Story of my life – Part 3

And now we come to the last chapter in our story. We have always loved our holidays abroad and the very first place we went to was back to Malta an island which according to Rudyard Kipling was full of smells, bells and pregnant women but I’m glad to say we loved it and have been many times. The first occasion we went to Malta with Carole’s mum and dad, Lesley and Tony we had hired a downstairs flat in Bugibba a town near St Paul’s Bay. Malta at this stage had hardly changed from the time we had been stationed there. I remember going to the Sunday morning market and buying some blue shorts, which we thought was quite a bargain. They were made of a lovely material, but when I tried them on they had not been cut properly and there was no shape to them, and on top of that I could not get them past my knees. Outside our window in the bushes was two little kittens and Lesley decided to feed them and soon there were 20 more Lesley fed them every day until we left.

We went back to Malta quite a few times, and on one occasion we met an Arab called Husain, who told us he was a millionaire, which we didn’t really believe but were to be proved wrong later. Husain was a Libyan and owned a large house in St Andrews. We became very friendly with him and he with us, he really trusted us only because we always paid our own way, he could hardly speak English and it seemed everybody tried to see him off. He really was a character, but was scared stiff of the Libyan government, one night when we was with him. He pointed out a sinister looking man and said he was like the Libyan Mafia. When we left the bar a car seem to be following us along the deserted coast road, our Arab friend was convinced that he was going to be killed by them till three quarters of the way home the car turned off, he then relaxed and when we got him home. He invited us into his house, which was  really big with a magnificent staircase and beautiful chandeliers. Which we did for a couple of days and he asked me to go to the bank with him it was then I discovered he really was a millionaire. I saw his bank balance, and sure enough he had millions in there, but we never ever took advantage of him and this he appreciated and was sorry to see us come back to England. We thought we had seen the last of him, but this was not to be for after that and every time he came to England he would phone us and say we had to go to London to meet him in his hotel. I remember on one occasion we took him back to our house and he stayed for the weekend Tony came down for breakfast and produced a role of banknotes and said he’d found them on the stairs. It of course belonged to Husain they had dropped out of his pocket and he never noticed. He was very careless with money, another time he phoned me and asked me to go to London to meet him to discuss business I went because I was intrigued anyway, it turned out that he wanted to buy a restaurant with flats above and wanted me to run it and told me we were waiting for is a solicitor to turn up, but at this time I had a well-paid job and did not want to give it up for something I felt uneasy about so I declined the offer and got the next train home. Every time we went to Malta. He would ask us to go and stay with  him only on one occasion did we do this only because he had pestered us, eventually we lost contact with him, although I heard that the Libyan government had taken most of his possessions and left him with just his farm. After the initial run of holidays in Malta, we decided to go elsewhere for our holidays, although we did go once more A few years later and it had changed beyond belief. It now had motorways and along the coast road, which used to be empty. There were now hotels all along that road, such a shame on how we first went there in 1959, but I guess that’s progress!!

KARDAMENA, KOS

Kardemenia is a small fishing village on the Greek island Of Kos it was a lovely little place with a very small harbour, and we had an apartment on the seafront, looking out over the harbour, it was very basic but ample as we only had self catering and for our meals we used to visit the local cafes the high Street was very narrow and as you walked along it, you would find the old Greeks sitting outside with their coffee and playing chess, there would only be the men there, never any women. On our first visit. We met Colin, (Carole’s brother), Colin was just getting over his divorce and needed a break. He told us of a nice little restaurant over the bridge where two brothers ran it, so the first night in Kardenenia we went there for a meal. It was strange you ordered your meal and meat would come out, followed by the vegetables 30 minutes later, but we were unlucky that night, just as we’d ordered the lights in the whole of the village went out, apparently this happened very often as we found out. So that night we had bean soup which everyone else in a restaurant had as well. But one thing I will say it was very delicious. Kardemenia was a lovely little village, very friendly people who always made us feel welcome and on Sunday mornings the local lads used to take on the tourist lads for a football match. This was quite unusual for the pitch was an open one, and very often an old guy would bring his hunting dogs onto the pitch and fire his shotgun into the air to train is dog’s this of course would hold the game up, but it was amusing. In the evening a crowd of us would meet in a tiny bar called Tony’s and drink the night away, Tony himself was a character and could only speak one phrase of English and that was”on yer bike” sounded quite funny coming from him, but by the end of our holiday he could speak a few more words of English, during the day Tony would often come down to the beach: calling “Arturo” or Carolemenus” Greek for our names, but then he would want to go fishing. We went to this village for about four holidays and would meet people that we had met the year before there was always one of the old crowd , but gradually the village began to change. The big boys from Athens started coming and took over the village. Tony got married and had two lovely children. He invited us to his villa and we met his wife and invited us to stay for lunch. We went into the kitchen and was amazed that everything was new, even pots and pans still had labels on them, and even lace frills – we could not understand this until we discovered they  never cooked in there or ate but used an old outhouse!!!

