Henry John Williams (1943 - 2022)

My earliest memory of going on holidays was when we were living in Corrimal NSW. My father used to take my brother on Thursday for a trip to Wollongong about 15 klms away, to the Camping Park to set up the tent. It was about 450 mtrs square with partitions making 4 rooms. One for mum & dad, one for my big brother and one for my sister & me (I was about 7 years old) The other room was for the kitchen /lounge room. We mostly eat under the flap that was the side wall to the tent.

My dad and brother would get it setup with help from friends in the park, and then would set about making trips backwards and forwards to the park carrying all the stuff we needed at the park.

We had booked the same spot for 5 years, for two weeks.

My sister, who was 2 years older than me had made friends with other children around our age and used to play with them around the park on the grass areas, throwing a ball or playing tag. This made us hot so we went around to the lake when the tide was out. This meant that the sand bar was in place so we would not get washed out to sea.

If my big brother (because he was 8 years older than me) was there he was sent to watch over us and the other children to make sure that we didn’t drown, although the water was only up to my brother’s knees. We played in the sand and built sand castles or dug large holes in the sand and then tried to jump over them, sometimes getting buried in the sand up to our chests, then having to be dug out by all the kids. Sometimes on Saturday and Sunday the ice cream truck would come into the park and we would hound mum until she gave us the money to buy an ice cream.

Most of the time was spent in our costumes running around or swimming in the lake. Of course, it wouldn’t be a holiday if it didn’t rain on some days which meant that we had to stay in the tent and play games by ourselves.

On Sundays some people from one of the churches would come down and get us singing songs whilst jumping up and down, but I got bored and would run away with one of my friends and hide.

Then when the 2 weeks were up it was back home followed by the usual trips back & forth for dad and my brother until everything was back home and put away in the garage until next year.

The 2 weeks holiday was planned for 5 years but on the 3 year, about 10 days into our 2 weeks there was a big storm and our tent, along with about 12 other people’s tents were ripped to shreds and lifted from the ground so that everything got wet. After the storm, dad took my mother, sister and me home with dad and my brother (who remained at the park to guard all our stuff) making many tripe into the night to pick up all the camping stuff. Dad went back to the park and cancelled the next two years holidays and I cannot remember any other holidays until I went away without family.

John Williams, January 05, 2021 via Storyworth