Before and during WWII not everybody took holidays, but with increasing prosperity after the war the industry started to flourish helped by the four railway companies each of whom published their colourful Holiday Guides. These were full of advertisements for hotels, guest houses and bed and breakfast addresses and my pal Jeff Horsley found a place he liked, near to the Jurassic area in south Dorset and made a booking. I knew he was a keen fossil collector and happily tagged along, having little idea where we were going. We were both in our early twenties and travelled down by train from Paddington, London to Lyme Regis station on the former Great Western Railway to be met by Elizabeth Bartlett, a well-built lady of about 30 who had a Morris Minor(?). She drove us the four miles to her family home at Red Tiles in the hamlet of Monkton Wyld where we stayed on full board, for such a happy week – or was it two? The house was very large, a former vicarage for the nearby church. We had no transport, so did a lot of walking, as well as talking and lazing around.

One highlight of the holiday was the lady who occupied a downstairs room which opened out onto the large garden. She was a musician and as this was a passion I shared with Jeff we spent many hours with her, talking about music and being an excellent pianist she played a lot for us. All I could manage were things from a Star Folio, and I attempted a piece, something like The Taking of Kandahar, a pompous Victorian piece split into several sections with subtitles such as The arrival of the Cavalry and Flight of the Natives etc.

Things I remember are seeing a hornet wasp in a barn, and Miss Bartlett trying to make butter on a very warm humid day when the cream refused to churn properly. During one late night walk we saw a large number of glow worms and I caught one and put it in a matchbox. Next morning it had disappeared. Strangely, I was talking to somebody some time later about this and they had done the same thing – with an identical result. We walked to Charmouth beach partly across fields just once as it was quite a long hike and found it to be deserted. Apart from the many fossils lying about we searched the unstable cliffs, Jeff with his geological hammer.

The following year we booked again, but this time with a third pal – John Clements who had a car. It was an Austin 7, with a hair-trigger clutch and we always had to walk from the house up the steep hill to the main road after turning left at the gateway as it couldn’t manage all three of us when the engine was cold.

Two excursions are very well remembered. Going to Exeter and being embarrassed at seeing Jeff lying at full length on his back on the floor of the cathedral gazing up at the roof bosses through his telescope. And after a trip to Abbotsbury Swannery and Chesil beach, on the evening journey home, westwards along the coast road back to Red Tiles seeing the setting sun making the sea look so silvery. A fine end to the day.

When I became engaged in 1961, my fiancée Anne Russell and I wrote to the Bartletts to see if they still operated their guest house. The answer was ‘yes’, so we booked and had a very happy holiday there.

Mr Bartlett, ‘Farmer one-cow’ as Elizabeth called him groomed his beloved cow daily, brushing its tail to make her look in prime condition. At the bottom of the garden he kept a very large smelly pig. He told us that it had attacked him once. He did his own slaughtering on the premises, I believe. Mrs Bartlett, always cheerful and friendly, is but a hazy memory, alas.

The resident lady had gone and as we had a car we were frequently at Charmouth - by comparison with today, an almost deserted beach. There was a very large landslide jutting out from the cliff about 200 metres to the east of the entrance to the beach and daily, fossils became visible as the sea washed it away. We tried walking to Lyme Regis around the foot of Black Venn – but after an alarming experience when I nearly became stuck in some very sticky clay, we retraced steps.

Upon marriage we settled on Red Tiles yet again for an enjoyable honeymoon. We had booked our honeymoon night at a very attractive Wiltshire hotel near Salisbury, but shortly before marriage our money was returned as it had closed. A place at Whiteparish was found, but the evening meal was very disappointing, a poor mixed grill. By this time, Elizabeth was about to marry Leslie --- and we kept in touch with them for a couple of years after they moved to Axminster.

On one of our excursions I drove off road onto a sloping field and was unable to get the car back again. At every attempt the car slipped further downhill but fortunately a passing farm tractor hauled us back onto the road.