Posted on by Cathy

Keeping cool on a warm day…..

Think back to times on the beach – before these pop up easy to use sun shade type of apparatus and their kind appeared.  We found refuge in the sand dunes or used a beach umbrella which if you weren’t careful more often than not took off across the sands once the wind got up.

These were times when ingenuity played a big part in our daily lives.

Cyprus is surrounded by water – the beautiful mostly crystal clear water of the Mediterranean – It also has many beaches.  Ingenuity could be seen over and over on hot days down on the beach in Famagusta during the summer of 1960.  At that time, being just over an hours bus ride from Nicosia, Famagusta was the place to go – locals and expats enjoyed soaking up the warm sunshine – but of course there was always that ‘worry’ about needing shade as well as where to store everything needed for the day out (without the hassle of getting sand in everything including your sandwiches 😊)

Never fear – after staking his claim to a spot on the sands and with the aid of some tent poles, several bed sheets, a bit of string along with a ‘sometimes’ willing family – hot and weary before the day has begun having traveled down from Nicosia with several other families and airmen in a very large very warm non air conditioned air force issue bus similar to this – my Dad would then erect our own little bit of shady heaven.  We could be comfortable without the misery of being too warm.

I got a lovely warm feeling when I discovered The Golfer had scanned some of the remaining unblemished ‘slides’ from that time when we were courting.  He would often (well if the truth be told he still does) take candid snaps – like this one of Mum and me in the bed sheet tent on a warm day in Famagusta.

BTW, we weren’t the only ones with our own man made shelters.  There were oodles of them erected and dismantled each Saturday and Sunday when the trippers arrived and went back home again.  It was a skill passed on to the new ‘whiteys from blighty’ to make their beach days pleasant.

(Whitey from Blighty – a very old term used to describe newly arrived (pale skinned) British servicemen to an overseas posting where they are noticeable because everyone else usually has a tan)

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Linking to Wild Daffodil ~ Photo Monthly Meet Up ~ WARM

20 Replies to “Keeping cool on a warm day…..”

  1. I haven’t heard of the term Whitey from Blighty. In Australia we need a term for sunburnt British tourists. It is a wonder that enterprising Cypriots did not have set ups for beach visitors, like the deck chairs and umbrellas in many countries where you pay, usually, a small fee. Thailand does it very well, with everything from manicures, to food to drinks, to massages and of course a nice shady deck chair. They hadn’t quite worked out toilet facilities properly though, although that was quite some time ago. Given the disgusting state of the sea water, perhaps that was what the toilet facilities were.

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    1. This was 57 years ago Andrew. Things changed a bit over the next few years then the ‘coup’ happened and it all went pear shaped for that part of the island. Parts of Famagusta are still off limits. Sad but true

      Beaches in other parts of the island are regimented – beds umbrellas in rows all for hire. Totally unlike our free and easy beaches here at home in Australia

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    1. Yes the service life was my life until I was aged 30. Father in the RAF then married The Golfer also in the RAF. It was a good life then not available to todays servicemen and families

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  7. love the set up and of course the old snap of that time – I can imagine lugging all the gear to the beach – and later lugging it all back home…

    many of those modern apparatus that you showed above are on our beaches, but often too a very large tent with many mats inside – this especially of PI families who not only have the tent but a big bbq – children galore, guy at the bbq, women often asleep in the tent.

    I’m not much of a beach goer so I don’t know what I would do…

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  9. We haven’t seen the sun for months, it seems, so you understand you are tantalizing us with articles like this! Stay cool, I’m sure your time of wind and rain will come—if you get that sort of weather in Australia!

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    1. Oh we do Diane. Wind and rain is a specialty of the Melbourne weather dept😊 On a good?? Year we even get frost and if you drive an hour and a half further up the road from where I live you might even come across some snow ⛷
      Come on down in July/August and this could all be yours lol

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  10. We used to go to the beach a lot at Quartz Mountain near Altus, Oklahoma. I was in high school then and we did not want too much cover because there was an Air Force Base in Altus and we wanted to show off as much as possible. LOL

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  11. GOOD old fashioned ingenuity.
    We don’t need Brains these days. Just lots of money to buy everything.
    Not as much fun I don’t think

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