Postcards from the past, part 1
Helados on holiday: small children on a 1980s package holiday.
Usually I write once every two weeks about interesting places I’ve been to recently. But, after reading
’s hilarious tales from his family holiday in Menorca, I was reminded of so many bizarre things which happened on holidays when I was little that I’ve decided to take you on a slightly different trip today: a bonus in-between-my-usual-posts newsletter. I’m going to experiment with a bit of fun memoir (sorry, nothing sad happening here) which might stir you own recollections of family holidays, so we’re literally going back into the past. Well, as far as the 1980s. We’re off on a package holiday to the Mediterranean!
There were holidays before my brother was born, which I just about remember. The Balmoral1 Hotel in Benalmádena on the Costa del Sol sticks in my mind. This is where I threw a toy car off our balcony, and fortunately not onto any holiday makers, hotel staff, or locals passing below. I seemed to have a habit of doing this - around the same time, when we took a family trip to Birmingham because Ipswich were playing Aston Villa, I threw a jigsaw puzzle piece out of a hotel window. I was some sort of tiny Keith Moon.
And also at the Balmoral, I wouldn’t sleep, so was brought downstairs in my pyjamas and danced around with my D-Day veteran grandad, my toes on his feet as we whirled across the dancefloor to flamenco. Many years later, I was visiting my dad and my stepmum when they lived in Spain and we popped into the Balmoral for a bit of nostalgia. Because, not only had Dad and I stayed there, but my stepmum had actually worked there as a tour rep at the same time! What are the chances of that? My mum even remembered my stepmum from another night when I couldn’t sleep and she was walking back and forth across the foyer with me as my stepmum-in-the-future dealt with other tourists at Thompson’s desk. It would be over a decade before my dad met my stepmum properly. On our nostalgia trip, my stepmum immediately recognised one of the waiters and they chatted like old chums, while I spotted the door that went out to the pool and was suddenly two again, bubbling with excitement at the prospect of going for a splash.
Once my brother was born, we swapped the Costa del Sol on the Spanish mainland for Majorca (or Mallorca), one of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean. Instead of staying in a hotel, we upgraded to a whitewashed villa with terracotta tiles and dark brown shutters. It was one of several which were placed around a large, shared swimming pool, and in fact, the complex is still there in Cala San Vicente (or Cala Sant Vicenç, if you speak Catalan). The Apartamentos Turísticos Villas Can Botana appear to have all become privately owned and you can rent them out.2 The thought of people still holidaying there over forty years later makes me very happy!
We went to Can Botana two years in a row, so I apologise because what follows is a combination of events from two separate holidays which have since merged into one in my memory, but I’m sure you won’t mind.
The tiny criminal
Before we’d even left Britain, my brother started causing havoc.3
We were flying from Stansted Airport, just outside London (the one that comes after Heathrow and Gatwick in size). All of the London airports had started to sell teddy bears with branded T-shirts in the same colour scheme as the airport signage - yellow with black-dark brown lettering. There was Gary Gatwick, Stanley Stansted, and Harry Heathrow.4 Because I was annoying even as a small child, I was furious that there were no female bears. I wanted a Sally Stansted, and she didn’t exist.
We sat down in the departure lounge, for one of those insanely long waits that always goes with travelling anywhere at the same time as thousands of other people. The parents and grandparents chatted, I sulked, and my brother… disappeared.
A busy airport is surely one of the last places where you’d want a lose a small child. But vanish he did. Everyone panicked.
And then my brother made his grand reappearance.
All I remember seeing were two short, chubby legs, and a pair of mischievously glittering eyes peering out from a mound of Stanley Stansteds. He’d gone back into the airport shop, helped himself to as many Stanley Stansteds as he could carry, and… walked out with them. Not only had he scared everyone by vanishing, he’d now horrified us by shoplifting, but in a really cute way that made everyone laugh (even the staff in the shop). I suspect these days armed police would’ve arrived, but the early 1980s were a different time. My grandad turned him and his hoard of bears around and walked him back into the shop. And returned with a bear for each of us, which I grudgingly accepted despite the fact it wasn’t a Sally.
Years later, I reminded my brother of this, and he told me that he was trying to rescue them….
Call the doctor!
Once we arrived on holiday, the chaos continued to mount thick and fast. I woke up one morning completely covered in red spots.5 Was it chicken pox? Was it measles? The Spanish doctor was called, a sardonic man in a smart, short-sleeved shirt, who announced in a way that only just avoided eye-rolling that my mysterious red spots were in fact… gnat bites. At which point I decided to confess that I’d slathered myself in suntan lotion before going to bed, in order to maximise my pool time the next day. It seems that all the suntan lotion made me particularly delicious to the local Mallorcan mosquitos.
Then my brother disappeared again. My frightened parents looked everywhere, and kept coming back to me to ask if I’d seen him. Did they think I’d hidden him in a cupboard or given him away to the fishermen? Eventually, he was found - fast asleep under their bed on the hard, tiled floor.
