Pontins revisited

First there was Blackpool Pontins. I never actually went there, but the 11A from Blackpool to Lytham trundled past its near-endless perimeter, and I would always sit on the top deck, which afforded a view over the wall. I would look at the endless chalets and wonder who went on holiday there -- why they would choose it and what they could possibly be like. Many years later my sister got a summer job in the shop there and would tell stories of quivering with fear as she had to ask very large Glaswegians to repeat themselves over and over again as she couldn't understand what brand of cigarettes they were asking for.

Then there was the Pontinental. Housemate S and I got a cheap mini-break to Tenerife one year when she was back on hols from her slightly bizarre job running a casino in Tanzania. It was pot luck on the accommodation, and the Pontinental is where we ended up, although by that time Pontins had given up on it and it was known as the Ten-Bel. We called it Ten-Bel Holiday Hell. My first over-riding memory is of lying on the freezing cold stone floor in the bathroom with period pain and a gargantuan hangover. My second is of being too scared to sneak out of the 'blue' cabaret in case we got picked on by the enormous 'lady' comedian. She wore a flapper dress with rouge on her wrinkly cleavage, into which she pushed the head of a twelve year old boy with a wink at his dad and an 'eh, he's old enough now'. He's probably still in therapy.

But now there is Camber Sands Holiday Village - also previously a Pontins, but now with a new lease of life. For it is home to All Tomorrow's Parties: a music festival celebrating the wild, the weird, the left field and the just plain noisy, where chalets (I am guessing) will be full of Japanese teenagers, avant garde art punk types and, er, us. Ten of us, to be precise, sleeping on under polyester sheets on sofabeds and bunk beds for a long, strange weekend by the sea. I can't quite imagine these worlds colliding, but I am so looking forward to it.

And so to bed. It's been a long, long week, and it ain't over yet.

joella