Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 13:00:43 on
Mon, 14 Jul 2008, magwitch remarked:

All I can say is that during the '50s '60s and '70s people managed
to get to Devon or Cornwall for lovely holidays and the 4–6
hour car or train journey was all part of the fun.
I remember going down there by car pre-motorways, via the infamous
Honiton Bypass etc, and it wasn't much fun. Nor was it 4-6 hours!!

Well as the irishman said that would depend where you started your
journey (or something).

You are starting near Newmarket I think, and I was starting near
Chelmsford. So not much difference really.

It's around 300 miles and in those days you could average 30mph if you
were lucky. So set off at crack of dawn and get there by supper time
(allowing for breaks).

Nowadays, I suppose children would implode with boredom of the arduous
journey and it would permanently scar their psychology or something.

It takes about half of the time as back then, and they have all sorts of
gadgets to amuse themselves. So "not really".

No I was starting from 20 miles north of Winchester at the time about
150 miles further west and another 70 miles south from Chelmsford. I
said it used to take 4 for Devon and 6 hours for Cornwall from there and
was accurate.