YUGOSLAVIA (NOW CROATIA)

These holidays not are necessarily in the order that we went. That is why I have left to the end. Well, we went to Yugoslavia to a town called Dubrovnik a very pretty town and our hotel was right on the coastline set into the rocks, it was an excellent hotel, it was here that we first met a couple who we were to spend quite a few holidays with, their names were Maggie and Brian they came from Jersey. How we met up with them was in the hotel bar Brian could not understand the Yugoslavian money. I over heard them talking about it and offered to teach them. They were only there for a week, whereas we were there for three weeks but during the time they were there We got on very well with them, and was sorry to see them go at the end of the week. This holiday passed very uneventful really. But one day we saw a demonstration involving a lot of students, but didn’t really take much notice, but discovered later that they were protesting about the different ethnic communities, soon after we returned to this country’s civil war broke out between these societies and it was pretty nasty many, many people were killed, even neighbours turned against each other during the period of the war, eventually, the United Nations stepped in and now the country is divided and is now no longer Yugoslavia.

FLORIDA, AMERICA

On this holiday we went with Lesley and a neighbour’s son called Cavan, this was probably the most exhausting holiday we ever had, in America, there is so much to do and so many sites to see and hear. But first of all we had to get to our hotel. We picked up the car at the airport and was quickly waved out of the gate by the policeman on duty and we did not know which way we were going so we just followed the traffic as best we could. It was very early morning so not many people about that we could ask for directions, eventually we saw two policeman coming out all a motel, so we pulled into ask them the way. I got out of the car to ask them, and one of them said “that’s the sleazy part of town. Keep your doors locked inside the car until you get to your motel”I thanked them and went to get back into the car and found that I had been locked out because they had heard what these coppers said, and had immediately locked all the doors, but we did get to our motel without any incidents.There was so much  to do in America we were on the go from the time we woke up until 10 o’clock at night when we had a meal and if you’ve seen in American meals you you would understand why they are so of obese if you went into a restaurant you could help yourself to as many portions you wanted and there was always a waitress wandering around topping up your coffee cup, even if it was half full. After breakfast we would go to Disneyland, film studios, alligator parks. We even went on a swamp boat the ones with a gigantic fan at the back and you drove them yourself over the swamps. It was quite fun, but scary for the girls!! There really was so much to do but by 10 o’clock in the evening we were exhausted and had to go back to the motel to sleep. Whilst in America. I bought a camera because mine had broke and coming through the customs in England. I was pulled aside and asked if I had anything to declare, to which I replied,” no”the customs officer then said”what about the camera on your shoulder”I had not realised that you had to pay duty on this and tried to explain to the officer, but I was taken into a private room and interrogated about the camera, I explained that I would hardly carry it on my shoulder if I was trying to evade paying duty on this, but the officer said this could have been a ploy and so the camera was confiscated. I had to pay a fine of almost £100 and travelled back to Gatwick another day to, collect My camera

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

The Dominican Republic was another place that we went a  few times, here all the hotels were on a complex but set in beautiful grounds and right on the beach and the beaches were gorgeous. Only once did we go into the local town and this was to watch a carnival, which was a really spectacular sight. The colourful costumes were amazing and we enjoyed it, but this was the only place I ever had my pocket picked,  lucky enough I had had the sense to only take out with me five dollars so that pickpocket had slim pickings that day!! The hotel we stayed at was beautiful, and the food was absolutely out of this world also in the evenings. The hotel staff would put on a fantastic show with great costumes so colourful. We found that it was mostly Canadians in this hotel, but we made friends with quite a few and found them very friendly apparently the summer in Dominican was winter in Canada and the Dominican was just a short hop from Canada.

BULGARIA

Bulgaria was probably the worst place we ever had a holiday, it is a very poor country and Carole would often get young teenagers come up to her and asked for lipstick. This was a rare commodity in Bulgaria in actual fact most things were rare commodity. I remember we went to a market and a  guy wanting to buy carole’s shell suit which she was wearing off of her for his wife. Also we went into a very large store and all the shelves were empty, except for a couple of jars of jam.

