Only my Second trip abroad

Spain 1960

Many years ago, in 1960, when I was about 22 years old, I lead a group of holiday makers to the then small village of Salou, which is on the Costa Brava in Spain, and is located about 80 miles south of Barcelona and 10 miles from Tarragona. I had been to Salou the previous year, my fist time out of the U.K., with a small group of young people, affectionately known as Friends of Salou. The group was created by the French Teacher in Finchley Grammar school and we used to meet through the winter in the cricket pavilion where there just happened to be a bar. We were all much the same age and met up once a week through the winter to get to know each other and to form friendships. It was all very civilised. We separated ourselves into four groups for our two weeks holiday in Salou spread over an 8 week period. The groups were approved and adjusted by the teacher to make groups of near identical sizes. He had visited the still-untainted-by-holidaymakers Salou a few years earlier and recognizing there was money to be made leading small groups of holidaymakers to this tiny village, he became an unofficial travel agent to supplement his teacher’s salary. Bearing in mind how Salou as a tourist destination actually exploded in popularity after his ground-breaking leadership, I have often wondered if he eventually made serious money out of his little enterprise. I hope he did.

Salou, nowadays, is a huge, brash, tourist trap with many hundreds of multi-storey hotels and apartments all around the mile or so of bay together with a multitude of amusements for tourists. It is a bit like a Spanish Blackpool and, honestly, I wouldn’t be seen dead in the place nowadays, but in 1960 it was all so different. Then, Salou was a tiny village stuck between the sea and a railway, the latter of which threads its way all the way along the coast of the Costa Brava. There was just one ‘Main’ street running east to west from the railway line to the sea off which a couple of other small residential streets ran. The hotel was on the Main Street together with a few small shops, and that was Salou. It was basically a tiny fishing village. It did have a nice beach and about half a mile away there was a camping site used by young Spaniards. Tiny as it was, Salou also has an interesting history. It was from Salou that James 1 of Aragon sent a fleet of small ships to take control of the Balearic Islands (Majorca, Minorca, etc) thus creating the Kingdom of Majorca. Salou gradually became a place of thieves and pirates but was again on the rise when I first went there. I suspect the thieves and pirates are still there but are now in disguise.

The first year we all stayed in the hotel in the centre of the village but to create more sleeping accommodation for the growing numbers of holiday makers, the following year the hotel built an annex about a hundred metres away on the other side of the railway. That railway was actually very dangerous. The crossings were all unmanned and you had to keep your eyes and ears open before crossing.

That first holiday was a great success and most of us decided we would like to repeat the experience and we continued to meet in the Finchley School cricket pavilion throughout the next winter. Recognizing my obvious leadership qualities, supplemented by the fact that I also spoke a little Spanish, the organizer asked me to lead one of the groups out to Salou the next summer. I would be given a 10% discount on the cost of the holiday. I readily agreed.

It was arranged that we would leave on a flight from Heathrow Airport that was due to depart at 2 am on Saturday morning. Those of you with quick minds will have already spotted to potential problem; a problem not everyone spotted at the time. A coach was hired to take us to the airport and there were four designated pickup points in the area. All went well until we reached the second pickup point where my itinerary told me I was supposed to pick up five holidaymakers. Sadly, only four were waiting for us. We were on a fairly tight schedule and I waited an extra ten minutes for the straggler to arrive but, in the end, the driver said we had to leave if we were to get to Heathrow in time. Fortunately, the rest of the holidaymakers were waiting at the other pick-up points as expected and we eventually arrived safely at the airport.

Air travel in 1960 was not what it is now. There were no enormous queues of people waiting to check in and, in those days, air travel was actually considered to be quite civilized and chic . Nor was there any security so you didn’t have to take your shoes and belts off or prostrate yourselves for internal examinations as you are today. So much has changed, you begin to wonder if perhaps Blackpool might be better after all.

I explained to the lady on the check-in desk that one of our number was missing but that I wanted leave his ticket at the desk, if that was allowed, so that he could come out to us eventually. The check-in lady was quite amenable to this reasonable request so I left the ticket and then handed each holiday maker his or her ticket for them to guard and present as needed. When we were called to embark, I told all members of the group to double-check that their luggage was actually next to the plane ready for loading. Luggage handling was not the sophisticated, rather complicated process it has become and our suitcases were all sitting immediately next to our aircraft. Everyone checked as ordered.

The actual flight was uneventful except that, in those days, few aircraft were pressure controlled so for someone like me who has what are called ‘scarred eardrums’, the flight was excruciatingly painful. When we arrived in the arrivals hall at Barcelona, one of the holidaymakers, someone called Tom, came up to tell me he had already lost both his and his wife’s tickets. This meant I had to go back out to the aircraft with him to search in and around his seat. We found his tickets in the magazine holder where he suddenly remembered he had placed them.

When we got back into the luggage reclaim area, Tom’s wife told us that only one piece of their two identical suitcases had arrived. When I checked around, I discovered that one other girl in the group had an identical suitcase to Tom and his wife. I assume some baggage handler spotting the three identical cases had removed one of the pair and had placed the ‘third’ case next to the remaining one of the pair, ensuring that the ‘third’ case was placed behind the remaining one of the pair. The Carrs probably only checked that the first case was theirs, confident that the second case must also be theirs. On the other hand, the girl owning the ‘third’ case would have had to check both cases to ensure one of them was hers. I was confident that Tom’s wife’s case case had been stolen and would never resurface. I was right. It never was found. But that did not mean I could just let the matter drop. I then spent days ringing the BA office in Barcelona and travelling back and forth to it to try to recover it and to claim compensation for the unfortunate couple. As it happened, it was Tom’s wife’s case that had gone missing so all her holiday clothes and toiletries had disappeared. I then spent more time going shopping with her and helping her buy all the necessities she had lost.

Then there was the little matter of the missing holidaymaker. He rang me in great heat to demand to know why I hadn’t picked him up. He seemed slow and very reluctant to accept that the blame was his entirely and that 2 am on Saturday morning was actually different from 2 am on Sunday morning. More expense and time was spent sorting him out and, eventually, he arrived three days late. At least he got his holiday even if it was a bit shorter than expected. That said, it was probably longer than mine. I really earned my 10% discount.

The rest of my holiday went swimmingly and was packed with much fun as well as many interesting experiences. But I never took another group out to Spain. By contrast, a good friend of mine led the next group of ‘Friends of Salou’ out to Spain the fortnight following my holiday. He spoke not a word of Spanish but everything went exactly as expected. Everyone turned up in time, no tickets or luggage was lost and everyone had a full two weeks holiday. I haven’t been able to find any old photos of Salou as it was,so you will just have to take my word for what it was like in 1960!

I felt that the laws of chance were telling me something because not one, not two but three totally disconnected events had conspired to try to spoil my Spanish holiday and my attempt at leadership. Not wishing to tempt fate a second time, I never took another group out to Spain.

Bernard Gallivan

February 2021