This is the 'Holidays/Travel' section
Papa can only remember one holiday he and his parents took when he was a boy. That holiday was for two weeks in Troon, which is on the Ayrshire Coast in Scotland
As you can see from this map of part of Scotland, Troon isn't too far from Glasgow.
As Papa and his family never owned a car, to get to Troon involved a bus or train trip from Milngavie to Glasgow and then a train trip to Troon.
Because Troon is on the coast, it has a beach. Troon is also famous for its golf course with many international matches held there in the summer.
Papa's Aunt Chrissie and her husband Uncle Donald lived in Troon. Aunt Chrissie was Papa's father's sister. They lived in a house which was right on the esplanade. This meant they had wonderful views of the beach, ocean and sky which changed not only with the seasons, but by the hour. Both Uncle Donald and Aunt Chrissie had a lovely bay window where they both sat when they were reading, talking or just taking in the view.
I don't think Papa and his family stayed with Aunt Chrissie and Uncle Donald but instead, rented a place for two weeks while they had their holiday there.
Because Papa only had the one holiday while he was growing up, I am going to tell you some of the things he did when he was on summer holidays from school but stayed home.
As you know, Papa was a member of the Army Cadets and each year the Cadets would go on a two week camp. Papa can remember two different places in England where he went on camps.
One place was at Holcombe Moor, in Manchester, England.
Another camp was held at Imphar Barracks, in York, England
Papa also spent time in Garelochhead Training Camp near Helensburgh in Scotland. Helensburgh was where you went to The Hill House.
This picture (above) is quite an up-to-date photograph. Papa said there were no girls at camp when he was in the Cadets.
When not at camp with the Cadets, Papa had a job working on the Hilton Park Golf Course in Milngavie.
Each morning at 6.30am he would be picked up in the village and taken to the golf course where his work began at 7.00am. The first job for the day was to clear the dew off the grass. This was done by swining a dew whip back and forth.
The 'tees' where the golfers put their golf down, raised their club and hit it often became quite messy and untidy, especially if there had been a lot of rain. When this happened, the tee was moved slightly and the area tidied with soil and fresh grass seed. No-one was allowed to play on this area until it had completely recovered. This was another of Papa's jobs carried out after the dew had been cleared.
After the dew had been cleared and the tees tidied, the next job was to rake the bunkers.
These main jobs had to be completed by 9.00am. At 9.30am the main work began; digging drains and cutting the grass.
Papa was about fourteen when he did this work in the school holidays.
When not on camp and not working on the golf course, Papa spent time with his friends. One of his best friends during this period and a friend who also lived in a prefab near to Papa's house was his friend Gordon Bissland.
These two pals got up to a lot of mischief, not only during the school holidays but whenever they were together. Here is one 'mischief' they got up to.
"One day, Gordon's Uncle who wasn't really his Uncle and who strangely, never left a room in his house. This room was full of old TV sets and radios that he had repaired.
One day, when he had unusually come out of his room, he noticed that we had picked up old Morse code key transmitters. We bought them in a military disposal shop together with old sets of earphones. He proceeded to show us that if we joined two wires to each set we could learn and send Morse codes to each other over a distance.
The day arrived when we came up with an even better idea. We worked out that we could send messages if we used the fence at the bottom of our gardens.
This took quite an effort as we had to get wires to the fence from the house. From the town dump we scrounged rolls of old cable and strung the cables from our bedroom windows to the roof and from there to the trees and then down on to the fence. We then crawled through all the gardens in the neighbourhood without the owners knowledge and repaired any breaks in the fence.
One neighbour had built a chicken run which ran into the woods from his garden and said we would electrocute his hens and chased us. Not to be deterred, we climbed the high trees and put the wires high up the trees. Believe it or not, we could send messages to each other without leaving our rooms. Interesting messages in code about our beer bottle cleaning business. All was going well until everyone in the street started getting interference in their little black and white T.V.s. It wasn't long before Gordon's pretend Uncle was consulted over this strange problem and realised that the interference was in the form of Morse code and only happened in the evening at a certain time.
The culprits were found and shouted at. Looking back, I think the adults must have had a laugh at our efforts.
PS I'm sure there are no good stories like this about IPhones!"
When not getting into mischief with Gordon, Papa and his friends would spend time hiking, walking and camping.
A lot of this time was spent on the moors, by the burn and up in the Campsie Fells.
Camping out was not an elaborate affair with Papa and his friends as any camping that was organised was organised by the young people themselves. This usually entailed packing some tinned beans, potatoes, matches and a blanket.
I actually think there is a story in here somewhere. Something to do with the Moors going on fire but I'll leave that story until another time.
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