Cultureshock

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Video transcript

My first holiday memory is of going to Morecambe, I must have been about 3 years old. My aunty had moved there before the war. She married and stayed there with her husband’s parents who had a boarding house. When they died my aunty and uncle took over the running of the business. He was a distant relation of Eric Morecambe, the well known comedian, and when he was young Eric Bartholomew, as he was known then, would go to their house and sing and dance for them.

By the time I was born they had sold the boarding house and moved to a more affluent part of Morecambe called Scale Hall. My uncle had a fresh fish business which he ran from home and had a pony and trap to get around. I remember him boiling shrimps and mixing them with butter, putting them into little pots and selling them on his fish round.

I loved the beach and the piers and remember how far out the tide seemed to be one minute, then it would catch us out and come quickly up onto the beach. The illuminations were also great and Happy Mount Park was fabulous, especially the Japanese garden and the little bridge where my sisters would get me to pose for photos. There was also a park in Lancaster, this wasn’t far from Morecambe, and it had lovely gardens and a massive monument called the Ashton Memorial.

Sadly I don’t have any family left in Morecambe now but recently my daughter decided we should have a trip down memory lane and visit all the places I used to go to as a child. The strange thing is – nothing seemed to have changed much to me.