Swanage in Dorset

"We're going southwest for the hols" says Faith. "If only it was Swanage again." So wrote Enid Blyton in the Adventures of the Strange Ruby first published in 1960.

We always look forward to our visits to Swanage.

During our first family holidays here in England we would spend one or two weeks at a small farm between Studland and Swanage. Most of those holidays were spent on the beach at nearby Studland. Although at the time my nine or ten year old legs never felt the beach was that close as we would always walk there and back fully laden with lunch, towels, swimming trunks and all the other paraphernalia that a family of hunter gatherers felt they needed to survive.

One visit to Swanage during our holidays at Studland was included in our itinerary but the thing was, Mum and Dad never told us when it would happen. Invariably when it did it was on those rare rainy days of which at least one could be expected in any fourteen day period. My brothers and I would be given half a crown each, the equivalent of 12.5 pence in todays decimalised and inflation burdened currency. We were told we could spend it how we wished and were then given the freedom of the town while Mum and Dad stayed on the beach. And spend it we did, usually in the penny arcades hoping to turn the half crown into something more. We never did and never learnt the lesson that the "house always wins" but we always kept enough back for an ice cream.

Swanage Today - well on the 5th January actually

The arcades are still there. Not that I venture into them these days but from the outside they look brighter than I can remember.

Nearly sixty years later my wife and I have been making Swanage, in the colloquial language of the modern travel reviews, our "go to" destination for short breaks. Autumn, winter, spring or summer it doesn't matter when because the old town still holds a timeless charm and fascination combined with the comfortability of a favourite cardigan or sweater.

Even allowing that this visit was during the first week of January and during that flat period following Christmas when people come away from the shops and pubs and return to work the town felt flat.

Finding a Ford GT40

I have a mission. That is to find a Lesney Matchbox toy Ford GT40. There used to be one in my collection but I cannot find it. So, to fulfil that mission I check through the toy baskets in the charity shops and antique centres hoping, just hoping, that there might be one original model in white with blue trim.

I tried all the charity shops without success. Each one I went into the people running them all said how quiet things were. One even said that this particular week was the worst one they had had since they started trading five years ago.

There was one last hope. An antique centre on the corner of Station Road and the High Street housed in an old branch of a national bank. From across the street within the waft of chips frying in a cafe I could see the windows of the centre looked grubby. Maybe there were renovations going on. I crossed the road and saw that the business had actually closed a few months ago. Above the doorway was a "to let" sign.

Trying to recover from a mission failure

The best way to recover from a mission failure is to indulge in a mug of coffee. Across the road from the empty bank was a cafe which doubled up as an art supply shop. The front looked brand new and sort of arty and definitely independent. In the display cabinet were some good looking pastries. I ordered my coffee and then asked for something like a croissant from the display cabinet.

"Those aren't real and we haven't got any fresh ones yet."

"Have you got anything to eat? Hot or cold I really don't mind."

I am not sure if any of you can remember the scene from the film "Love Actually" where the character played by Alan Rickman is trying to discretely buy a piece of jewellery but no matter how he tried to urge the sales assistant to get a wiggle on the wrapping process got slower. I was beginning to feel like Alan Rickman's character, a mood which I call a "Rickman", but I had paid and could not leave. So I was stuck with my developing "Rickman".

"No. We are still waiting for our delivery."

This was at eleven.

I tried to enjoy my coffee while pretending to read the paper. I say "pretend" because the conversation emanating from the nearby seats in the window got more attention than three down with six letters and the second letter was "b" in the quick crossword.

The chat was about dentists in the town and one lady dominated it.

"No, don't go there love. You want to get registered with mine. He's brilliant. Even when I lived up in London I would come down here for treatment. Worth it...he's a professor so he must be good...all the way from London...that's what I did. You should register with him love. You'll be fine."

Lunch and a part of the economy that is ugly

Coffee drained and then a walk along the front before lunch.

The pub I went into at half twelve could at a best guess sit one hundred covers. I was told quite definitely to wait at the threshold until a member of staff would sort out a seat for me. While I was waiting I counted six diners. Couldn't I just choose a table myself?

I felt the beginnings of another "Rickman".

Someone met me at the sign and took me to a table where they gave me a menu and tried to tell me what was not available. Just like the café earlier, this place was waiting for its delivery. They must both use the same wholesaler?

To order I had to go back to the bar. The person I was talking to spoke quietly and painfully. He told me he had a sore throat and a temperature. Great! Here we are in the middle of flu season complicated by Covid and you are telling me you are not very well. I could feel the heat from him. He then told me he would rather be at home getting better but because he was on a zero hours contract there was no way he could afford the necessary time off work.

How lucky I have been during my working years to have been in jobs where there has not been this added financial pressure to that of getting better.

Touch wood or whatever lucky talisman two days after that encounter I am symptom free.