Irene and the boys are in Millport

Irene Widdop

My Mum said we had to behave while her and Dad went away to Paisley for something. It must have been important because Mum got her hair done and she never did that when we were on holiday.

She locked the door in the house we stayed in that was right at the end of 'Glasgow Street, Millport'. I thought that was a brilliant address. We rented it from Mrs Norval every year. She used to make great flapjacks and Mum used to go to Country Dancing with her. I sometimes played with Gillian Norval. They lived in the street behind us. It was a dead good wee house in Millport and we wished it was where we stayed all the time. Mum and Dad slept on a big couch bed in the living room, me and Frank slept in the big bed in the kitchen, but because Tommy was biggest, he got to sleep in 'the spanking room'. I didn't like that room. Last year me and Frank followed a horse and cart with lots of girls on it, and children running behind it, and we got lost. Dad found us and he was really mad 'cos Mum was 'frantic', and Frank got a spank for getting me lost. Another time, Mum's friend, 'Aunt' Rene, and her three girl's came for a week, and if you were naughty, you got took in that room to get a row. Our cat, Korkie, slept on that bed too. We used to take her with us in a shopping basket, on the train and boat. Dad made rod things with garden canes for the top of the basket, to stop her getting out.

My big brothers and me were going to have a whole day ourselves and Dad gave us 2/- to get bikes and have something to eat. That was loads and as much as I usually had to do me two weeks! Mum said we had to get something decent to eat and not just spend it on rubbish. We promised we would.

Mum and Dad had their Sunday clothes on 'cos that's what we always travelled in, and said we could use the toilets at the pier. We saw them away from the pier, on the Waverly, and then ran to Mapes to get the bikes sorted out. I wanted to go to the Ritz Café first to get ice-cream in a fluted dish with monkeys blood poured on top. It wasn't really monkey's blood, but that's what we called it. So we went and I got that. The boys just got cones and were getting fed up waiting for me to finish my ice-cream. They were outside on their bikes mucking about and making faces at me, telling me to hurry up.

Then we went round the island past the Marine station bit where you could see jellyfish, octopus and stuff, but I didn't like it and the room where all that stuff was scared me a bit. We were going to Fintry Bay Café to get our dinner, so took the long way round the island to get there.

Just past the Marine station, we stopped to look at the Lion Rock. lt looked like a lion from a certain bit of the road, otherwise it was just a pile of rocks with a funny hole in it. Then we stopped at the bit where that wee boy drowned a long time ago and his Dad put a big statue up so people wouldn't swim at that bit. You get a good look at Largs from there, across the Clyde, and sometimes we saw a submarine going past. We always looked for them.

We stopped for a bit at the Indian's Face painted in the rocks. I don't know who keeps painting it, but it always looks like it's just been done. Dad said it's probably 'the council', and I didn't know who that was.

The boys wanted chips when we got to the Café, and I got a Knickerbocker Glory. It was a funny thing to call something but they were the most fancy things I had ever seen, with loads of layers of fruit, ice-cream, chocolate and cream. We sat out on the bit at the back with the long wooden tables and benches and looked at the big island across the water. Tommy said it's called Arran and he went there with the BB's camping.

After that, we got crisps and went to the beachy bit across from the holiday house, past the crocodile rock which was also painted by 'the council' to the 'jumpin bit'. The boys loved this bit and we spent ages climbing up the rock and jumping in the soft sand.

Even though it was a really hot day, the boys wore their bobble hats, I thought they were daft. They bought them in the 'wee shop that sells everything' near our house, the first day we got there. Mum said they were welded to their heads.

Mum and Dad came back at tea time and we were starving by then. Dad bought us all fish and chips at the take away just beside the pier when they got off the boat.

Tommy was the oldest and was always told to look out for us. He was nearly 10 and my next big brother was a year older than me, he was 8. It was 1961 and funnily enough, we did behave.