IT’S 1987, I’m married with two children and I’ve never visited a hot country.
We envy friends and relatives who show-off their sun-tans and share their photographs and foreign-holiday stories.
One day I say to my family, “I’ve booked a fortnight on the French Cote d’Azur. I haven’t a lot of money, so we’re going to have to slum it. All five of us, including Grandma, will be travelling by overnight train from Calais to St Raphael and we’ll be staying in a caravan for a fortnight.”
A loud cheer goes up!
However, things go awry even before we reach our destination. There are no drinks, snacks or buffet bar on the train from Calais to the south of France. After a couple of hours we stop at Amiens and I can see a kiosk selling bottled water but I fear the train will set off without me.
Some Cockney guys standing in the train corridor, with holdalls packed full of cold lager, sell me five bottles. By the time our train is speedily circumventing Paris, I pop open the first.
“What about the kids?” says Grandma.
Asa, who’s 12, smiles when I answer, “Lager for them, too.”
Even with the top windows wide open it’s stifling in the couchette compartment.
On arrival at St Raphael next morning, we travel by taxi to the campsite and the fare is exorbitant. Nobody warned me the Cote d’Azur is the playground of the very rich.
The caravan is ramshackle. There’s no toilet, shower or electricity – only Calor gas for the wall-lamps and cooker – and there’s no air-conditioning. Asa and I hire push bikes and cycle three miles for provisions from the nearest supermarket. On the way we help ourselves to a few bunches of sweet black grapes from one of the vast vineyards that lay beside the deserted country lanes.
By the time we return to the caravan we’re all ravenous but everyone’s equally keen to take the campsite riverboat to the beach and eat al fresco. On the sands, an American couple tell us the only reasonable place to buy food is at the boucherie in the adjacent bay. So, we set off in the sizzling heat, keeping cool by paddling at the water’s edge.
Our five year old daughter, Victoria, sheds her bikini and is skipping and dancing ahead of us, completely naked. It’s only then that the rest of us realise we’re passing through a nudist area where anyone wearing so much as a knotted handkerchief is treated with hostility. I clear my throat and, looking straight ahead, march hurriedly along until we reach more modest scenery.
It’s almost 12 noon but I manage to catch the shop, before it closes for the afternoon, and buy a whole roast chicken from the rotisserie, plus French bread and ice-cold bottled water. In this desert-like rocky bay, under the shade of a gnarled tree, we eat, drink and rest. Our first day is hardly one to write home about and, thereafter, things get worse. What could go wrong, goes wrong. The riverboat is cancelled for six days because of ‘high winds’, so we’re marooned on the sweltering campsite. My daughter has a brush with death as a speeding driver misses her by a hair’s breadth. In addition, when we visit Monte Carlo for the day, I’m given the bum’s rush by two massive suited apes at the casino.
“Pas de shorts, monsieur,” says the broken-nosed giant.
I hang about until their backs are turned, then slip past them with a franc in my hand and lose it on the first one-arm bandit I reach. Then, as I’m unceremoniously escorted (carried) from the casino, I burst into song: “I’m the man who spent a franc in Monte Carlo.”
My wide-eyed family is not amused.
Travelling home through France caps it all. My wife has her purse stolen, as we sleep, and the journey is delayed, meaning we miss our connection for the Channel crossing.
It will be deemed my fault and, therefore, I’ll have to pay again -– but I’m skint. Then, I discover my battery operated wrist-watch has mysteriously gained 50 minutes - probably because of the stress I’m under – so actually, we’re on time. Phew! Never again will I be foolish enough to organise a complex family vacation, abroad. At least with package holidays, if things go wrong, it’s the tour firm’s responsibility – and, besides, package travel works out far cheaper, anyway.
