No stream in Scotland was safe from the efforts to `dam' them. Loch Rollie was created when we went to Foss for the first time and was still there when we went the following year!
No sea anemone was safe from having chewing-gum put in it's aperture, just for the fun of seeing it spitting it out again!
On one occasion Brian was taking a picture of us all sitting on a rock by a stream; he stepped back to focus better and fell in! Not much sympathy and plenty of laughter.
We climbed mountains in Scotland and the Lake District. This was not much to Julia's taste, but all we had to do was tease her till she got mad, then she would forge on ahead and get to the top first. It never failed.
We nearly always stayed in caravans - they were affordable on a teacher's pay. Julia invariably supplied the smiles. On one occasion she was to sleep in an upper berth and one of her brothers underneath. “You've not to go under my neath” she protested..! On another she refused to sleep with her brothers because “I'm developing...”.
Brian had a couple of holidays alone with his sons. He went to Germany with Andrew and walking & climbing in the Lake District with Gordon. I can't pretend the early teenage years were easy for our children, or us.
Things improved when they went to University and they were able to taste the joys of independence. Unfortunately, also comes the straight-jacket of responsibility a hard lesson to learn and one which life never lets up on, as we all find.
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