"John Hall" wrote in message
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In article ,
Martin Rowley writes:
Admittedly this summer is especially disappointing, but several of
the late 50s (except 59 of course) and 60s summers were, to say
the least, indifferent! Examples (for the S of England anyway) were
1956, 1958, 1962, 1963, 1965 and 1968. For people of my age, this
summer, though annoying, brings back many 'happy' memories of
being stuck on the Exeter by-pass trying to find some sunshine &
being stuck in the car on some cliff-top park, watching (and
listening to) the rain drumming down relentlessly off the Atlantic
(or elsewhere). The only up-side was the music playing on the
radio in the car: good stuff that.

You had radio in your car back then? You were spoilt. The succession
of pretty basic second-hand cars which were all that my father could
afford never ran to such luxuries. But the rest of it is all very
familiar, except that back then we never went further from home than the
Sussex coast, or occasionally ventured into Hampshire. However for our
week staying at a Bognor caravan camp in 1958 we were lucky enough to
hit the one hot sunny week of the entire summer.

Car? Your family had a car. You were lucky, when I was a lad all we had was
a pair of roller skates :-)
But yes, we didn't have a car until 1967 when I was 15. Holidays were days
out to Blackpool or Southport and occasional trips to relatives in Ashbourne
(Derbyshire). The south of England (and Yorkshire) was a foreign land to me,
although I did stay in Croydon for a month in 1966 with my cousin. The
weather in 60s Manchester was brilliant. Summers were 3 fine days and a
cracking thunderstorm, and although winters were never particularly snowy in
the city the pennines were often gleaming white and snow fell every winter.
Polar lows were more common too. Also no central heating meant frost on the
inside of windows. If we ate all the coal then there was none left for
heating either. It was grim up north ..... :-)

Will
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