Staying at the Palace

Most of my holidays were spent in a caravan in Port Eynon on Gower. It belonged to a friend of my mum's who let us use it for a week a year.

But one year my mum took me and my gran to London. All I can remember about it is that we stayed in the Regent Palace Hotel and one lunchtime in a cafe I chose an Open Sandwich. It turned out to be on dark rye bread and I hated it.

The camera I'm holding so tightly outside Buckingham Palace is a Brownie 125 bought for me by Auntie Dusty, my mum's Yorkshire/American friend. That's her in the photo with me in my nifty little swimsuit at Langland. It was my first camera and I loved it. In fact in the London photo I'm probably holding an empty case as I suspect this photo was taken with my Brownie.

Many years later my mum took me and my cousin, Lynne, to stay with May, her old WAAF friend, and her family in Cheshire. I'm not saying we were poor but I had to wear my school uniform summer dress while my cousin, six months and an attitude older, wore the latest fashions.

But we did get to 'Ferry cross the Mersey' and see the Cavern Club.