“It’s good to get away”, or at least that is what all the travel agents tell us.
Personally, my wife Lilian and I try to get some sort of break about once a month on average, now that we are enjoying semi-retirement. Sometimes it might be a long-weekend in the UK or a short city-break in Europe. Occasionally, maybe once a year, a 2 or 3-week holiday or adventure much further afield.
Last weekend we took a 3-night break to Krakow (pronounced Krakoff), in Poland. The main reason was to visit Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration and extermination camps, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II.
Lilian and I didn’t particularly want to go but our daughter Julie had visited them in 2014 and afterwards she suggested that we should visit them also. We empathised with Julie’s opinion and hence this visit, which was very, very interesting, informative and disturbing but very worthwhile.
However, our destination is not the theme of this blog.
We set off on the evening the local schools broke up for the summer holidays – I don’t know “why?” because I cannot remember my logic, or if there were certain constraints when I booked the trip 4 months previously. We did expect the airport to be busy, we just had not realised how busy it would be. It was extremely crowded and whilst we were standing in a queue with about 100 people in front of us waiting to check-in, I took time out to reflect, as there was little else I could do.
Actually, it was really great to see so many happy families and other groups of people eagerly waiting to get away on a well-earned holiday that will have cost them quite a lot of money. In spite of the media constantly brainwashing us into thinking that everything is doom and gloom, this is reality; the real world. Millions of Brits going on their holidays over the summer months, with our local NEWCASTLE Regional Airport alone expecting to handle 1 million holiday makers between July 20th and September 9th.
We all know that life and work are hard for the vast majority of us and we just get on with it. When we can, we put a bit of money aside to have a nice holiday once or maybe twice a year, to compensate and recharge our batteries and for parents, those of their kids also.
For the vast majority of the public it’s great, it works and there are few problems, considering what could go wrong if you were unlucky.
As far as the national media circus are concerned though, they tend not to be interested in the millions of happy holiday makers, just the few hundred that were unfortunate enough to suffer some problems. Included will also be their overriding tendency to add a spot or two of doom and gloom just for good measure.
I have to say that local media; radio, tv and press do tend to take a completely different attitude. Maybe it’s because they are usually part of the local community they serve and much more involved in what is really happening. I think they present many more happy items of news and leave their much bigger peers to make up all the bad news, or most of it.
Does anyone agree with me? Does anyone disagree?
JHL MBE SSL Co. Chairman
