Holidays for us were an annual day trip to the seaside. We would all pile on to the double decker buses laid on for the occasion. As soon as we were on our way, someone would start singing “Ye Cannie Shove Yer Granny Af A Bus”, “Roaming in the Gloaming”, or other obscure Scottish folk songs only ever heard once a year on double decker buses hurtling along the road, streamers flying from the windows, heading for the seaside. When we arrived we would find a patch of grass and sit and have our tea which was poured from a huge teapot. The best part of the tea ritual was opening your cake box. Inside this scrumptious little box was a sandwich, a sausage roll, a Tunnocks caramel wafer and a fern cake, hmmm yum yum! After our feast, we would head for the beach, kick off our shoes and socks and go for a paddle in the freezing cold sea, feeling the soft sand squidgin between our toes, bliss! The rest of the holidays we would maybe go down the woods to play on the rope swing, which was attached to a massive hollowed out oak tree. I would wait in the queue until it was my turn, climb up inside, grab the rope and, shouting “Geronimo!” would launch myself off twenty feet from the ground – great fun!! We would pick blue-bells or go fishing for baggy minnows at our favourite stream past the haunted house down Gartgile Road. Halcyon days!