradition always lived on.
Soon, the initial excitement would fade and the kids would grow impatient – two hours seemed like forever. When we were a few miles from our destination my dad would liven the party, by offering a prize to the first one of us that could see the sea. Me and my sisters would shout and point at some line on the horizon, claiming victory, but most of the time you couldn’t actually see the sea until you were right beside it.
We usually arrived about 1O ish and the plan was always the same, the younger men would seek out the nearest pub, preferably with a beer garden, so they could slowly bake while getting more and more inebriated. Families would head to the beach for few hours of frivolity while the older ladies would naturally; make a beeline for the bingo halls.
As soon as we hit the beach, my dad would put up a wind breaker and a couple of deck chairs and we would drag out huge towels to protect our modesty whilst changing into our swim suits. We would run like the wind across the sand and jump into the freezing cold, salty sea followed by shouts of “stay where we can see you”. The next couple of hours were spent running back and forth to show off the various trophies that we had plucked from the ocean: shells, seaweed, a dead crab.
Around noon we would eat a picnic lunch on the sand and then it was off to the fair and amusement arcades to fritter away our pocket money. The jumbo slides were awesome because we could all have a go. My mum and dad would sit the youngsters on their knees and we would race each other to the bottom. I loved the bigger, scarier rides and could usually coax my dad to take me on them. My mum wasn’t nearly as brave and would stand watching with a look of terror on her face. We played on penny bandits, bought tacky trinkets and someone always acquired some kind of comical hat
As the day drew to a close we would walk along the sea front, tempted by fantastical smells of ice-cream, cotton candy and popcorn. We always had to be warned not overdo it on the candy as it would spoil our customary fish and chip supper. This was one of my favourite parts of the day - sitting on a wall, looking out at the sea, eating greasy fish from a paper bag and watching the sun fade.
The bus trip back was pretty quiet, most people slept the whole way. After being dropped off at the pub we would lumber home, carrying twice as much as we set out with. We were tired, sunburned and had sand in everything we owned, but we were full of food and fond memories.