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Our 1969 European Holiday
Jul. 2nd, 2019 03:09 amOn this date, 50 years ago this precise minute, Mother and I departed for our second overseas trip together; in this instance to the UK, Denmark, Ireland and Scotland. We would be away for 7 weeks, which has since proven to be the longest period of time I have ever been away from home. It was one of the great adventures of my young life, and, considering my age at the time (14), perhaps the last truly carefree and innocent time of my life, too.
During our trip, I kept a diary of the highlights of each day. As you can see, I still have the little spiral notebook containing my scribblings, and as I blog about our trip over the next few weeks, I will let my words therein speak for themselves. (Please forgive my juvenile handwriting, and my affected usage of British-isms.) I have many other memories of the trip, though, and those I will recount here, as well.
Our basic itinerary was:
London: 2-6 July 1969
Copenhagen, Denmark: 6-14 July
Ireland: 14-23 July
Skipton, Yorkshire: 23-28 July
Cheshire: 28 July-1 August
Skipton: 1-4 August
Edinburgh, Scotland: 4-6 August
Skipton: 6-8 August
The Cotswolds: 8-11 August
Skipton: 11-17 August
London: 17-19 August
The day before our departure was spent packing. Also, concurrently, off and on, we watched the Investiture of HRH Prince Charles as Prince of Wales, being beamed live to the US via Telstar. This definitely got young Anglophile Me in the mood for our trip!
Re: packing. In those days, airlines had strict limits on the weight of checked bags. I forget what the limit was (I think it was 40kg), but I do remember that I had to remove several items of my own clothing to make room for the FOUR POUNDS OF PILLS that Mother insisted she needed. I never forgot how ridiculous that seemed, and it resulted in a promise that I would never allow myself to become that dependent on medications. (To this day, I still avoid taking 'supplements' of any kind.)
Because Mom was cheap (I must be frank), we were taking a 'charter' flight, which meant a 'no-name' airline (Capitol Airways), suffering 'red-eye' departure times from a satellite airport gate (LAX Imperial Terminal), and planes crammed with so many extra seats that I remember my knees were touching the seat-back in front of me for our entire flight. It was truly miserable (as was the food). But I dared not complain. I knew Mom was doing me a great favor taking me on this trip, so I did my best to keep my mouth shut over whatever inconveniences we might encounter.
Anyway, there are no photos from our departure date, so here is my journal entry for the first leg of our 1969 European Holiday.
![July 1-2. 1100 [PM] At airport in Capitol Airlines building. Schedule said we leave at 100 [AM] but we really leave at 230! Our seat numbers are 28A-B. I'm in 'A', the window seat. Wait is going fast as we have a boy in the terminl who plays the pipes and two girls who dance to them. 309 [AM] Plane lifts-off.](https://otters.net/img/ashetlandpony/0701-070269.jpg)
During our trip, I kept a diary of the highlights of each day. As you can see, I still have the little spiral notebook containing my scribblings, and as I blog about our trip over the next few weeks, I will let my words therein speak for themselves. (Please forgive my juvenile handwriting, and my affected usage of British-isms.) I have many other memories of the trip, though, and those I will recount here, as well.
Our basic itinerary was:
London: 2-6 July 1969
Copenhagen, Denmark: 6-14 July
Ireland: 14-23 July
Skipton, Yorkshire: 23-28 July
Cheshire: 28 July-1 August
Skipton: 1-4 August
Edinburgh, Scotland: 4-6 August
Skipton: 6-8 August
The Cotswolds: 8-11 August
Skipton: 11-17 August
London: 17-19 August
The day before our departure was spent packing. Also, concurrently, off and on, we watched the Investiture of HRH Prince Charles as Prince of Wales, being beamed live to the US via Telstar. This definitely got young Anglophile Me in the mood for our trip!
Re: packing. In those days, airlines had strict limits on the weight of checked bags. I forget what the limit was (I think it was 40kg), but I do remember that I had to remove several items of my own clothing to make room for the FOUR POUNDS OF PILLS that Mother insisted she needed. I never forgot how ridiculous that seemed, and it resulted in a promise that I would never allow myself to become that dependent on medications. (To this day, I still avoid taking 'supplements' of any kind.)
Because Mom was cheap (I must be frank), we were taking a 'charter' flight, which meant a 'no-name' airline (Capitol Airways), suffering 'red-eye' departure times from a satellite airport gate (LAX Imperial Terminal), and planes crammed with so many extra seats that I remember my knees were touching the seat-back in front of me for our entire flight. It was truly miserable (as was the food). But I dared not complain. I knew Mom was doing me a great favor taking me on this trip, so I did my best to keep my mouth shut over whatever inconveniences we might encounter.
Anyway, there are no photos from our departure date, so here is my journal entry for the first leg of our 1969 European Holiday.
