The Road to Bangkok.

The Road to Bangkok.

Looking for a more adventurous holiday? Something different to just sitting on your backside on a sun drenched beach with a book and a glass of Sangria? Thailand could be your answer. Programmes on the Sky TV channels might put some off visiting this little corner of the Far East, the drug dens, prostitution, overcrowding. Not an entirely enticing advert but if you look beyond the sleaze one can have a truly memorable holiday, as Clive Smith and his family discovered. 

'Everyone has heard of the infamous Bangkok Hilton but there are far and away more preferable places to stay in. Our destination was the small island of Khoh Samet, situated in the south of Thailand, initiating an overnight stop in Bangkok. The flight from Manchester Ringway with Etihad Airways, voted the world's best airline in 2010 and 2011 took in total a cool 14 hours. Long haul isn't everyone's bag but if you're well prepared, i.e. Ipod, books, magazines, plus the in-flight TV entertainment, the time soon flies by. 

The Ramada Hotel was our abode on the first night, surprisingly quiet, small but quaint with a private garden and swimming pool area. Hard to believe it was right in the middle of the bustling city of Bangkok where just around the corner a railway line cut through the heart of the city with people living in dwellings literally just feet away from the tracks! No fences or barriers. Bangkok can be claustrophobic. Bustling, congested, the population stands at 12 million people and a glance around the back streets away from the hotels reveals a plethora of shanty like dwellings where the local inhabitants live. There’s no fear of being harassed by drug dealers - as is the perception - unless you're looking for some! You get more harassment off the Tuc Tuc Taxi drivers looking for fares. Though it has to be said, the three wheel glorified tricycles are ideal for nipping through the gridlocked City streets.

The Ramada proved to be an ideal respite before a four hour journey by taxi to Khoh Samet. Daunting at the outset the positive side of the taxi ride, a minibus by comparison to the Tuc Tuc, was the opportunity to see more of the country, the outer suburbs of Bangkok, the various villages en route. Somewhat alarmingly, to reach the island, the taxi dropped us off by a marina where a speedboat was hired to finish the trip. Just enough room for six passengers and luggage, the speed boat took around 15 minutes to reach the island and then dispatched all of us into the sea where we had to wade through the surf and onto the beach. Bizarre to say the least. I half expected to see Jeremy Beadle waiting for us! It was patently obvious that the Health and Safety merchants haven't reached this part of Asia yet.

Khoh Samet is a secluded small island with modern luxury holiday chalets and wonderful white sandy beaches. Hospitality was first class, as was the food. A range of Thai Curries and chicken meals cooked in the spicy flavours of the East washed down with wine or the local beer called Chang who are the sponsors for Everton F.C as it happens, satisfied even the most hardened traveller, and my scouser son-law Nick!

Evening meals on the beach with the aromatic smell of barbecued fish or steak wafting around was something else you don't often see back home.

The most surprising thing about Thailand is how cheap everything appears to be. Ten days on the island and two nights in two of the best hotels in Bangkok cost just £450. Meals and drinks are ridiculously cheap.  

The obligatory day trip was indulged and a trip to a fish farm ensued which was an alarming experience. There are no roads on the island and a 'taxi' which turned out to be a pick-up truck drove six of us over a landscape that would have proved arduous for a lunar module. Bumps and dips all along the three mile trek which took around half an hour was just the start. Dropped off by the side of the road, what was considered a ferry to transfer our party over turned out to be a wooden pallet tied on top of a couple of oil drums! Unbelievable. Hairy as well! A rope attached from the fish farm built on stilts a few hundred yards into the ocean was tied to a tree next to the 'taxi rank' and the ferry driver levered everybody over. To enter the farm meant clambering up a ten foot steel ladder attached to the side. Not as easy as it sounds with the pallet wobbling all over the place as each member climbed off. Second last to leave the pallet, clinging for my life with both hands on the ladder, I nearly came a cropper as the pallet went one way and I the other leaving me literally horizontal and staring down into the murky sea! Not exactly known for my prowess on the breast stroke, well not as regards my swimming anyway, I was faced with a dilemma. Let go with my hands - or my feet. There was no way I was going for a swim so I dragged my feet off the pallet, and my legs crashed into the side of the ladder leaving me with cuts and bruises as a memento. Panic over. The girls' cries and tension exchanged for convulsions of laughter, I shakily climbed the steep ladder to sanctuary and a rest on the wooden floor. To view the various exhibits, turtles, sharks etc planks a foot wide were provided to straddle along in between the tanks. One look at the sharks eyeing you up as the next meal if you fell in was sobering, leaving me pondering 'who's great idea was this?' 

Back on dry land, beach entertainment included a squad of youngsters doing the rounds every night throwing and twirling flaming batons around, catching and eating them whilst you got tucked into your evening meal. Highly entertaining but after three or four nights, tedious. Especially when they came round with the buckets for payment! 

