Blast from the past

This week it occurred to me. We’re all living a life straight out of the 1950s.

It struck me when I was walking along the Weymouth seafront with an ice-cream cone in my hand. I wasn’t actually wearing a kiss-me-quick hat, but I might as well have been. Though according to the government roadmap no-one is allowed to kiss me until June 21 at the earliest, and I don’t think a “kiss-me-in-around-two-months” hat would work quite as well as a concept.

 

Anyway, Brian and I were enjoying a newly-permitted jaunt following the March 29 “easing”, and a day by the seaside turned out to be exactly what the doctor ordered. There, you see? I’m speaking like a character straight out of an Enid Blyton book.

 

We’ve already experienced the wartime spirit, the make-do-and-mend attitude and the food rationing (“Only two packs of flour per customer!”) And with foreign travel now banned we’re all busily planning our summer holidays by the seaside, in the Cotswolds or at the New Forest. Just like we did before Messrs Clarkson and Laker came up with a cunning plan to combine flights and hotels in an all-in-one package.

 

My first ever holiday abroad was to Menorca in 1969. I was so excited at the prospect of visiting a foreign country that I pored over the brochure for hours, gazing at the “artist’s impression” of our hotel. On arrival it turned out that the aforesaid hotel was only half built (hence the artist’s impression) and the infrastructure was very much a work in progress. The half-board meals were also decidedly odd: “chicken curry and rice” turned out to be roast chicken and rice topped with a glutinous curry sauce. And I distinctly remember another meal comprising a hard-boiled egg, a head of cauliflower and a live snail that had somehow snuck on to my plate. 

 

Fast forward 50 years and everyone was suddenly nipping abroad for city breaks, hen weekends and booze runs at the drop of a kiss-me-quick hat. Brian and I even used to book weekends away to top up his “frequent flyer” points, though the idea of taking yet another flight for so-called pleasure was the last thing he wanted to do.

 

Now we’re back to square one, with nothing more exotic to look forward to than a day out in Southend or a week in Frinton. But there’s actually something rather lovely about this new joy we’ve discovered in simple pleasures such as an ice-cream on the seafront or a rare sunny day. We’re now officially allowed to meet up with other people outdoors, and when walking in Weymouth this week we were cheered to see little pockets of people sitting on the harbour wall with their six-packs of beers, enjoying the sunshine and each other’s company.

 

I’m all for taking a journey back into the past – particularly a past that comes without the racism, sexism, homophobia and general intolerance of the 1950s. Mind you I’d welcome a journey just about anywhere right now. Hypocrite? Moi?