We asked you to show us your retro holiday snaps to get an idea of how much things have changed for holidaymakers over the years. In our first gallery of your submissions, we take a look at the 1960s – a decade of European road trips, British beach fun and caravanning
Not everyone felt compelled to dress up for the seaside. Richard Dunstan (second on the left) sent us this picture showing his family on the beach at Tenby, Pembrokeshire, around 1969, with his brother ‘eating’ an ice cream in the foreground. ‘My grandfather was very Victorian,’ he says, ‘hence the suit and tie. But check out my mother’s skirt!’ Photograph: Richard Dunstan/GuardianWitnessPhotograph: Richard Dunstan /GuardianWitnessA disintegrated slide captures another reader’s mother on holiday in Spain during the 60s. From a collection left behind when she passed away, this is one of their favourites: ‘Even though it’s disintegrated, it feels one of the most alive.’ Photograph: ID4266488/GuardianWitnessPhotograph: ID4266488/GuardianWitnessOne of our favourites from all the photos submitted, this picture was taken in the summer of 1968 and shows the reader’s exhausted mother on the beach at Lunan Bay on the east coast of Scotland: ‘This is her on holiday with four children aged from six years (me) to my brother at six weeks. I seem to remember he also had some sort of skin condition (hence the mittens) which meant he spent a lot of time screaming...’ Photograph: oldmaster/GuardianWitnessPhotograph: oldmaster /GuardianWitnessThankfully, not every holiday was quite so traumatic. This picture shows the same family a year later happily sunning themselves in the Algarve: ‘My parents loved the sun and as we lived in the west of Scotland they worked really hard to be able to afford their two weeks away in the sun (usually somewhere in the Med) every year.’ Photograph: oldmaster/GuardianWitnessPhotograph: oldmaster/GuardianWitnessTaken somewhere on the south coast of England in the mid-to-late 60s, this photo really shows beach fashion at its finest. Men’s swimming trunks might have looked like a pair of old pants back then but when you’re basking in a glorious British summer, no one’s complaining. Photograph: timtop/GuardianWitnessPhotograph: timtop/GuardianWitnessThis black and white photo, taken in 1967, shows the reader on his first trip to Bournemouth: ‘We stayed in a small hotel and walked or caught the bus to the beach. I am the one with the spade. The other two kids were staying at the same hotel. Instant friends.’ Photograph: AndreweM66/GuardianWitnessPhotograph: AndreweM66/GuardianWitnessSeveral of you got in touch with stories involving getting jammed into tiny cars for road trips, and we felt that this picture, taken just after a trip to mainland Europe in 1962, really captured that experience: ‘We packed camping equipment in the boot of our Mini and two more cases on the roof rack. My friend and I sat in the back, surrounded by saucepans, fiddles and books … highlights were a flooded tent in Copenhagen, a smashed windscreen in the Netherlands and running out of petrol on the Belgian motorway.’ Photograph: junks/GuardianWitnessPhotograph: junks/GuardianWitnessThe airport experience is probably one of the most dramatic changes seen by travellers over the past 50 years. This photograph shows an aircraft destined for Paris at Hythe International Airport in 1967. Let’s just say the security looks a little more relaxed... Photograph: mtbhull/GuardianWitnessPhotograph: mtbhull /GuardianWitness‘Before motorways, before service stations and before cheap flights. Here we are having a picnic on a French roadside en route to a Spanish holiday in 1968.’ Photograph: NoneTooClever/GuardianWitnessPhotograph: NoneTooClever /GuardianWitnessWell equipped for a day at the beach on an annual camping trip to Cornwall in the mid 60s. The reader is the one in the scuba mask. Justabloke/GuardianWitnessPhotograph: Justabloke /GuardianWitnessCaravanning in Marsden in the early 60s. In the picture is the reader, their dad, two great aunties and dog Skippy: ‘I hated caravanning then, hate it still.’ Photograph: tynegal/GuardianWitnessPhotograph: tynegal/GuardianWitnessEn route to Spain in 1968. This photo was submitted by Ivan Pope (left), who is joined by his dad and younger brother. Ivan is wearing the watch he’d been given as an early present for his eighth birthday. ‘Six of us travelled for days in that car with no air conditioning, no seatbelts, no motorways, no AA and no entertainment,’ he says. ‘It was heaven.’ Photograph: ivanpope/GuardianWitnessPhotograph: ivanpope /GuardianWitnessEven today, Bridlington beach in Yorkshire is famous for its donkey rides. This picture, taken in 1967, shows that some holiday destinations haven’t changed that much at all. Photograph: janb07/GuardianWitnessPhotograph: janb07 /GuardianWitness
