TAKE A TOUR BACK IN TIME

Veteran caravanner Andrew Jenkinson is a keen historian of the world of touring. and here, we feature excerpts from his latest book, Caravanning in the 1970s

- Andrew Jenkinson

Caravanning fever grips the nation

The 1970s could really be classed as beginning at the tail end of 1969, with the then major caravan show in London, at the famous Earl’s Court.

This was the show that displayed what was on offer for the following year, 1970 – the true start of caravanning in the 1970s. Crowds gathered (120,000) to get into the Earl’s Court International Caravan & Camping Exhibition.

Salesmen in those heady days at Earl’s Court often had folk lined up for a new caravan.

They would swap over with a colleague to have a break and carry on signing up, such was the demand to buy.

Scotland had its own version of this with Kelvin Hall, in Glasgow, while Birmingham had Bingley Hall, but by 1976 this was at the new NEC. The Birmingham show was held at the start of the year and Glasgow’s Scottish show was held once every two years – the 1970 show had an attendance of 79,555. For years, both shows would be dealer supported, with caravan manufacturers not being present.

The growing sector of sites in this early part of the decade was the role of the Caravan Club (the Caravan and Motorhome Club, as they are known today), who were to open new sites with their members in mind.

In 1970, around 80,000 members belonged to the club, but by 1972 this had swollen to 100,000.

The club published a site directory each year, which included some non-Caravan Club sites that were approved by the club. There was also the Certificated Location site (CL), which in 1971 had over 2000 listed. These sites usually had a limit of five touring caravans for stays lasting no longer than 28 days.