Holidaying like it’s 1982

I had this message on Sunday “sorry I missed you for tea and cake but have just booked our first holiday, away for Easter!” – nothing strange there but it got me thinking how my teenage god-daughter just took it all in her stride and apparently all done in 10 minutes, leaving in about 3 weeks time.

I thought about my first holiday abroad in 1982 and I am sure a lot of you with have travelled down this particular road as well, so many steps by the time you actually got away you needed the rest!

When can we go? – Months in advance with various conversations with work/family etc over a few days to get everyone’s approval and their feedback, everyone was full of information – not all relevant, we all have that one Uncle who puts absolute fear in you about leaving the country and all the trials associated with it.

You woke up to this before you left the house

Where shall we go? –  A trip to the High Street, handfuls of brochures which basically all had the same Hotels & resorts,  on the same dates,  but you study them all to make your decision, with no internet then so you try and find people who have ventured further than Cornwall for their advice, back to the High Street, lots of questions, trepidation about leaving the safety and comfort of home and going on a big adventure.

While your on the High Street, pop in to Woolies for a bit of pic’n’mix and don’t forget you couldn’t do anything on Sunday because everything was closed.

How much will it be? Another trip to the High Street to get all the facts, back home to decide what, if, when and how to pay for it, not much in the way of credit cards then.

Booking it – yet another trip to the High Street, back in the day no free phone numbers or waiting in queues, pressing 1 for this and 2 for that!

For me, we decided on Crete – “wow Greece, that’s a long way” was the kind of response from nearly everyone.  There was nothing in Heraklion then, just a beach and some fishing boats, one Taverna which did a very dubious cheese burger – no bread even  and now it has a marina and is very upmarket.  Now you can taste the local delicacies at the waterfront and it is second nature to do just that.

When travelling in the 1980’s, tickets were posted to you, remember the plane ticket? in triplicate – mostly now is an app on your phone – not even a mobile phone in sight let alone a signal, facebook? whatsapp? instgram? they were just words back then, no on-line check in or baggage drop.

WiFi – No such thing, going on holiday meant no contact with home unless you managed to find a working phone and had enough local currency and everyone seemed to have a problem with the international dialling code and time differences left most people confused, we would not dream of calling anyone after 8 in the evening – life was so different

Smoking was permitted on the flight – would cause an absolute uproar these days.

Airports were purely practical, no shopping, speciality coffee bars, lounges, restaurants or spa’s -just check in and sit and wait, no real security, check of the passport and your visiting Visa – just a piece of paper saying you could travel for a year, I think it cost £1

Luggage was not the issue it is now, everyone turned up with practically everything they owned, most of it been bought on a ‘special holiday shopping’ day, we all believed that anything we needed had to come with us, not available anywhere in the World.  Teabags were a huge deal, had to take them, I can’t think of a single person who did not take these with them back then.

If you were lucky you had a state of the art Walkman with bags full of cassette tapes, a Sony Gameboy maybe,  most make up came from the Avon lady, sun cream was just oil and the ladies used ‘Sun In’ in their hair. children were playing Hungry Hippo’s and My Little Pony, watching Del Boy and the local closed at 10.30 at night.

When you got home, you took your photo’s in to Boots and got them developed, the anticipation of waiting for 3-5 days before you got to see all the blurry and out of focus pictures of the beach.

Technology has moved on in massive leaps, travelling is second  nature and quicker and easier than ever before, who would have thought then that you could call me 10 o’clock on a Sunday night and book a holiday to Australia in about 10 minutes?

All for the good or not?