Hats off to the holidays!
As a child, Paul, would often be seen in a hat during the summer holidays. However, the hats tended to go missing. Once in Blackpool he convinced his grandfather to buy him a new cap...
(Background music - Funfair music)
"Even from an early age, I remember hats being around...and being such a fair haired boy, I always had a cap on. Every summer holiday, one was put on my head like a doorknob.
I was about six, walking along the front along Blackpool's beach. The sun was glowing, burning the back of my neck. As we walked down the promenade, I remember looking at all my family - my mother and father walking together; behind them my grandmother, walking like the Queen, as proud as anyone could be of her family.
Someone was missing of course - my grandfather. Looking down the road, there he was...ahead of everyone else, resting on his walking stick, talking to a stranger. He was always talking to strangers; always happy to say hello.
As we walked towards him, I looked in one of the many seafront shops. There was the perfect hat to cool my head. No one would buy me a hat because I always left them behind or lost them. Being a stubborn child, I decided to tell my grandfather that I needed the hat. I set off running down the road towards him, screaming back at everyone, "My bampy will buy me a hat, my bampy will buy it." He walked me back to the shop, ignoring everyone else, and bought me the hat - a small baseball-style peak cap.
I walked out of that shop like the cat that got the cream!
A few days later we packed our bags and left Blackpool to return home to Pembrokeshire...and the hat? The hat stayed in Blackpool. I left it behind again!"
Paul Jones