All the hotels in this complex were very grey and morbid looking  the hotel we stayed at was absolutely full of mosquitoes and at night taxis used to pull up outside and stay there all night because the drivers were inside the hotel drinking at the bar. The food was terrible, but Carole and I found a nice little cafe in the middle of the park and the owner used to cook Carole and I lovely fish and chips, so we ate there. Most evenings. When we went down to the beach, which was quite nice. We used to pass some bushes and almost every time we went past you would hear a voice say you” Wanna buy some money”this was because they could get a good rate for English money, but they had to be careful as this was  illegal practice, and Bulgarian secret police seemed to be very hot on this. There is not much good I can say about Bulgaria, except I would never go there again.

TURKEY

When we were in Kos, Turkey opened its borders to tourists for the first time, and so it was soon to be we would go to Turkey for a holiday so we booked a holiday for a pension villa in Kusadasi this villa was at the top of a very steep hill. I think it was for about four families, but it was quite nice. In the evening we would walk down into the main town and wander through the bazars stopping now and again to barter with the owners for Maybe T-shirts, souvenirs etc seemed to be so much to choose from and everything was cheap and this shops etc stayed open until after midnight. Some even longer. If there were still people buying. We would finish our evening by going to Bar Street as you can imagine by the name is a Street full of bars. all packed out and very lively, the music of course was very very loud and as these bars were next to one another. Each one was trying to outdo his neighbour with music blaring as loud they could but no one seemed to mind or care. While we were on this visit to Turkey a sad incident occurred to a an  Iranian family that was staying at the Villa, they were a lovely family, but kept themselves to themselves, they had a lovely little daughter about five or six, one evening this family disappeared and were not seen for a day or so and then one morning a police car drew up and the police came into the Villa and they were quite some time, we later discovered that what had happened to the family was tragic, apparently they were asylum seekers trying to get to Greece and had hired a fishing boat to take across the water, but that night a gale had blown up and the fishing boat sank with all those on it halfway across to Greece, the family and the little girl were all drowned. It was so sad. We went back to Turkey quite a few times but never ever stayed in Kusadasi again. We found a nice coastal resort called Altinkum and very often we would stay there. By this time we have teamed up with Maggie and Brian from Jersey for our holidays which brings me to a little story about Maggie. Brian and myself had gone fishing and left the girls on the beach sunbathing,,, when we got back Maggie had bought some grapes in good faith of off a Turkish guy on the beach and was quite proud of herself that she had managed the money until I checked the remainder of the money and discovered she had paid £20 for a small bunch of grapes. She had been seen off poor old Maggie, but we did laugh about this for many a year.

CYPRUS

We went to Cyprus with Brian and Maggie first we stayed at Aiya Napa, which was a very noisy place and mostly youngsters stayed there for the night life, but it was okay. The next time we went to Pathos which was a much more refined and quieter place, one evening we went out and Brian had lost a lense from his glasses, so we wandered around all evening trying to get an optician, so that he could  get his glasses repaired another time we went to Limassol for Brian to buy some shoes, when we got off the bus Brian said I know the way follow me, so we did all along the seafront, up the side turnings, along the main road, eventually we came back to almost the same spot we had started from, and discovered the shoe shop. He was looking for was just across the road from where we had got off the bus. Brian bought three pairs of shoes and was quite happy. We did have scare while we were there in Limassol, we heard gunfire and helicopters flying overhead and thought that the island was being attacked, but this turned out to be a service operation exercise.

HAWAII

Carole and I decided to go to Hawaii. The flight was a long one. First, we flew to America and landed at San Francisco  then we had to get onward flight to Honolulu.which meant a dash across the airport It took 17 hours to get to Hawaii from England we arrived about 7 am .. And were greeted at the airport by the traditional Hawaiian greeting of “Aloha” and Garland of flowers put around our necks, not by three dusky beauties, but three ladies of about 70! After booking in at the hotel We walked down to the beach and there was a wedding party on the beach. It was quite touching.

