On Caravan Parks and Beauty Spots

A pity John Betjeman isn''t around to comment on this development near Golden Cap

"One day a tidal wave will break
Before the breakfasters awake
And sweep the cara's out to sea,
The oil, the tar, and you and me..."

I always enjoyed childhood caravan holidays in small, discreet sites in Cornwall, Devon and by the Solent. For some years in the 1980s I kept a caravan at a site in Sani, Halkidiki, Greece. It was a great place to escape from Thessaloniki. I stored a windsurf board in the caravan, for use at weekends.

I wasn't amused by Clive James' comments in his review of some of the poems in Betjeman's "A Nip in the Air":

"The new, usurping middle class doesn’t pull together except for advantage. They find their unity in legalized vandalism, creating nothing but a wilderness, in which the disinherited working class aimlessly sheds litter. The caravans of the milling proles jam the shoreline and the wrappings of their potato crisps non-biodegradably choke the surf".