A Comical Story from the 70s!

After the recent story from Ray in Australia, we now have a comical tale from David who was a Thompson rep in the 70s....any more stories out there?

 Hi again Jackie, it’s the Thomson Holidays man again!! So Mariano liked the old stories you published about Llloret, well as reps we didn’t have so much time free for the bars but life was full of “Incidents”. THE NIGHT THE SAN MARTI PARK CAUGHT FIRE.... In the winters of the 70s  Lloret had loads of pensioners for long stays (Up to 3 Months) at the San Marti 1 & 2 with Thomsons. One night 8pm there was a departure for Gerona Airport (Night flights were cheaper to operate) but knackering to do! I was in reception early sorting out the old dears and their suitcases when a guest came rushing up to say the top floor was on fire! Me and another rep Sara didn’t think just rushed up the stairs to, right enough find the corridor full of bellowing smoke, we ran along the corridor bashing doors to make sure no one was asleep or in their rooms, I kicked in one door grabbed a quilt from the bed shoved it into the bath to soak it (Seemed it was a good idea as they always did it in the films?) put it over my head and shoulders and then kicked in what was left of the door where the flames and smoke were coming from. By this time hotel staff had cautiously appeared from their dinner and a lonely Guardia, we grabbed the bed mattress which was full blaze and chucked it out the window into the swimming pool and just stood there on the balcony  gasping for clean air, mean while the street was filling up with people shouting “DONT JUMP THE FIRE BRIGADE HAVE BEEN CALLED” we were falling about trying to laugh but coughing our guts out at the same time. Down stairs the coaches were waiting to go to the airport and it was too late to get anyone else to take our places so looking the worse for wear (Thomson reps had white jackets?) not so now, but very smelly and somewhat dirty we jumped on the coaches, there was a very generous round of applause from the departing guests but the new arrivals that night were heard to say “These Thomson reps are a bit scruffy” well we couldn’t really say your hotel has been on fire tonight could we? Oh and the reason for the fire.... the old man whose room it was felt cold so when he went for his dinner he put the portable tea making element in the bed to warm it up a bit. If your dear followers liked this one then maybe I might be able to recall, The Shooting at the barbeque or the day I buried one of the guests (she was dead) but being Christian there was no vicar . Regards David

Photos from Shorny

Todays photos from Shorny aka 'Spock' - these few feature the Britannia pub, but more of Shorny's photos at a later date which will show Gerrys, Robin Hood, Prince of Wales and lots more!
Sorry about the water damage on the one below, I've cropped it and cleaned it up a little...we can now see that its Louis from the Britannia!

A very very young Billy!

Geoff the Britannia music man.

Loads of Photos!!

Can I once again say thanks to everyone for sending in photos, I have that many photos been sent just recently that I'll have to start putting them on daily. For those of you that have sent photos and not yet seen them all yet, I do still have them here but as you all know I do keep alternating the photos so we don't get them all from the same person or same years day after day. Please keep sending them and I'll always try to send a reply to say that I've received them, if you don't get a reply or see any of your pics after a day or so then by all means get in touch and ask if I got them ok. I even have photos here that people have sent by post or given me personally still to be scanned....including hundreds in a box from Colin (ex Colins Cabin etc)

One from Davy

Just one photo today  which was sent in by Davy taken 1981 outside Yates, one thing Davy said about this photo is that "Frank looks like a cardboard cut out"....I wont tell you what I said about Davy :-))

Brians photos

A few more photos from Brian who worked in Lloret back in 1980.
Brian is on the far left of the top photo.

Para Alan

Thanks to Alans sisters for letting me use their personal photos of (Para) Alan for the 'Old Stuff'...and we all thought he was camera shy, he certainly doesn't look it in the photo above - what a great shot!

Pat's photos

Thanks to Pat in Canada for sending another batch of photos through with a couple of names attached............

"Diane is sporting an afro type hair style, I’m  the shorter one with long hair. I also included a snapshot of Steve and Claire’s wedding. I also have a photo somewhere of the girls soccer team, we all had different colour shirts and no trainer shoes, I believe some of us even played in sandals"