Then I encountered another health problem: I had terrible ear ache. The doctor came out again. Was it because I had deliberately filled my ears with sand at the beach? The doctor didn’t look impressed (in fact, he seemed to be pausing as if he wasn’t entirely sure of his own translation, then realised that, yes, indeed, this idiotic child who’d already covered herself in suntan lotion at night had also been deliberately filling her ears with sand). I remember doing this, and I remember why as well - I wanted to see the shape inside my ears, and decided that sand was perfect for the purpose. It’s also possible that my ears had started to ache by that point and I was putting the sand in as a way to soothe them.
Strangely - and this is quite a surprise - it turned out that it wasn’t the sand that was causing the ear ache at all, and was instead an allergy to chlorine that was only bothersome for my ears. No other part of me had a reaction to it. It meant, back home, swimming lessons wearing wax plugs in my ears, resulting in me never knowing what the instructor was saying to me. A bit of a dry run for me going deaf at thirty, but that’s another story.
The sin bin
The villa had a playpen which my brother was plonked into. He absolutely hated that playpen and sulked and pouted every time he was put inside it. At home, he regularly escaped his playpen by stacking up his toys into a step and climbing out, but with only a handful of toys to hand on holiday (especially as his rouse to nick all those Stanley Stansteds had been rumbled), there was no makeshift step, and no way out. My dad called it “the lobster pot”; my grandad called it “the sin-bin” (an interestingly theological name for it, given that my grandad was a Methodist lay-preacher). He would lean over the side of it, ruffle my brother’s hair and say, “You enjoying yourself in the sin-bin?” which only made my brother scowl all the more.
The villa had a back garden, consisting of a small lawn, and then what seemed to be a vast flower bed which went off down a slope, full of flowering cacti and other plants that you didn’t see every day back in Essex. It was off-limits. So we all know what that means, don’t we? We’d got dressed up to go out for dinner, and I got bored waiting for everyone so decided to explore the flower bed. I skidded on the loose soil and went hurtling down the slope. By some miracle, I managed to avoid the cacti, but my brand new pastel-coloured canvas shoes (the eighties!) were ruined and never lost their patina of dirt.
More than once, I went running around on wet tiles and slipped over. No pool-side (or indeed, water-sprinklers-beside-tiles) holiday is complete without that happening, with a yelp of surprise followed by that two-second silent gap as the winded child gets up the wherewithal to cry. Loudly. And not at all annoyingly for anyone in ear-shot.
One morning, I sat and watched my grandad, who was relaxing on a patio chair in his shorts and T-shirt, staring silently at a book. It had a painting of a warship on the cover, so it was very possibly a Douglas Reeman.
“What are you doing with that book?” I asked him, as no doubt images of mariners scuttling over the deck as the Kriegsmarine opened fire filled my grandad’s head.
“Reading it.”
“But you’re not talking,” I said, confused.
“That’s because I’m reading it in my head.”
Reader, I still remember how stunned I was at that moment to discover that reading didn’t have to be done out loud.
Viva Mallorca/Majorca
I do have nice memories of those holidays, which don’t involve mystery illnesses or disappearing children. Almost every evening, we ate at a brasserie not far from the house. Not only was it exciting to eat at a place which barbecued your dinner right in front of you, and not only was I very excited indeed by the gigantic oranges and lemons that came with orange- and lemon-flavoured ice cream inside them, it was novel to have to cross a bridge to get to a restaurant. It sat on the other side of an enormous storm drain which, if you followed it, would take you to the beach. Very sadly, I heard that a few years later a particularly violent storm tore its way down from the mountains and washed the restaurant - along with its barbecue and giant citrus fruit - into the sea. A trip around town via Street View shows that the restaurant is back, though, with a rival next door.
We went on a trip to see Las Cuevas del Drach, which was the first time I’d gone underground and seen stalactites and stalagmites. I stood for a while puzzled by the formation which apparently looked like the Virgin Mary.6 My dad changed his shoes on the way back, swapping his handmade sandals that had car tyre soles for his driving shoes. He was very proud of his tyre sandals, especially as the soles were made from different brands of tyres - one was Pirelli, the other Michelin, I seem to recall.7 Sadly, he managed to leave one of them behind, and he insisted on driving all six of us back to the car park to rescue his forlorn, abandoned sandal from a dusty car park.
We went up the Calvari Steps - I remember my brother was carried up them in his pushchair like a tiny emperor on a litter, while I walked all the way up on my short legs, my ragdoll under one arm. There are 365 steps - one for every day of the year (maybe they have a temporary one that they add for leap years, I dunno). And then we went to Puerto Pollensa, which has a gorgeous long strip of beach with a boulevard running alongside lined with spiney trees. Every time we went, an old boy would ride by with a freezer compartment attached to the front of his bicycle.
“Helados! Helados!” he’d call, and like the Pied Piper, the children would come flocking. And my grandad as well; you couldn’t keep that man away from ice cream if you tried.
