Old van chronicles - The Beginning!

I have been intending to start a set of stories about my old van, right from the early days, its life and partial demise, then the rebuild, and its new lease of life since then. So here is the first installment, about its use while I was still very young!

The first holiday in this caravan was when I was one! The van was bought from Gailey Caravans in 1957 and is a Paladin Buccaneer 14 foot long 4 berth van. It had a hand water pump, a stove with 2 burners and a grill, 2 gas lights, a bucket elsan, and not much else! All mod cons for the time though.

As a family we set off to Wales, from Sutton Colfield where we lived at the time. However, the first night was spent at a site in Gailey. Being close to home, and I guess near Gailey Caravans (!), if there were any problems it wasn't far to go to get help!

My father was a keen photographer and always kept meticulous records of all his photos and so I know exactly when and where each was taken! He also kept detailed records of where we went, dates, and what the mileages were etc! In fact even now he keeps a record of all caravan trips - my parents still caravan, and have only just had a motormover fitted to their current caravan as they are finding manually handling the van a bit too much these days!

My father has added these comments to illustrate the photos:

"The two photos are of our very first holiday in the caravan in 1957. The first was at Gailey, the morning after our first night, and the second is later that day (31st August 1957) on our first pitch at New Quay, Cardiganshire. The A30 car was only about 2 years old."

The story of the A30 car is interesting too, in that he bought it as a van, and then cut out the van sides to add the glass windows. He than also had the rear seats added, to make a car. The van was sold as a commercial vehicle and thus he did not have to pay the purchase tax on it! One additional advantage, that became something very useful, was that the van had a lower ratio 1st gear than the car did! This proved invaluable when struggling up some of the hills in Wales (and later Scotland - another story perhaps?)