Much of our family life for at least three generations has been recorded on film, in black and white and occasionally a blast of technicolor. Family holidays feature strongly: at ‘Lucknow’ (my Stocking grandparents’ bungalow at Camber Sands), at nearby Rye or elsewhere on the South coast of England and Europe. These are just a few glimpses from the 1930s onwards.

Happy snaps by the seaside in the 1920s and 1930s

The photos above show my grandparents James Aaron Stocking and Jessie Ephgrave on holiday somewhere on the South Coast of England, perhaps on their honeymoon in July 1929 and then, with James’ sister Susan and her husband Leonard Elias in the Summer of 1930. The sequence of them walking was taken by a ‘happy snapper’, a travelling photographer who captured people walking around and then sold the images to them as a souvenir.

My Dad was born in November 1930, and the photos below show him and his younger brother Ken with their parents between 1931-1936.

The first was taken in 1931, with Jessie wheeling my baby Dad alongside her sister Clara and husband Jim, and is another one in a sequence taken by an itinerant photographer. Clara also features in some of the other photos.

Lucknow, Camber Sands and Rye, East Sussex, post-WW2

Sometime during or more likely not long after WW2, my grandparents bought a ‘bungalow’ close to the sand dunes at Camber Sands, not far from the small town of Rye. Little more than a large, three bedroomed wooden shed, ‘Lucknow’, as it was called, was the backdrop to many photos for several decades. We holidayed there every year when I was very young, sometimes with cousins from my Mum’s side of the family.

Camber Sands, in East Sussex, are Britain’s only sand dune system according to Wikipedia. The sea recedes a long long way when the tide is out, revealing a huge expanse of sand. We sometimes had to wear goggles, as the wind often whipped up the loose sand to a painful degree. We used to collect cockles and other shellfish, bucket-loads of them, and they were then boiled up for a delicious fresh lunch. With all that sand, the family habit of building ‘sand boats’ (see above) was well-provided for. These photos from about 1948-1967 show various family members at the bungalow and the beach. Click on the images for more details.

Camber Sands bears a similarity to the coast of Normandy, and was used in military training exercises during WW2, and as the setting for the film ‘Dunkirk’ in 1958. My parents and grandparents were at Camber during that time, and there are several photos, including the one below of my grandmother talking to one of the actors or crew. They met one of the stars, Dickie Attenborough, too.

The small town of Rye is close to Camber and we often visited its cobbled streets. The Mermaid Inn, one of the town’s half-timbered buildings, was a favourite haunt. It wasn’t until many years later, when I read the ‘Mapp and Lucia’ stories by E F Benson, that I found out that Rye was the setting for the fictitious town of Tilling.

Having a weigh-in!

As well as the itinerant snappers who captured my family unawares on their holidays, there were photobooths which appear to have been popular in the 1930s and 1940s which not only captured an image, but also the sitter’s weight!

Time for a snooze

It seems that lying back in a deckchair on the sands, in front of a beach hut or in the garden at Lucknow, was a favourite pastime of my grandad Stocking and my Dad. They both worked very hard (my Dad often used to drive us to Camber and then go back to work for the week, and return to pick us up). Like father like son.

Expanding horizons in the 1950s

Growing up, I remember my grandparents’ home being full of souvenirs from their travels. I was particularly attracted to the flamenco dancing dolls, colourful bull ornaments and decorated castanets from their visits to Spain. They also travelled to France by ferry in the 1950s, touring around in their car from Paris to Le Touquet.

I am not sure how they met, but they had close Swedish friends who I met as a child, and can still remember the Christmas cards and postcards they sent; they seemed very exotic to me. Nana and Grandad travelled to Sweden, and the Swedes visited them in London and at Camber, and may have flown from Ferry Fields aerodrome (now known as Ashford Airport) with Silver City airlines.

Later travels

Grandad Stocking died in 1965 when I was only five years old, but the souvenirs, memories and photos of their travels persisted. I did not travel abroad until I was 13, joining a group of other girls from school on an exchange visit to Quimper, in Brittany, France. My pen friend, Catherine Hermez, first stayed with us at home in Hither Green, and I then stayed with her family at 14 rue Adolphe Porquier for two weeks, having travelled in couchettes on the train. We ‘exchanged’ for four years, latterly taking a plane from Heathrow to Pluguffan airfield (now Quimper-Cornouaille airport). In those days (mid-1970s) the ‘airport’ comprised what looked like a shed in a field; there were few formalities on landing and take-off. The planes were very small.