My grandparents were fond of excursions, so one night we all went off on a coach to the nearby resort of Alcudia for an evening do. We were drinking out of porróns, Spanish wine bottles with a long, slender spout, which the waiters hold above your head as you lean back and swallow - even us kids, although we had orange squash. The adults had red wine. The tour reps pleaded with the tourists not to drink too much, but of course, everyone ignored them. I remember there were bonfires as it was a night time event. I looked out of the window of our coach just before we headed home, watching a bloke in his twenties voiding his stomach next to a bus while his girlfriend fretted and a tour rep told them off. The bonfires and the drunken adults gave the event an apocalyptic vibe, which unnerved and fascinated me at the same time. The souvenirs from that night of debauchery were photographs of us wearing sombreros, which were stuck to Tex-Mex-style wanted posters. For years, one hung on the wall showing my gentle, affectionate grandma looking very tipsy in a sombrero while above her head it read: SE BUSCA - WANTED - FOR MURDER AND ROBBERY.
While putting this piece together, I asked my mum what she remembered from that holiday. She has memories of early morning, child-free swims, and after drying off, walking to the baker’s with my grandad to buy the most delicious ensaïmada pastries you’ve ever tasted for breakfast. She remembers my brother and I playing in the sea with our grandma while my mum took a well-earned nap. When she mentioned her early morning swims, it set off a memory for me. I knew she went for early swims and wanted to go too. For some reason, I thought that all that prevented me from joining her was the fact that I didn’t have my suntan lotion on (it’s very possible someone came up with this as a “reason” why I couldn’t go for an early dip - and why shouldn’t my mum have enjoyed a swim without having to constantly monitor her ridiculous offspring at the same time?). So using my child logic, I decided to slather that lotion on before I went to bed, thus summoning every gnat in Spain.
I took another trip on Street View and clicked my way along the road that runs along the bottom of the villas’ gardens. I turned the camera to look at the arid mountains which seemed to tower over the garden when I was a child, and I was taken straight back to being small again. I could feel the warmth of the sun and smell the scent of the pines and the lemon trees. The mountains haven’t changed, even though we all have; and two of us who were on that holiday have since passed away.
One day at the pool, my dad spotted a photographer setting up his camera and tripod. I was about to leave the pool, but Dad insisted that I stay there in the water with him, and strategically positioned us so that we’d be in the line of fire. I remember that I started to feel a bit bored, having to swim in the same small area for what seemed like hours.
But it paid off. The holiday brochures arrived from Thomas Cook a few months later, and my dad eagerly turned to the Can Botana. And there we were, two tiny figures bobbing about in a pool, advertising a very nice place to other families, who may or may not have had chaotic children too.
The mysterious hat
An update on the mysterious hat which I bought from the Rag Market in Birmingham is coming your way next time! Is it train driver’s? Is it a bus driver’s? Will we ever find out?
Going viral
Find out the story behind “FURING the pandemic” in Daniel Puzzo’s post about Notes that go viral on Substack. With
and .
Pre-order now!
The Lost Orphans, the first book in the brand new series The Runaway Evacuees, is out on 23rd July and is up for pre-order now on Amazon. It’s written by me and my friend Catherine Curzon, under our joint pen-name, Ellie Curzon. It’ll be available in ebook, paperback, audiobook, and in Kindle Unlimited.
About me
I co-write WW2 saga fiction with my excellent friend Catherine Curzon under our joint pen name, Ellie Curzon.
I’ve written two books on Victorian crime and forensics, and articles for Fortean Times and Family Tree magazine. I’ve appeared on BBC1’s Murder, Mystery and My Family, and BBC Radio 4’s Punt PI. I live in the West Midlands with a cat who looks like a Viking.
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The Spanish pronunciation is BAL-mor-AL, which my Scottish partner finds really funny.
Must admit, I’m tempted, but I don’t know - would I meet the shades of my late grandparents around every corner, and even the shade of my pre-school self?
I’m sure this was a prelude to one of our trips to Mallorca, and was possibly the second year we went, but it might’ve happened a year or two later, when we went to one of the Greek islands. Not that anyone reading this apart from my mum will be bothered, but one likes to aim for accuracy, you see.
In 1986, a new born baby was found in the women’s toilets at Gatwick. He was named Gary Gatwick after the bear and was fostered (taking one of the bears with him) as efforts were made to encourage his birth parents to come forwards. They didn’t, and Gary was adopted. In 2019, using DNA, he was able to identify his birth family.
This was the first year we went to Can Botana. We stayed in a two-bedroom villa, with my parents in one bedroom and my grandparents in the other. I was sleeping on a camp bed on the landing. I suppose an attack of red spots was better than falling down the stairs in the middle of the night, and I suspect that sleeping on the landing made it easier for the gnats to reach me. The following year we upgraded to a three-bedroom villa, so I got my own room!
A couple of years later, we’d go to Kefalonia in Greece and, because my grandad and I were mistaken for Greek locals, we saw the incorrupt, but rather desiccated, body of St Gerasimos in his glass coffin. That definitely beat the stalagmite that sort of looked like the Virgin Mary.
Why does this sound like an Accidental Partridge?
This brilliant Helen! What a trip down memory lane for you, you can't beat a bit of family nostalgia! I have so many similar tales to tell, maybe I need to write them up myself before I forget!
Oh what fun memories. I’m with you on Sally Stanstead.
I think putting sun cream on the night before was clever really. The sand in the ears maybe not so much. Fun times Helen.