Thai Kick Boxing in a ring assembled on the beach was something else you don't see everyday and reminded one of how far away from home you were. Kids aged as young as eight or nine, kicking and punching lumps out of each other for the amusement of the baying locals as well as the holidaymakers was not to everyone's taste. However if this is their culture who are we to criticise?

For those who enjoy a massage, there is ample opportunity to stretch out on the sun lounger and think of England as a pretty Thai girl tenderises your feet and aching muscles. Very satisfying and what better way to chill out at the end of the day, than under a clear starlit sky, squatting on the rocks with a Bacardi and Coke, listening to the sounds of Bob Marley and Aretha Franklin emanating from the beach bars? Sublime. 

It all added up to a very different type of holiday from that in a resort in the Mediterranean or a week on the balmy North Sea coastline of Ingoldmells. And not a Bingo stall in sight! 

Returning to Bangkok for a day and one final night, spent in the Baiyoke Hotel which boasts to be the tallest building in Thailand was perfect. 84 floors up offers a spectacular panoramic view of the city. For those with a nervous disposition it is weird to be ascending in an elevator and clocking each floor as it rises. Doesn't do to let the imagination run wild. 

The reception area, twelve floors up was less endearing, resembling Piccadilly Tube Station during rush hour. Frenetic and noisy. Chaotic. For golf bores, a driving range is situated on the 23rd floor with a dining area alongside offering a wide variety of bar meals and drink. Very relaxing. 

Bangkok is a city that never goes to sleep, densely overcrowded and at night looking down from our room on the 35th floor you realised why so many people ride and walk around with masks covering their faces. The smog lies over the city like a cloud. 

Whilst in Bangkok a river trip is essential where the views of the ancient palaces, monuments and temples are splendid. Another eye opener is the canoes with local women sidling up alongside the barges to sell their wares of fruit, drink and vegetables. A tourist attraction described as a floating market. You don't get that on the Thames. Unique. 

All in all, Thailand is well recommended for those looking for something just a little bit more offbeat and different! 

50 Years Ago - Cilla at the Welfare Club, Corby

Corby's latest group The Cascades supported the country’s most current top female singer at the Welfare Club, Cilla Black, and virtually stole the show.  Cilla, an ex cloakroom assistant of the famous Cavern Club in Liverpool was the latest ‘big name’ acquired by ‘Taffy’ Reid for the Welfare Club, and as history would have it, it would be her last ever gig in a dance hall. Buoyant with her success of Anyone Who Had A Heart which was her first chart topper just a month before she graced the Welfare stage, she told the wide eyed Corby Leader reporter Alex Gordon after the show, “I'm going to concentrate on television appearances and package tours from now on”. It was the kind of ‘scoop’ that Alex was famous for, though on reflection, it could have been a response to the lukewarm reception she received from the Corby crowd that prompted the remark but whatever, it was a statement that was greeted with a ‘lorra lorra’ laughs by some people who thought that she had as much singing talent as a proverbial lawnmower. “She wouldn’t last five minutes in the Legion, they’d kick her out” was my dad, Cyril Smith’s verdict of the Liverpool diva as he sat impatiently through a ‘Top Of The Pops’ for his favourite show ‘Z Cars’ to begin. Nevertheless, though Cilla didn’t stand up to Cyril’s assessment as a worthy addition to the Sunday night bill of entertainment and bingo at the British Legion, she did of course, go on to be one of the country’s most popular TV presenters and stars of her era.

Cilla’s backing group at the Rec. was the highly rated Sounds Incorporated who had previously played in Corby at the Drumbeats’ Beanfield dance a year before, but both the Cascades and the Midnighters, who were also on the bill, were received better than Cilla Black it was said.

Midnighters' drummer Billy Mathieson gave an insight into the petulance and whims of some of these stars, recalling that sax player Pat Casey had told the rest of the Midnighters that Cilla Black had been trying to get out of playing at the Welfare for weeks, ever since she had hit the big time with Anyone Who Had a Heart. Billy; “I was seventeen at the time, and starstruck. I was working in a shop in Rockingham Road and decided to make a brooch out of some bull horn for her. I shaped it, and polished it and was dead chuffed with it. When I went up to Cilla Black at the Welfare to give it to her and said, ‘I made this for you’, she took one look at it, and sneered back at me dead snotty, ‘what do I want that for?’, and walked off. I was deflated, I thought, what an ignorant cow. When I told Pat and the boys, that’s when he told us that she didn’t want to be there in the first place, and the reason she had a gob on like a smacked arse."  

