Combe Martin is a coastal village in North Devon and it provided the destination for our primary school's summer trips in 1979 and 1980. The experience has ingrained itself on our collective memory, like seeing a Granny's bloomers on the bus, with that same mixture of comedy and horror.
The key source for the horror was the sleeping situation. Four ten year old boys. Three beds. I know it sounds like a priest's midnight party, but fortunately our Catholic school had not invited any along to supervise. It required a practical solution. Three of us - me, John and Darren (still my best mates today, in spite of Combe Martin, or maybe because of it!) - were joined by another John (there were 7 of them in the class). The deal was that everyone had to have a spell with one other boy in the double bed and the other nights in a single; and that you kept your pyjamas on in the double (as if you wouldn't); and put pillows down the middle. As for farting, well, there were no boundaries there and John was eager to perform a 'Dutch Oven' on anyone sharing the double with him.
Anyone sharing a double bed with a brutally malevolent farter like John discovered that it was almost as bad as sharing a seat on the coach with me. My inclination towards vomiting on account of debilitating car (and coach) sickness in the 70s was as inevitable and as unavoidable as Ollie Reed being drunk on a TV chat show. My stomach started to stir after about an hour, no matter where on the coach I'd sit or if I'd been sucking on enough of those boiled sweets that came in a round tin full of icing sugar to look like a hamster. Given that we travelled from North London to Devon and back, and was on and off the coach for excursions every day of the week, my throat ended up with more hot bodily fluid flowing through it than a Port-a-loo at a spicy food festival. I threw up on EVERY single journey. I have to lay some of the blame on your average 1970s coach, with no air-con and rubbish suspension, but the packed lunches provided for us really didn't help. SPAM, I worked out, is HAM which makes you SPEW, hence the portmanteau. And that other invidious culinary invention, sandwich spread, just looks like pig sick, so naturally made you think of puking up as soon as you looked at it. But I was my own worse enemy the time we had a day out to Exeter Cathedral (the other side of Devon from Combe Martin). I washed a Mint Choc Chip Cornetto down with a can of lime-flavoured fizzy drink just before boarding the coach and the very moment I stepped off it back at the hotel, I unleashed a bright green torrent that looked like it would require a clean up from people in radiation suits. You didn't want to ever tell a teacher when you were feeling sick, because they would give you a sick bag, which as we all know, was so-called not so much for what it was meant to catch, but more for what it already smelt like.
The final night of each trip was celebrated with a disco. Some boys plucked up the courage to dance with the girls, which was always a strange sight, as at that age girls tend to be taller. Were we among those brave, confident boys? The four of us, who shared a double bed, with one of us a serial puker? Of course not, we hid under the table the whole time.
The hotel we stayed at in Combe Martin has long gone, but the spirit of those trips SHALL live on, because my 50th birthday present from my wife was to book me, John and Darren into another hotel in Combe Martin for a nostalgic re-enactment. And she booked the 3 of us into a room with just one single bed and one double. Oh dear.
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