Honolulu was quite a busy place with plenty of tourists who seemed to be mainly Japanese or Korean we had breakfast  and then went back to the hotel to catch up on our sleep as we were so tired. Hawaii was quite nice, had really nice beaches and plenty to do, but not like America, it wasn’t so hectic and the shops were huge, but mainly for designer clothes. There was a very nice mall near us in which we quite often went to. We booked a boat trip to go to Pearl Harbor and had breakfast on board the ship as usual it was quite a big breakfast. As we sailed into The mouth of Pearl Harbor, you could see the oil slicks still coming up from the ships that had been sunk during World War II And the American people on board our ship threw garlands and flowers into the water to donate their respect,  a few days later we booked a tour of Pearl Harbor and also watched the film that had been taken during the raid by a local resident of Hawaii !! We were then taken out to the monument, which had been erected over the U.S,S Arizona,The USS Arizona Memorial marks the resting place of 1102 of the 1177 sailors and Marines killed on the USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 by the Japanese forces and commemorates the events of that day, the attack was the action that led to the United States direct involvement in World War II. The memorial is only accessible by boat. It straddles the sunken hull of  the battleship without touching it. Whilst we were looking at the name’s inscribed on the monument itself. It was very silent except for crowd of Japanese who were to talking all the time, very ignorant. I thought, but the tour of Pearl Harbor had been very, very interesting On our way home we also visited a military cemetery where the casualties of Pearl Harbor attack were buried, it was immaculately laid out with crosses in absolute uniformity in line after line.Our next trip out was to a culture village and here we saw floats of seven different islands in the Pacific. Each one floated down the river on a raft, but the scenes were magnificent and very colourful. We were very impressed. We also went to a barbecue where a pig was buried in the sand and allowed to cook. Whilst we were waiting a show was put on for us  and when the pig was cooked we all had some and it tasted wonderful.In the evenings when we had nothing to do Carole and I would go to the local mall and just wander around looking at all the shops. On our flight home after three weeks in Hawaii we had to land at Los Angeles to change flights we had two hours to wait and could have gone outside, but we didn’t want to take the chance on missing a flight.

Other holidays we had were to Spain, Portugal, Majorca, Minorca, Italy, France these were normal holidays that we had.

Also on Carole’s brothers fiftieth birthday. He invited us and all of the family to a weekend in Lake Garda and we stayed at a Villa, near Verona a beautiful place, apparently the Villa  was used by the Gestapo during World War II. In the evening we went for a lovely meal in a nearby restaurant and on the Sunday morning we had a boat trip around Lake Garda and visited the villages. It was so scenic, it was certainly a weekend to remember especially as Colin had  let Carole and I have in  the best room in the hotel.

EYGPT

I have left Egypt to last, because we went there nine times, always to the same hotel. Apart from the first two times. No matter when you went to Egypt. It was always in the 70s, sometimes we went twice a year and once went three times in the year and mainly in the winter. We found a lovely hotel that we always went to and each time we went back we were always welcomed and recognised by the staff whenever we arrived there would always be flowers and fruit in the room for us. We even had a palm tree with our name plaque on it, which was one of the hotels personal touches. The food at the hotel was excellent and we had no reason ever to complain. We would get up in the morning and the first thing we would do was to go down and put our towels on the beds, but really there was no need to do this as the pool attendant would always save the beds for us, then we would go to breakfast and stroll back at our leisure and lay on the sunbeds reading or Carole would listen to the story on her recorder. So these holidays were rather lazy and laid back. We really enjoyed Egypt, but on our last visit a very traumatic experience involved myself going into hospital for four days with a suspected heart problem. I was taken into a hospital about an hours drive from the hotel and every day Carole had to get a taxi, from the hotel and back again, which was quite expensive. Also Carole was on her own each evening and was obviously very worried, Tony and Lesley would ring her each evening and Lesley arranged for Danielle to come out to us, which Danielle did arriving on the night I came out of hospital As I have said previously Danielle flew out on the day I was released from hospital, Lesley having paid for the flight and the next day was my birthday. When we got back to the hotel Danielle had not arrived yet, but about 6 PM she arrived and we were very glad to see her, the first thing she did was to organise a wheelchair for me, and the next day she pushed me where ever we wanted to go so we went down to the beach Danielle pushed me over the sand which was hard going for her . We stayed on the beach until lunchtime, Danielle then pushed me back and onto the restaurant, which was some distance, but as soon as we got there and settled I got up from the wheelchair and walked to the far side of the restaurant to go to the toilet, when I came back Danielle and Carole were rolling up with laughter. I asked what are you laughing at, they said it was so funny that I had been pushed around in the wheelchair all the time and then suddenly got out and walked to the toilets!!.We had problems when the insurance company would not pay out the money to release  me From the hospital But to cut a long story short, I paid £3350 which after Tony had taken up the argument with the insurance company. I eventually got back the money after about six months Carole had been very worried over the amount we would have to pay to be released from the hospital because the holiday visiting rep had told her it would be £30,000 for the hospital bill, but he had spoken in Egyptian pounds and Carole thought it meant English pounds!. After this traumatic experience . We stopped going on holidays, mainly because of medical reasons and I would never want to put my family through this again!!

So now we come to the end of my story well as much as I can remember, but everything is true and I hope you enjoy reading it,The last thing I will say is if I was asked,” if you were to change your life. Would you?” I could honestly say” no! I would do it all over again.” I am extremely proud of all my family and would not change Any them for the world.

I am now 80 years old and have forgotten most of the highlights etc,but I hope I haven’t bored you.

Good luck for the future …