Tales of Corby - The Big Freeeeze...1963

‘Iceberg Island’. That’s how the RAC described the abominably cold weather at the turning of the year. For a spell of around three months, Britain was gripped in an Arctic winter. It was indeed, the coldest on record. Records tumbled during the month of January, the coldest night on record was written into the annals. 27o Frost in Geddington. Surpassed a couple of nights later by 30o in Overstone. Snow, blizzards, freezing fog and temperatures brought the whole country to its knees. For a spell, the west country was cut off, Scotland was cut off, there was a pile up of 27 vehicles on the M1 near Toddington. Exasperating the situation was a dispute by the power workers who were fighting a wage claim. Casualty departments in hospitals were overrun as accidents, occurred not only on the roads, but on the walkways as well. Driving Tests were postponed. Just three games out of a scheduled twenty nine F. A. Cup ties survived the inclement weather. This was 1963. Arguably the worst winter in living memory. Householders, fighting the bitter cold, turned up the heat, and the energy sapping electric and gas meters went into overdrive. Single shillings, the food for these machines, were gulped down at such a rate, the banks were soon reporting a shortage. ‘We can’t cope’ they whined. “It’s enough to freeze the baws aff ye, ha’e you nae change for the meter?” Jim Broon wailed at the teller in the TSB. ‘We’re doing our best, we canny get any mair coins,’ he was told. Kettering came to the rescue of their friends in Corby. Their banks had plenty. Seems like our county cousins were more hardy, or preferred an extra pullover to keep the cold out! Further emphasising the point was a report from Stewarts & Lloyds steelworks where three donkey jackets had been stolen from the Blast Furnaces locker rooms. “They’d pinch the grub out yer waens’ mooth”, Shuggy McDonald told his gaffer. A ‘Package Show’ at Kettering’s Granada cinema, starring America’s Johnny and the Hurricanes was also cancelled, ‘due to circumstances beyond our control’. The snow was too much even for a Hurricane! Out in the suburbs, a service in Blatherwyke Church was brought to a halt with the congregation choking, when smoke belched out of the over heated organ. Was it a case of too much ‘fire and brimstone’ from the Rev. C. J. Ough? He admitted, “it was an alarming moment”. Never was the hymn ‘Crying in the Chapel’ more appropriate! Undeterred and with the spirit that put the Great into Britain, the service continued, minus the organ, with a heart warming rendition of ‘All Things Bright And Beautiful’. We were not alone. Down on the farm, the pigs were also suffering. “The sows have lost their appetite for a bit of ‘how’s your father’”, according to Pig Food specialist Horace Smith. Attempting to explain the disinterest shown by his sows towards the boars, Horace claimed the adverse weather was ‘too cold for the pigs, it’s affecting their reproductive performances’. The same grunt was probably being used amongst the humans as well! “Keep yer cold feet aff me, yer onte snowbaws Jimmie!” Helping to take the minds off the cold was the annual round of ‘Burns Suppers’. In Corby Conservative Club, Councillor George Bolas, replying to the toast, ‘The Land We Live In’ expressed his opinions that “Corby can give a lesson to the rest of the world. All the difficulties of the world could be solved if a leaf was taken out of Corby’s book.” George was recalling the days back in the 1930’s when the first newcomers arrived in Corby, then a village of 1200 people, “There had perhaps been some resentment among the local inhabitants of being invaded by ‘foreigners’. However, despite the strange language, customs, organisations and other habits, the people had learned to live together. In fact, the ‘foreigners’ had come to dominate the town by sheer force of numbers. Later, when even more foreigners settled in the town with even more stranger tongues and customs, it was colonism. But they have lived together in harmony and it is now a balanced community and thriving town.’ Norman Cameron ventured further, ‘I’m convinced that if Robert Burns was alive today, he would be immensely pleased with the town we live in. Burns was a great believer in all mankind, no matter what colour or creed.’ Whilst George and Norman eulogised on harmony, over in the Shire Horse pub the regulars obviously begged to differ. Steel erector Basil Board was appearing in court, charged with an affray on Christmas Eve, after refusing to ‘drink up’ as ordered by the landlord Ken Noble. Deep into closing time, Basil and his three pals had been supping contentedly until Ken asked them to leave. Barman Andy McConnell arrived as back up for Ken, “and Basil leapt out of his seat and head butted the landlord in the face”, knocking Andy out of the way and the rest of them over in the process. A scuffle ensued with all six of them scrapping on the floor, resulting with Mr. Noble requiring four stitches above a cut eye. In court, Basil pleaded self defence and had ‘accidentally head butted Ken during the scuffle’. He was fined £10 for assaulting Mr. Noble and £10 for assaulting Mr. McConnell with another £10 towards the costs of the hearing. According to a Mr.C .J. Lauder, giving a toast at the Stewarts and Lloyds Bowls Section Annual Burns Supper, Basil’s misunderstanding of ‘harmony’ was only in line with his own interpretation. “Many of us have given up the ruggedness and the grandeur of the Highlands to settle down here in the lowlands and the smoothness of the Midlands. We do appreciate it.” Whilst these pearls were digested, Lauder then brought the house down by adding, “Back home though, squabbles are often sorted out by throwing bottles at each other. In England they seem to do it by chucking cushions at each other!”.